better n bens

[brokeburner]

the stove is a single door stove no gasket nore is there supposed to be one baffle in the back it just wants to runaway you have to turn inlet almost off anytime you have any kind of wood in there unless its just a piece or two i put a load in last night on top of a nice bed of coals shut air down to about a quarter looked a half hour later and it was rockin at about 750 turned air all the way off and damper down half for the rest of the night wood was burnt up by morning still at about 400 this thing just wants to rock out all the time scares the heck out of me any advice or suggestions would be appreciated

 

[edthedawg]

suggestions:

1 - Punctuate.

2 - Give some info about the rest of the install.

3 - Post photographs.

 

[Dune]

Yeah, it is better than Ben Franklins 240 year old improved fireplace design, but that is all that can be said for it. Buy an airtight stove. Meanwhile, you can close the chimney damper much more than halfway once you figure it out.

 

[meathead]

There was one in my house when I bought it and my grandfather had one when I was a little kid that I remember fondly. Let's put it this way - It scared me enough that I took it out and put it in my garage but intrigued me enough that I couldn't bear to bring it to the dump. I remember my grandfather's glowing red on more occasions than it should have, and my grandfather ran a waterford stove in another room like it was a fine tuned automobile - so it's at least not all operator error that causes overly high temps in the better n' ben's stoves.

Unfortunately, I think the bottom line with them may well be that you are basically dealing with a not so tightly sealed steel box of fire. If you don't have it in an overly safe setting (at least 36" to combustables) I wouldn't sleep well at night with it loaded. Only "advice" I can give is set it so you have maximum room to combustables and then go out and get some sheet copper or the like and bend it neatly around combustables with an air gap between the metal and the combustable (homemade heat deflector - anything behind the copper will be cool to the touch if you do it right and if you take your time you can bend and hammer your way to at least aesthetic neutrality. But like I said, mine is sitting in the garage...


edit: note - the homemade heat deflector I'm mentioning is for added sense of security once you already have 36" to combustables to begin with. It isn't to take the place of proper distance to combustables.

 

[brokeburner]

Im gonna buy an new stove soon as get some cash
flow comin in its kind of a survival thing at the moment

 

[karri0n]

I'll post a link in a minute to a great article on burning old stoves. They aren't as unsafe as people will have you believe, but they take a lot more work to operate safely.


http://www.motherearthnews.com/Mode...ow-to-Use-Wood-Stove-and-Use-Them-Safely.aspx

 

[webbie]

It may be possible to burn older stoves safely, but the bigger problem is often the installation. Older Better n' Bens inserts were simply bolted to the front of the fireplace with the smoke coming out into the large opening.

This can cause a lot of problems.

Here are the basics on insert installation:
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/install_insert

 

[brokeburner]

yeah its just bolted to the cover plate but i have stove pipe setup not just dumpen smoke into the fireplace i get areally good draft. Man that was a really good article on mother earth really appreciate it