Can't seem to get a hot fire

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Yea I get great flames and a really nice bed of coals. The stove has the air tubes at the top for the secondary burn which does really good also. I don't know if that could be messing with the thermometer. My wife is just worrying the crap out of me about creosote build up and a chimney fire
If you're getting good secondary combustion from the tubes ( and not just log flame running on the box ceiling) it's not likely your wood. Don't confuse those two.
 
Maybe everything is going great. I don't know I'm just winging it and thankful that I don't have those $300-400 power bills right now. I normally have very little smoke. I just remember my grand dads old stove, smoking like a train and would run you out of the house. Thanks

Chances are your granddads stove was a lot bigger than yours and not an insert like yours. It probably didn't burn for 8 to 10 or 12 hours between loads and still putting off heat either. I think you are burning ok, that is just my opinion. If you want be certain everything is good you need to have your chimney swept and look for creasote.


Your other problem about the rest of your house only being somewhat warm is a normal problem associated with stove heating. Woodstoves/inserts are great but technically they are space heaters not whole house heaters. I also heat my colonial with an insert and the only way I can really get the upstairs warm is to use a small fan blowing the cold air down stairs. There are countless threads on this and it has been beaten to death a fan on the floor blowing cold air back to the stove room will make a huge difference. I have a small Honeywell fan on the floor at the landing on top of my stairs blowing the air down. With the fan on the stove room is 10 degrees cools and the heat pouring up the stairwell is exponentially greater than with out the fan.
 
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Had any snow down there in Georgia lately?

Ha yea we got a little and it caused the state to shut down! We even made it on Saturday night live! You should look up the SNL clip it was pretty good/embarrassing. They are calling for ice this week so who knows what will happen this go round
 
I think most likely that you aren't getting accurate temps from a thermometer on your triple wall pipe. Can you tell us some more about the triple wall pipe? Was this insert installed into a prefab fireplace? Did they run a liner through the chimney?

Also, can you put the thermometer on the single wall adapter? If so, what kind of temps do you get? I have a small insert, and I don't worry too much about temps. I look for good secondary action, nice lazy flames when the air is shut down, and no smoke out the chimney except for startup.
 
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Ha yea we got a little and it caused the state to shut down! We even made it on Saturday night live! You should look up the SNL clip it was pretty good/embarrassing. They are calling for ice this week so who knows what will happen this go round
I was being sarcastic of course, your couple inches of snow was on all of the news nationwide! I made it down there a few years ago to be on a Nancy Grace show.
 
I'll chime in here: If you're getting little to no smoke out of the chimney, good secondaries (the flames on top of the fire box), your house is warm, and you're not using the regular heating system, it sounds to me like the unit is burning really well and doing what it should. I really doubt you can heat your house with 200* stove top, so I think your readings are inaccurate and things are going well for you.
 
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Make sure your check that flue a couple times a month the first season burning. 8" pipe on a stove made for 6" may possibly have less draft than it was intended to have.
 
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