So I have had the Isle Royale for quite a few years (6 or so). Use it quite a bit, other than one year where I was a beta tester for the Ideal Steel stove (miss that beast). That year it was moved to the sun room about 10 feet away, repainted in the spring, and moved back to place. Since then I have had some struggles with it. It seemed harder to keep the burn clean and would smoke more from the chimney. To combat this, I have kept the primary air slide open a little more (slid to the left about 1" more than before). Last year I tried to help it and put in a new fiber board in the baffle as the old one was cracked quite a bit. Since that didn't help, I thought it might be a draft change because I had sealed up a older sliding glass door, but opening a window near by did not seem to change the situation. I also tried sealing up (air tight) the clean-out in the basement to increase the draft at the stove. Trying to think of what else I have tried....anyway. So I was working from home this morning, so the fire was up and running around 7 as usual, then I was wrapping up at home and headed to the office so I tossed a few logs in, opened up both airs and let it get nice and hot again, then shut the startup, waited a bit, as usual and started closing down the primary to it's new location. Did a few things before leaving the house and as I wondered by the stove, I noticed that there really wasn't much in the way of secondaries, so just for fun I put the primary way down (stove is nice and hot, 600ish, and has been hot for many hours) just so I could see those secondaries I used to enjoy...well...there weren't any and it looked like smoke was passing right on up passed the baffles not igniting....sure enough a quick look at the chimney proved that.
This got me thinking, it all my attempts to problem solve this...the poor performance is because the secondary burn is not happening (there is a little flame/air from the tubes, but not much, I used to light up the entire top of the stove if I wanted to). So why wouldn't the secondaries happen. Well, it has to be not enough air, duh. So what changed....and more importantly, how do I fix it.
My current thought is that something is blocking the air to the manifolds some where. So these manifolds get their air from both sides where this tilting manifold connects to the stove and pivots (just an open pipe/tube that it rotates on). Now this is where I am stuck, where does this air come from? Anyone out there who knows this stove better than me, where should I be looking for some sort of blockage? Also, not knowing the air route for the manifold air, could something have been bent while moving it that could be restricting the flow (a dolly with a fork was used so lots of pressure on the bottom ashpan area)? I have looked around the stove from the outside and not noticed anything bent. Can ash or something else get into the air path for the secondary tubes / manifold?
FYI, I don't think it is a draft issue as the primary and secondary air controls get plenty of air.
This got me thinking, it all my attempts to problem solve this...the poor performance is because the secondary burn is not happening (there is a little flame/air from the tubes, but not much, I used to light up the entire top of the stove if I wanted to). So why wouldn't the secondaries happen. Well, it has to be not enough air, duh. So what changed....and more importantly, how do I fix it.
My current thought is that something is blocking the air to the manifolds some where. So these manifolds get their air from both sides where this tilting manifold connects to the stove and pivots (just an open pipe/tube that it rotates on). Now this is where I am stuck, where does this air come from? Anyone out there who knows this stove better than me, where should I be looking for some sort of blockage? Also, not knowing the air route for the manifold air, could something have been bent while moving it that could be restricting the flow (a dolly with a fork was used so lots of pressure on the bottom ashpan area)? I have looked around the stove from the outside and not noticed anything bent. Can ash or something else get into the air path for the secondary tubes / manifold?
FYI, I don't think it is a draft issue as the primary and secondary air controls get plenty of air.
