My installation photos

[Gooserider]

Gooserider, you always give such great advice! Thank you! Rest assured the cisterns are covered, well.

Thanks for the kind words....

Yesterday we went to our supplier to settle payment. I asked him for a magnetic thermometer, and for the manual of the stove. They don't stock magnetic thermometers... I'll try to search maybe I'll buy one online (hey I think there are suppliers on this forum too? Pm me anyone who happens to be reading this).

Condar seems to be the big name over here, and there are lots of folks that would like to find a better (electronic) alternative, but they do work OK. You might do better to find an EU source though, as that would probably get you lower shipping costs, and metric calibration.

He didn't have the manual of the stove either... duh... he asked me what I needed it for and said no one asked for manuals before... (double duh?) Now these guys are really really nice, I got a good stove, quick and good installation, good prices, and well they're very friendly and try to help. At least that's the impression I got, even after the stove was installed and they were paid (and technically could tell me to go to hell). He said he'll check about the manual, and email Bronpi to send him one if they don't have any in the stores. Now I already emailed Bronpi for one but didn't get an answer.

Search the Bronpi website, lots of the US stove makers have their manuals online as PDF's. Definitely you should have gotten the manual, in the US it's part of the installation instructions to give the manual to the purchaser!

I need my manual to get to know a lot of things. One thing I mentioned to him was that the blower has a switch. However when the stove's hot enough the blower starts running whether it's switched on or not. He said it's got a thermostat. But it's not nice discovering things by surprise.

That seems strange unless you have a three position switch for Off, On and Automatic. It is very common for stoves to have a thermostatic switch, and it's a good thing in general, but I would also want a way to make certain that the blower couldn't come on, if only to protect me if I had to work on it.

Other things, am I supposed to load wood north to south or east to west?

That depends highly on the stove and the way it's designed. The general rule that I would use is to look at the shape of the firebox - if it is roughly square, you would need to experiment, and it's pretty much up to you. However if the box is rectangular, you would probably want to load so the logs run parallel to the long dimension.

The damper of the flue is automatic too. There's a thick adjustable pin which is pressed inside when the door is closed and hence the damper closes. When you open the door the pin is released and the damper opens. I can adjust it so that the damper closes more, or less, when the door of the stove is closed.

That definitely sounds like the sort of thing you'd need the manual for in order to determine how to set it. However it also sounds like a neat design feature - you need to maximize the draft when you open the door in order to reduce the chance of backpuffing - this does it automatically for you, which is nice....

I don't even know if my stove does that secondary burn thing I read about. How can I recognise whether it does it or not?

Hard to say for sure, but I'd expect that it would. I would look to see if you get flames that look like they are "floating" in the middle of the firebox rather than coming off the wood. Some stoves have tubes or baffles in the top of the firebox that look sort of like the holes in a gas burner for a kitchen stove or oven. These are used to add secondary air to the fire, and will sometimes look like they have flames coming out of them, again kind of looking like a gas burner. Either type of flame would suggest that you are getting secondary combustion. The presence of those secondary air tubes would suggest that you SHOULD be getting it, and need to look at how you are running the stove if you aren't. (also search for info on the stages of combustion)

By the way, I read that thread on how to clean the glass with damp newspaper and ash. THANK YOU! I had been worrying and nearly gave myself tennis elbow scrubbing with a soft damp cloth and a little soap, and those brown stains wouldn't go! The newspaper/ash thing worked like magic, I wiped the stuff out within 30 seconds!

Glad to hear it's working for you. I've never tried it because the way our old stove is setup the window doesn't actually do anything. :down: It would be nice to have a stove where you could actually watch the flames.

 

[Starter]

Goose, once again a million thanks for the great explanatory post.

I'll be checking for suppliers in my country or in Europe who provide a thermometer. Though I wouldn't mind getting one shipped from the US. I'm familiar with the Fahrenheit scale and for such a small thing shipping shouldn't be much of an issue.

Regards to the manual, I did visit the Bronpi site http://www.bronpi.com/ and searched there first. Didn't find anything. I emailed Bronpi and got no reply. At that point I emailed the Itrisa spanish company http://www.itrisa.com/cassettes/bronpi.htm who appear to be some kind of sub-agents.... and they told me to contact Bronpi... So I decided to wait for the installation hoping that the manual arrived with the insert. But it didn't.

Regards the blower switch, on the face of the insert there are only 2 options, off and on. However it seems that once a good fire is blazing away that switch becomes redundant and the blower is always on. That is provided that it has supply to mains. If I cut out main supply the blower doesn't come on. Wait, now I'm being ridiculous because no fan can work without a mains supply... I just mean that the switch then becomes insignificant and once the insert appears to reach a certain heat the fan blower remains on unless I switch off the main supply.

It was interesting reading how to work the way the logs' position. My current avatar is of yesterday's fire, the box clearly appears to be rectangular, both from the picture in my avatar and from the dimensions as stated in my signature. Hence it follows that the best way to load wood would be east to west for me?

Regards the automatic damper, I realised that as soon as I open the glass door (and hence open damper simultaneously) the volume of the fire goes down. Way down. It's good because the first time I did it I was really afraid. You know how one has to be careful of an electric cooking oven so that when you open it's door the hot air doesn't burn down your eyebrows... with my naturally big hair I was fearing becoming balder than Britney Spears. But surprise, when I first opened the stove door the air didn't blow in my face. I felt heat for sure but the air was being really sucked in, and the height of the flames halved and almost went out.

Finally as regards the secondary burn, so I understand that there should be some form of holes from the top half of the stove? I have seen pictures of secondary burn from the gallery here, but so far my insert done nothing similar. I'm sure it doesn't have the feature. The inside of the box appears to be just a plain box, no holes or 'baffles' (what are baffles?).

Right now I can't take photos because there's fire, but tomorrow I'll take some pics of the inside of the stove before we light it.

 

[Gooserider]

Goose, once again a million thanks for the great explanatory post.

I'll be checking for suppliers in my country or in Europe who provide a thermometer. Though I wouldn't mind getting one shipped from the US. I'm familiar with the Fahrenheit scale and for such a small thing shipping shouldn't be much of an issue.

It isn't a big deal on the calibration I guess, mostly you are after the general range where the stove is at, rather than an exact number - *F might also have the advantage that it's probably what almost everyone else here is using. so it will cut down on the translation issues.

Regards to the manual, I did visit the Bronpi site http://www.bronpi.com/ and searched there first. Didn't find anything. I emailed Bronpi and got no reply. At that point I emailed the Itrisa spanish company http://www.itrisa.com/cassettes/bronpi.htm who appear to be some kind of sub-agents.... and they told me to contact Bronpi... So I decided to wait for the installation hoping that the manual arrived with the insert. But it didn't.

I agree, the Bronpi site was very underwhelming, at least as it showed up on my machine (a Linux box). I was getting Flash7 video that gave me a picture of the units, but no technical information or anything else. IMHO this is about as useless a site as one can have.

Regards the blower switch, on the face of the insert there are only 2 options, off and on. However it seems that once a good fire is blazing away that switch becomes redundant and the blower is always on. That is provided that it has supply to mains. If I cut out main supply the blower doesn't come on. Wait, now I'm being ridiculous because no fan can work without a mains supply... I just mean that the switch then becomes insignificant and once the insert appears to reach a certain heat the fan blower remains on unless I switch off the main supply.

Well I don't know how the switch is labeled, but to me a switch that says "OFF" should be really off, with no way for the thing being controlled to come on. It is NOT the same as "automatic", which I would consider the best setting for most conditions, as I don't see a huge benefit to having the blower always on. Yes, it will kill things to cut the mains, and that is the best way to turn something off if you're working on it, but I see it as a convenience issue as well - I don't want to have to go multiple places to turn something on and off.

It was interesting reading how to work the way the logs' position. My current avatar is of yesterday's fire, the box clearly appears to be rectangular, both from the picture in my avatar and from the dimensions as stated in my signature. Hence it follows that the best way to load wood would be east to west for me?

I think you need to measure your firebox INSIDE dimensions to be sure, but it does sound like East-West would be better for you. However you may find that you get lots of short pieces when you cut up your pallets, so it might be worth experimenting.both ways.

Regards the automatic damper, I realised that as soon as I open the glass door (and hence open damper simultaneously) the volume of the fire goes down. Way down. It's good because the first time I did it I was really afraid. You know how one has to be careful of an electric cooking oven so that when you open it's door the hot air doesn't burn down your eyebrows... with my naturally big hair I was fearing becoming balder than Britney Spears. But surprise, when I first opened the stove door the air didn't blow in my face. I felt heat for sure but the air was being really sucked in, and the height of the flames halved and almost went out.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I was talking about. However, it is usually done manually on US stoves. One thing that I would reccomend is that it can sometimes take a few seconds for the fire to respond to a change in conditions, so I would open the door on your stove slowly - just crack it enough to get the damper to open at first, wait a few seconds, then open all the way after you've seen the flames die down.

Finally as regards the secondary burn, so I understand that there should be some form of holes from the top half of the stove? I have seen pictures of secondary burn from the gallery here, but so far my insert done nothing similar. I'm sure it doesn't have the feature. The inside of the box appears to be just a plain box, no holes or 'baffles' (what are baffles?).

Baffles are tubes or plates that contain and direct the flow of smoke and / or combustion air in order to get the best burning. There are several different styles and designs depending on the stove maker. There are also different ways of getting secondary combustion. Some use the baffle tubes or plates that I mentioned and the SC occurs in the main firebox. The hardware for this is pretty easy to see, and so are the flames. Other stoves use a secondary combustion chamber that is seperate from the main firebox, and this can be harder to spot. AFAIK, all modern stoves do use some form of secondary combustion though.

Right now I can't take photos because there's fire, but tomorrow I'll take some pics of the inside of the stove before we light it.

That sounds good, and may help spot what it's doing.

Gooserider
(edited to fix quoting)