Englander Damper Stuck

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mlasko

Member
Sep 24, 2008
81
Western PA
Not sure what the problem is but it will push in completely but is near impossible to pull out now....Is is just expanded with the heat or what?....anybody know a fix?
 
My air control gets a bit sticky every now and then. Usually if I put pressure towards the left when I pull it slides easily. Try that a bit. I think they had an issue with slag from the welding getting into places it shouldn't be. How old is the stove? Hopefully one of the Englander crew will be on soon.
 
The thing should slide freely no matter what the temp. That is one of my worst fears with these stoves with the damper and rod inside the welded housing.
 
BB,
I take it you don't have any problems with yours?
ML
 
I've heard the 30 is comparable to my Lopi Liberty but I do not know to what extent. There was a post on here about sticky dampers on Liberty's and the fix was to take it apart every year and coat it with graphite. Well I scored a used Liberty and the only thing wrong with it was the sticky damper. Being an older and more efficient fella, I opted against the idea of taking it apart every year and tried spraying some liquid wrench in it. I had the long skinny straw they give you for tight places and blew it out the best I could. I could look in with a flashlight and saw grit on the side slides so that's where I concentrated the spray. It wasn't so much to lubricate it but to also blow the accumulated dust and stuff out. The stove's been running fairly regularly for the last month and a half and the slide is working great.
If we have different damper set-ups... please disregard.
 
Woodsmoke said:
BB,
I take it you don't have any problems with yours?
ML

Nope.
 
The only access to the other end of the damper is that you can see it through the air inlet hole in the back of the stove. I only know that because I looked in there two years ago when I had the stove on its side moving it into the house.

And I wouldn't want to be shooting petroleum based anything into a closed portion of the stove and then firing it back up again. :ahhh: Graphite maybe.

Don't mess with it much until you talk to ESW. Dat be a warranty issue. In fact that has me wondering just how long the warranty is on that particular issue. The damper is plate steel and it is welded and the warranty for the plate steel and the welds is five years. :question:
 
cmonSTART said:
Have we seen Mike or Corey lately? Those guys are probably busier than a one armed paper hanger right now.

Wouldn't a 12 armed paper hanger be busier? I always wondered that.
 
cmonSTART said:
Have we seen Mike or Corey lately? Those guys are probably busier than a one armed paper hanger right now.

Yeah it appears they are snowed under. Mike said they have moved 55,000 stoves out the door so far this year. :gulp:
 
cmonSTART said:
Ever try to hang a paper on the wall with just one arm? Gotta move pretty quick!

No, I'd have to say you got me there.

But I do have a cousin with 12 arms who happens to be a paper hanger and man does he get busy.
 
kenny chaos said:
Time to upgrade?

Any stove other than a 30-NC is a downgrade. :coolgrin:
 
BrotherBart said:
kenny chaos said:
Time to upgrade?

Any stove other than a 30-NC is a downgrade. :coolgrin:

Heh,heh, I have the enviro kodiak, and have never heard of such a silly problem. And I will consider my "bear" an upgrade to an Englander any day of the week. It seems to me that even BB was looking at the bear at one time, but determined that the dealer was an "evil tyrant".

That`s probably putting it too mildly, but BB is such a gentleman, that he would never use crude and rude to slam even an evil dealer :lol:
 
sonnyinbc said:
Heh,heh, I have the enviro kodiak, and have never heard of such a silly problem. And I will consider my "bear" an upgrade to an Englander any day of the week. It seems to me that even BB was looking at the bear at one time, but determined that the dealer was an "evil tyrant".

That`s probably putting it too mildly, but BB is such a gentleman, that he would never use crude and rude to slam even an evil dealer :lol:

That was before I discovered that the 30-NC existed. I thank my lucky stars that that dealer was a jerk. And that it took three months for Enviro to respond to my email. Their dealer told me he had never heard of them. :lol: He wanted to sell me a Buck stove instead.
 
How does your pipe look? Is there creosote in it? With a new stove and the warmer weather we have been having I'd bet there is some creosote built up.

Matt
 
I don't think the connecting rod is the reason for the stiff operation...it's what the rod is moving in the back of the stove.

My cob job fix wound be to drill a small hole in the back or side of the stove I could spay some compressed air and blow out the grit that is fouling the smooth operation of the air vent/louver the connecting rod is attached to. Then fill the hole back in with either a self tapping screw or furnace cement.
 
I have the same problem with my insert , an Enviro Kodiak 1200. On its third use the "air controller slide" seized up when the fire was well established, once the fire was out the slide worked fine ?

One other thing was the door gasket, after following the instructions to the letter the ends of the gasket still stuck to the insert body, upon closer inspection I found that the ends of the gasket had been taped together with what looked like duct tape !!. Now the gasket has started to fray at the ends.

An e-mail to Enviro explaining my problems brought the following response , "No the slider should not stick and NO the gasket should not have any tape on the ends." .............no further explanation , no suggestions as to how to resolve the problems ?.

My insert is brand new and was installed three weeks ago. So do I have a pig in a poke ?. should I consult my "legal team" all suggestions gratefully received!!
 
I too have problems with my damper control after a week of burning for the first time. I found that pushing the rod to the left helps considerably. If anyone knows a fix, I would love to hear!
 
ttt

Not having the problem myself. But very interested in a reply from the guys at Englander.
 
I have an Englander 13 that I bought this fall. The air control pulls out fine but stops when it's pushed in 3/4 of the way. If I jiggle it it will then slide in the rest of the way. I was burning for a week before I realized it was actually supposed to slide in farther than it was. A bit disappointing but I can live with it. Living with it is easier than piddling with warranties and possibly removing/re-installing the stove.

Alan
 
regarding my enviro 1200 , just heard from the distributor and they are going to replace my insert !. Apparently they take the sticking damper pretty seriously, in the event you have a chimney fire you have to be able to close the damper off.......

Bit inconvenient, but kudos to the company for taking such fast action.
 
ttt

Still hoping for a reply frow ESW. Thanks
 
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