On Monday (today is Thursday) I purchased an older Lopi insert (similar in size at least to a revere) and today thanks to all the guidance found on this site, I woke up, fired up confidently and have had rolling, dancing fire going now for almost two hours. The last two days I have been off work and staring and constantly fiddling with this insert to figure all this out. I feel like in two days I have learned what would take two months or more on my own, and with the last two days being the coldest of the year (-7F to 10F) it was very timely with my old drafty house. Considering that I had no idea what a secondary burn or bypass damper was when I bought this thing, I think it has gone well.
Anyhow, this time I lit a nice kindling fire between two split logs, then slowly added for 10 min, I then gave the fire about 15 minutes with the door slightly ajar, then closed the door, then after another 15 min I closed the bypass, then after about 20-30 minutes I heard the fan kick on and I walked over and shut the airflow down to almost closed, and it has been cranking along nicely since. I am burning dry douglas fir and western larch that I collected in summer 2009. I think I will need to re-split my wood pile since 5-6 smaller pieces seems to do much better than 2 or 3 larger ones. The insert itself was found on craigslist and is probably from the 80's, but I don't know the model or manufacture date, for size it is similar to the revere I guess. If anyone recognizes it let me know. Either way, it was huge upgrade from the old "smoke dragon" I was running that came with the house, and I look forward to getting this all figured out over the long winter ahead.
At this point, I still need to figure out the best setting for night to prevent smoldering and glass door fouling, and I need to work on my reload process, and I think I need a kettle for the cooktop. I was able to get a solid 6 hour burn twice yesterday, which was good, but I think I can do better.
Again, thanks for all the help. Here is a bad picture.
Anyhow, this time I lit a nice kindling fire between two split logs, then slowly added for 10 min, I then gave the fire about 15 minutes with the door slightly ajar, then closed the door, then after another 15 min I closed the bypass, then after about 20-30 minutes I heard the fan kick on and I walked over and shut the airflow down to almost closed, and it has been cranking along nicely since. I am burning dry douglas fir and western larch that I collected in summer 2009. I think I will need to re-split my wood pile since 5-6 smaller pieces seems to do much better than 2 or 3 larger ones. The insert itself was found on craigslist and is probably from the 80's, but I don't know the model or manufacture date, for size it is similar to the revere I guess. If anyone recognizes it let me know. Either way, it was huge upgrade from the old "smoke dragon" I was running that came with the house, and I look forward to getting this all figured out over the long winter ahead.
At this point, I still need to figure out the best setting for night to prevent smoldering and glass door fouling, and I need to work on my reload process, and I think I need a kettle for the cooktop. I was able to get a solid 6 hour burn twice yesterday, which was good, but I think I can do better.
Again, thanks for all the help. Here is a bad picture.
