Lopi Republic 1750 Installed! Lots of pictures!

[joefrompa]

Hi all,

Took a half day yesterday so I could be home while Ed Goodman Chimney Services installed my insert. First, I'd like to say that Ed and Shawn of Southeast PA were incredibly friendly, efficient, and seem to have done a great job all around. From the time I got home till the time they were gone was less than 2 hours, and the only problem they experienced was that my firebox was so unlevel and the point to level of the Lopi stove is the under-stove casters...hard to do, I imagine. Would've been 90 minutes if not for how unlevel the firebox was I have NOT gotten a bill yet, so we'll see what that says.

They got to my house before me and gave me time at work so as not to rush me. Before I arrived, they got out the insulated liner,chimney cap, dollied the stove to the back slider window, and laid out all their parts.

Here's the stove on the dolly. What really impressed me is that this is a visually smallish stove, but the firebox is quite deep. I took pictures of measurements of the firebox, which will come. For now, here's the outside. Very fine exterior appearances.

The liner:

The Chimney cap seems to be simple but of good quality:

Now a picture of the inside of the stove as delivered:

The weld in the back here looks slightly sloppier than I'd love to see, but otherwise the interior is beautiful, simple, and well done.

Next up, install photos

Joe

 

[joefrompa]

Here's the room this stove is going into. The wall above the fireplace had an awful wallpaper on it that was damn near impossible to remove. The was is 11'5" wide and 45" high....so I just slapped a 1/2" sheet of drywall over the entire thing. It's getting some nice crown modeling trim installed by a 2nd-year carpentry student from a local trade school tonight, and then I'll paint it up nice:

Pulling the liner down:

Positioning the stove:

With surround installed, leveling. I had to get Lopi's larger surround trim to cover the opening, however it does make the stove look a bit smaller. Such is life:

Fully installed with mantel shield. Because there was NO bricks directly behind the top of the trim, the installer put two screws through the mantel shield into the surround trim to keep it in place...otherwise, there's nothing to hold the shield firm. I don't mind. Also, that's a new $14 (shipped) Rutland Thermometer. In the Amazon picture, it had alot of red in it which I didn't like. When it arrived, it's a very nice subdued black finish with gold lettering

 

[joefrompa]

Here's the inside of the fireplace measured straight from the back. I can safely fit an 18" straight back with about 1-2" left before it hits the glass - however, the glass would get dirty from offgassing. Still very nice depth for a 2.2 cubic foot box.

Here's a measure of the firebox diagonally from one back corner to the opposite side door opening. 25" to the glass....so now I know I can very comfortably fit 20" and maybe even 22" lengths in this puppy. I was VERY happy with how this worked out for me

 

[joefrompa]

Final notes: I wonder how much this goign to cost. The liner run is about 12-16' (they might've used 16' and cut it to around 12-13' with the cap). The cap is simple. The install was about 2.5 hours including their setup time before I got there. 2 guys * 2.5 hours= $375 max in my opinion + maybe $600 (marked up) in parts? I really don't see how they could justify above $1000-1100.

The Lopi door, ironically since it's the "lesser quality" Lopi Door on their economy line, broke during shipment. No big deal. They already have a new one at the hearth shop which I'm picking up in 30 minutes. If I had gone with the Lopi Revere and paid the extra for their original over-engineered-to-death door, I'm sure it would've survived a nuclear blast. hehehe.

There were alot of nice little things too - Included was a super-cedar style fire start-up. A note who said who built the stove. A bottle of stove bright spray paint. Nice instructions. And the build quality appears just phenomenal overall - the damper and intake controls are smooth as buttah.

Last note: GasWorks in Frazer, PA sells Lopi, Quadrafire, and some other good stuff. They gave me an awesome deal, hooked me up with an apparently great installer, etc.

Love to hear comments!

Joe

 

[Pagey]

I love looking at the clean firebox of a new stove! Same firebox as my Endeavor. You'll really enjoy that insert this winter. Great looking install!

 

[btuser]

This may have been an easy install for these guys. Believe me, there are days when a plan doesn't come together.

 

[joefrompa]

Thanks guys. Door is now installed and first small fire just started up. I tried the top down method (with a good amount of newspaper) and it's caught nicely! Damper and intake are wide open but the flames have a "gentle, slow, licking nature" as if they are content with air flow but not roaring either. Very nice!

So far, no real smell, so obviously it's not getting hot just yet

 

[oldspark]

Nice looking install, that is an impressive firebox for a small stove.

 

[joefrompa]

Hey, who you calling small? I'm medium!

I just compared it to the Lopi Freedom (2.9 cubic feet, when I was at the hearth store) and I can't tell a real difference in firebox size.

Been firing for about 15 minutes now and temp is reading ~100-120 degrees on the rutland stove top. Added 2 more thin splits.

The paperwork with the Lopi says to aim for 400 degrees for 45 minutes during the first burn, and the second burn should be a "real hot" fire reaching 600 degrees.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Joe, that looks great and you are really going to love that thing this winter. Congratulations.

 

[begreen]

That is a fine looking stove joe. I like the stout quality throughout, even the top rails holding the bricks looks overengineered. That stove should last a lifetime. Congratulations. Gonna be warm in there soon.

 

[davidmc]

Joe, that is a great looking stove. I bet it will put out some serious heat.

 

[tickbitty]

Looks great! Welcome to the club, those are nice pics, would love to see some with the door on! I'm jealous of your raised hearth and especially of that alcove thingy that you can fill with wood! That's awesome!

Oh yeah - a tip, don't use that tool to open and close the bypass damper, it will slip and scratch the top, use your welding gloves instead!

 

[joefrompa]

Thanks guys. I have a lot to learn. I can start a fire no problem, but I've read TOO much on this forum about over-firing and such. What I'm learning is that over-firing is a unique situation that takes either ALOT of wood and air, wood WAY drier than your used too, or a runaway situation where you didn't realize how HOT the existing coals were. Or some combination therein.

When I got a good SMALL fire going today, my stovetop after 20 minutes was reading only 150 and the fire was quite healthy. Based upon some of the stuff I was reading on here, I was expecting it to jump to 300-400 without any problems. The firebox was about 1/3rd full.

I'm supposed to get the next fire up to like 550-600 to fully cure the stove, so I'm expecting that to take a whole lotta wood

If I can ask for some expertise though, here's what I'm PLANNING on doing:

1. 2 larger splits topped with lighter stuff topped with true kindling topped with newspaper
2. Light newspaper, leave door opened a crack for 5 minutes to encourage it to fire up
3. Shut door after 5 minutes but leave bypass damper and intake fully open for 10 minutes
4. If the fire is roaring now (15 minutes since light up), close damper and intake to half way.
5. Wait an additional 15 minutes and check it out. If it's still going strong, close intake and damper to 25% open.
6. 15-30 minutes later if things are going well and stove is up around 400+ degrees (according to stove top temp), close damper and intake all the way.

That should give me the best, longest, hottest, most complete burn, right?

Joe

Joe

 

[tickbitty]

Last year when I got my stove Pagey sent me some really good emails about fires in this stove (he has the endeavor which is basically the freestanding version of this stove) and they were quite helpful, we were reviewing one of those again last night, in fact. If you send me a PM with your email address perhaps I can forward them to you, if it's OK with Pagey - or, maybe you could PM him and he could send you the same!

Your plan sounds good though. It's not rocket science, that should work great. We haven't overfired yet... but I have had it get away from me by leaving the air open too far with a stove full of good wood, it got up to maybe 750 once but did not appear to have overfired or have anything wrong with it.

 

[Todd]

Looks great. Lopi makes a fine stove.

 

[Pagey]

Last year when I got my stove Pagey sent me some really good emails about fires in this stove (he has the endeavor which is basically the freestanding version of this stove) and they were quite helpful, we were reviewing one of those again last night, in fact. If you send me a PM with your email address perhaps I can forward them to you, if it's OK with Pagey - or, maybe you could PM him and he could send you the same!

Your plan sounds good though. It's not rocket science, that should work great. We haven't overfired yet... but I have had it get away from me by leaving the air open too far with a stove full of good wood, it got up to maybe 750 once but did not appear to have overfired or have anything wrong with it.

Send away!

 

[Treacherous]

Looks good. You will be quite pleased with heat output.

 

[madrone]

Looks great. You'll be enjoying it for years.

 

[argus66]

ya man loks good any new pics of completely done and burning.

 

[joefrompa]

Not yet - got up to 75 today so I only had one break-in burn (that hit secondary combustion....unbelievably beautiful!). According to the stove top rutland thermometer, it only hit about 325, but it definitely burned off some oils and cured some paint!

 

[petersanz]

Nice looking setup!

I'm considering either the Lopi Republic or Revere but not sure if the extended cooktop will work with my situation. Can you tell me how far out your stove extends from the face of the fireplace?

Thanks and happy heating!

Peter

 

[joefrompa]

About 7" - its enough for a 6" skillet, not enough for significant cooking. Also, you could do a 1.5 quart dutch oven on it too (which I've considered for humidifying).

Here's some pictures from an hour ago:

So far, this stove is not going above 300 degrees and is sustaining only short bursts of secondary burning. I'd like to get it up to 450 or so - I can get it roaring, it just doesn't seem to want to rise that much. Could be greenish wood I guess, but it's firing fine.

 

[madrone]

The dirty glass suggests slightly under-seasoned wood.

 

[tickbitty]

The stove top sticks out 10" by the diagram, and it overhangs another inch or so. The effective cooktop surface is plenty big, I can fit my biggest griswold dutch oven on top. I used a more medium sized stainless pot on a trivet for humidifying sometimes. It worked well.