Couple of questions

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maplegirl

New Member
Sep 7, 2007
27
South Shore, MA
I have three questions for all you burners out there....

1. Although my wood stove is 18" from the wall (the clearance that was listed in the VC manual for out Resolute Acclaim), the wall gets quite hot to the touch when I have a good fire going. Should I be concerned? There is also an electrical outlet on that wall. Does this matter?

2. How do you cool off a wood stove in a hurry? Because the wall is hot we would like to tone the fire down or put it out completely. Our magnetic chimney thermometer was reading at about 450-500F. We had the damper closed to try out the high efficiency burn.

3. Is it important to have a tight seal between the stove and the stove pipe? The piece of stove pipe that is leading directly into the top of the stove itself is screwed in but there is no real seal (I can see the fire in the stove by looking where the pipe meets the stove). Should I fix this and if so how?

That's all for now. Thank you all for your advise and continued support. I've learned so much from this board and enjoy checking it several times a day. Have a nice evening.
 
maplegirl said:
I have three questions for all you burners out there....

1. Although my wood stove is 18" from the wall (the clearance that was listed in the VC manual for out Resolute Acclaim), the wall gets quite hot to the touch when I have a good fire going. Should I be concerned? There is also an electrical outlet on that wall. Does this matter?
Depends just how hot the wall is getting. Can you hold your hand to it for at least a few seconds?
The electrical outlet could be a concern, where is it located in regards to the stove?


2. How do you cool off a wood stove in a hurry? Because the wall is hot we would like to tone the fire down or put it out completely. Our magnetic chimney thermometer was reading at about 450-500F. We had the damper closed to try out the high efficiency burn.
Close off all the air, if it has outside air intake, make some sort of blocker for the outside air that you can plug with or close off.
Kill the air & close the damper. I don't know that stove that well, someone else will chime in.

3. Is it important to have a tight seal between the stove and the stove pipe? The piece of stove pipe that is leading directly into the top of the stove itself is screwed in but there is no real seal (I can see the fire in the stove by looking where the pipe meets the stove). Should I fix this and if so how?

Get yourself some furnace cement and seal the pipe to the stove outlet. If you can, lift the pipe, apply furnace cement and set stove pipe back into it.
Others might say your fine, I myself don't want to see fire through anywhere but the front glass.


That's all for now. Thank you all for your advise and continued support. I've learned so much from this board and enjoy checking it several times a day. Have a nice evening.
 
Ill take em in reverse order

#3 I aggree with hog You should not be able to see fire through the stove top conection, In the possibility of an over fire there could be flames comeing out of there, not to mention that the rest of the time your leaking exhaust fumes into the room. My stove needed a stove top adapter to connect with the stove pipe, check with your stove pipe manuf or your stove manuf.

#2The best you can do is shut off all air to the stove with whatever controls you have. If it goes beound that you have an air leak.

#1 You need some way of checking the temp of the wall, a kitcken or bbq thermo with a probe would work. I beleive the accepted temp is 170 + the ambiant of the room. but like hog said if you cant hold your hand on it for more than a few seconds it may be too hot. Wait for others to chime in on what that temp should be
 
I got the fan for my Lopi Leyden (it sucks air from under the stove and up the back, through the heat deflector and shoots it right over the top of the stove), and I have to say the wall does not get hot at all, where as the two stoves I had before heated the wall to scary temperatures. I think the new VC's have the fan option, but I'll let the others confirm that
 
I maybe off on that temp ...it maybe 170 total wait till you hear from others on that.
 
On the wall temp, I called Hearthstone and was told 117 deg. plus ambient temperature, 117+ 75=192 deg. On the stove pipe connector, thats a pretty good , leak and it will suck air into the exhaust stream lowering flue temp resulting in creosote build up. What I came up with to shut our stove down in a hurry was close the air control, close flue damper and shove a wad of tin foil in the secondary air inlet.
 
There are connector pipe stops only 1" deep common crimping is 1.5" deep on pipes so there is 1/2" showing of crimping the easy thing to do
is to seal the collar connections with gasket cement the correct way is to cut 1/2" of the crimped end so that the rib above the crimping sits on
the collar and also run a bead of refractory cement on the pipe before inserting it. The spacing you see is an air leak and could also be an exhaust
leak either way not what you want. The air leak makes the stove harder to bring it under control.

rear heat if it seems too hot then what about the optional rear heat shield.. These distances are minimums it never hurts to exceed them .


Cooling the stove down: close the air inlet and close the damper and ride it out .Really that is all you can do, short of pouring sand in it smothering the fire

500 degrees at the pipe is like 700 to 750 griddle top put the thermometer dead center of the griddle top and keep it under 650.

500 pipe temp is over firing that stove no wonder the wall is getting hot. The manual even suggest the thermo location
 
#3 question is the biggest concern - no you shouldn't be able to look into the stove and see any flames or light at all from there. Hogz has it right - get it sealed up with furnace cement, and make sure it is sealed off tight from there, though I would be a little concerned why there would be any gaps there in the first place - everything should be pretty tight fitting.

#2 - I guess if its getting out of control, and you are really concerned - close down any dampers you have on it, and keep a safe distance - no fire can be just shut off completely like a flick of a switch

#1 question - how hot are the walls around it? Too hot to be able to keep your hand on the wall? - that is certainly a concern - that doesn't seem right if you have the clearance and seeing 500 or so degrees at the pipe.
 
I believe the UL standard when testing is that the wall surface shouldn't exceed 90* over ambient. Figuring ambient at 70*, that means about 160*F. This value is very conservative, so I wouldn't panic if you hit something like 170*, but it's a reasonable point... I would look at attaching a thermometer that can register that range to the wall temporarily and see what it does in different areas.

Elk's comments on the possibility of your over-firing the stove may be a major factor, I'd start by fixing the pipe connection and monitoring the stove better, then seeing what the wall is like when the stove is operated per the manual instructions.

If you find that the wall is still hotter than you feel comfortable with, I'd suggest looking into either a rear heat shield on the stove and / or pipes, and / or putting up an NFPA clearance reduction wall of spaced non-combustibles.

Gooserider
 
Another option would be to build yousrelf your own heat shield. use a piece of cement board with tile on it, or I've seen copper (expensive) sheets that were used. The copper will also reflect the heat some. A small space behind the shield will keep the wall from getting too hot.
 
U did this install yourself. I think you should have someone QUALIFIED take a look at it (not me BTW). You're in Holbrook, MA and there are plenty of sweeps and even a few experienced folks from this board nearby.
 
My Morso stove came with rope to seal the stove pipe to the top of the stove.

Also, are you using single or double walled stove pipe. If you are using double without an adaptor that could result in other issues also.

Good luck with everything.
 
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