Hello wood folks, and thanks in advance for any advice. We inherited an older Drolet Austral when we purchased our house. The reason I can tell it's older is it doesn't have the bypass damper that the current models of this stove have. Because of this it is a smoky beast for an EPA stove. Admittedly this is the first EPA stove I've had, coming from a beloved older Lopi, but it is incredibly hard to keep this Drolet from smoking up the house. You pretty much have to have a roaring fire when you open the door. If you look up the manual it actually suggests leaving the door cracked 1/4-inch for the first half hour of burn time. What kind of a terrible design has that instruction? Talk about an accident waiting to happen.
Does anyone know if you can retrofit these with the bypass damper? Or have any suggestions? The situation is made worse by the fact that the previous owner had installed a hard-wired smoke alarm in the room with the wood stove, so it's constantly going off and driving the family nuts.
Does anyone know if you can retrofit these with the bypass damper? Or have any suggestions? The situation is made worse by the fact that the previous owner had installed a hard-wired smoke alarm in the room with the wood stove, so it's constantly going off and driving the family nuts.
