Burn tubes warped, fell out of the stove in the bottem of the box!

Good question....don't know the answer.

Well it wasn't really a question castiron, merely a comment about a poorly written manual. The manual leaves a guy like myself with a hundred questions. Just like the driftwood, saltwater thing. They dont' tell you why. They don't tell you that burning salt releases acid (sulfuric acid I believe) into the air. It's the same reason potters stopped using salt glazes 20 years ago. They don't tell you not to burn mill end lumber because it can over-fire your stove, etc. The question of "why" should be answered.

To my logic burning wood that has been soaked in water would be okay 1) If it were not salt water and 2) If it were properly seasoned. Is there any other reason not to burn wood that has been exposed to fresh water?

-Kevin

sounds right to me.

a lot under the weather here. Sorry cast if i snapped. I just got back home from work and im going to bed.

rolled off old cast like water off a duck...LOL....get well!

ok , my 2 cents worth,
when a person purchases an item , particularly a big ticket item, the person doing the buying should want to know about the product that he is spending his money on. particularly if it is somthing he is not familiar with. im sure had the customer asked a few questions he would have gotten answers. sometimes a customer will want to now sometimes they will not(ie "ive been burning wood longer than you've been alive") ive heard it myself) unfortunately there are customers out there you just cant help even if you try. is MSG a bad salesperson , of course not, was the customer at fault , likely so, the thing that would have likely averted this guys problem is education that in all honesty the customer likely did not request or pay attention to, or learn by reading up on it in the manual. its an unfortunate happening but you have to wonder if this customer was in any mindset to even accept any information. there is more to it than the purchase, customer service has to accepted by the customer, and the customer should be open to it.

Some of the stuff I've seen talking about wood to burn or not burn said that part of the problem with lumber is that you dont know just where it came from and whether it was floated in salt water or fresh, or if it was left sitting in a log pond that had a lot of salt in it from other logs that had been in salt water.

In addition, even plain, "non treated" lumber is likely to have been treated with any number of different preservatives intended to keep it from checking or developing other flaws, or saw blade treatments intended to make it easier to cut, etc. This stuff can make the stove trickier to control and / or make nasty corrosive or unhealthy smoke.

Another aspect of stove burning that perhaps we don't appreciate as much is that it has been my impression that the older pre-epa stoves were arguably more tolerant of over firing. I know I remember being in many a place when I was growing up where they had stoves that quite literally were "glowing" - in some cases these were oil drum stoves, in others they were old steel box or franklin style stoves. This was treated as normal and expected operation, the rule being the hotter the better. I could easily see someone coming from that kind of experience being surprised at how one isn't supposed to do that to an EPA stove. After all it's made out of metal, and you aren't going to get steel hot enough to melt with wood....

I agree the person should read the manual, but can sort of understand someone who thinks they know what to do skipping it and getting in trouble.

Gooserider

Really, no checking? Flawless? Easy to cut? Hummm. Keyword here I suppose is "intended". I'm close to the source of much of this nations lumber, and let me tell you the lumber today is junk. Stuff my grandfather wouldn't have even touched, much less build anything with it. It's gotten so bad that I normally calculate 10% of the lumber I purchase for large projects will end up being used for blocks or temporary braces, etc. Roughly 3% will end up being scrapped completely.

The other day in fact I had two ends of 2x6s I was examining, one was rough cut true dimension old growth. The other I had just gotten from HD. The old growth lumber had nearly 3 times as many rings! It made the new 2x6 look like it had been grown with steroids.

I know I'm taking your comment out of context Goose, but I just had to say something about it Sad we can't get good lumber anymore, oh wait there's a big rain forest in Brazil and China is willing to deal!

-Kevin

The additives benefits are relative - they make stuff better as compared to what it would look like without them.

I agree with you Kevin, the quality of lumber these days is disgusting. I know that any time I go to Home Despot or Low's to get stuff, that I will have to examine at least two to three times as many boards as what I actually need in order to find useable stuff. I'm not looking for "perfect" wood either - just stuff that is good enough for the project I'm working on, and where the flaws are in places that I can work around. I have to wonder if HD is in the business of selling lumber or hockey sticks!

One that got to me a bit was the other day at the hardware store, where another customer was shopping for some replacement sledgehammer handles - He even had trouble finding straight wooden tool handles, which are supposedly made from premium wood!

Gooserider

Man I'm glad I found hearth.com!

When we went to buy our insert, we told the salesperson that we want to have a fireplace in order to burn pallets, since we have a constant supply of pallets. The only warning he gave us was that pallet wood will not be as efficient to heat our house as cord wood. (???) Now ask me what would be the reaction to such a statement from a person who knows nothing about fires? "Great, we'll throw even more pallet wood - we have plenty".

I learnt about over-firing from here. I didn't know that wood was supposed to have a moisture of 20%. I didn't even know there exist temperatures to stick on your stove - I learnt that today... and I'm hoping I'd be finding one to buy. And I had never heard of chimney fires before, now I'm having dreams about them!

Obviously I haven't read the manual - they're coming to install next week, and obviously the manual will be coming with the stove.

So now I have a problem of explaining stuff to my husband. And I'm still afraid that we'll be doing something wrong. After all the only fires we've ever lighted were barbeques. We wouldn't have ordered the stove were it not for having free wood to burn (pallets). He told me he'd be tying the thin pieces of the wood together with wire, in order that they have the shape of logs and burn more slowly. I don't know if it makes sense. Also, we will not be filling the stove to the normal capacity but would have it like less than half full.

go on the internet and download your manual read it before the installation to check if it has been installed properly. Better to know before hand that fight with the installers afterwards

I've been searching for the manual over a week... translating websites from spanish using google translate... Shall I give $100 to the first person who manages to find it for me? :cheese:

ok the last part was just kidding...

I'm not a fire place expert, nor do I have a modern stove like what you are buying but I do have advice.

I have burned pallets, many have been outside a long time and have absorbed some moisture. Don't bother wiring, just flat stack flat pieces. Don't put as much wood in the stove as with regular wood. With dry contsruction ends I fire about 1/4 of the fire box capacity at most. This is because I can't get them flat enough to reduce the surface area that burns and it is easy to get the stove very hot. My old unit can take it and doesn't mind frequent trips to 900 F but my FIL damaged his stoves baffles doing the same thing in a newer stove.

I agree with most here that the responsability lies on the buyer/operator; however, I think most prospective buyers REALLY appreciate the dealerthat goes the extra mile to educate the customer. I'm the analytical type who does a lot of homework before a major purchase, so I look for a dealerthat knows the info and is willing to spend the time to answer my questions. (I hate knowing more about a product than the dealer... Not an encouraging feeling) I understand some other people are NOT like that, as they wouldn't pursue the answers or even think of the questions. They might really respond positively to a short handout they can refer to until they get going. My point is that a dealer will sell you something, a good dealer will understand your needs and wants and give you some tools to educate yourself, and an outstanding dealer will sell you exactly what you need and want, but also guage your interest level and educate you to the extent you'll best respond most to. The outstanding dealer will get my business every time, and likely my friend's business, too. I've been shopping around for a hearth-mount stove and no local dealers have let me know about any quickie classes they offer. They may have handouts they give after a sale or install and I haven't seem them yet.

I'm also glad there is a hearth.com to learn from all of you. I don't plan on doing my own install, but I do plan on knowing exactly how it should go, what the materials will be used, and asking lots of questions if anything doesn't make sense to me.

MSG,
You don't happen to have any of those firebox pics still, do you? It would be great to see the worst you've seen.