Please help me make Napoleon 1400 put out heat

[mousie]

new here but lurking and learning for a couple years. Really enjoy the site.

Here's the background:

2000 Sqft house, we shut off the upstairs in the winter, so we are heating say 1500-1600. We had a VC Resolute III and learned how to use it when we moved here. It was a very pretty and very hot stove. We found it was not enough to keep the place warm when we got into below 20F temps and the heater would have to kick in to support it. We also thought it was using a lot of wood. We keep our heater at 63F and normally with the VC we would have 68F temps in most of the house with the kitchen (where the stove is) frying hot and the bedroom at a nice 70.

Having had this wonderful experience, we decided that we could improve on it. We thought that we are heating the house with this little tiny stove and if we got a bigger stove, we could heat the house better, get longer burns and be able to withstand lower outside temps without needing the heater to kick in.

We researched quite a bit before making our decision and visited several dealers. I must have spent 20 or more hours here reading as well as looking at specs from various vendor sites and etc. Our local dealer that we trusted the most was pushing the Napoleon line and convinced us that with our heating needs the 1400 line would be perfect and would almost double what the Resolute was putting out.

We measured and compared and decided we would go with the 1400C as the larger burners would be too large for our hearth setup. With the wife in mind we went with the 1400C which looks like a cast iron stove. It is almost exactly twice as large as the Resolute and claims 70-75k btu versus the Resolute which in old literature says 40-45k (just from memory).

We got the stove and installed it. We have broken it in with several small hot fires and have been burning pretty much non-stop for a week now. The stove does not heat as well as the one we replaced. I am besides myself with buyers remorse over this stove. It does not put out nearly the heat of the VC that was half it's size and furthermore, it's a lot more difficult to use.

Can someone with 1400 experience help us get this thing to make heat?

We have our old stove top thermometer and the new thermo they gave us with the unit. I get exhaust temps in the "burn zone" on the exhaust thermometer at anywhere 325 to 500 depending on how I load and start it. I get temps from my old thermo on the stove surface (lid up, actual firebox surface) of up to 600 if it's really catching on fire early into a burn and mostly idles around 500 or so, then burns down. I cannot get 600 burns to last more than like 45 minutes and if you stand around the stove it's hot, but not that hot.

I have looked into the 1400c being a cast iron sleeve design and that's just a huge heat sink. I did not get a blower as my dealer told me I would not need one. I have since put a desk fan blowing directly under the stove and still it's not much help. I can't keep my house tonight past 65f with this damn stove cranking. I am so pissed off that I spent money to upgrade a stove and have instead got a stove that heats hot for a short while then just builds up huge piles of embers that burn cool and take forever to burn off. I have half a stove of embers constantly and can only put in three med. splits in a load because there are so many embers.

Help? I am ready to pull this thing out and sell it to some other sucker and get my old VC back. I am really frustrated.

I am running white and red oak that was fallen for several years, bucked last year and split this summer. It's all pretty aged and lots of cracks in the wood, light weight and pings when you knock it. It's not the best but there are very few sizzlers that we encounter. It's good wood.

Any suggestions would be great. I am thinking a blow will be next, but that might not do it. I am feeling like I got ripped off big time here and there must be some angle that I am missing.

 

[begreen]

How much are you closing down the air once the fire is fully engaged?

 

[mousie]

Doesn't seem to matter. I have had one that got too hot because I forgot to damp it after loading it. I usually have so much coal bed 6" or so that it doesn't need any help getting a load going. I keep her cruising at 2 after a new load has ignited. I turn on more air as it burns so that when I am sitting on 9"of embers at around 400F on the stove top I am at wide open throttle just trying to burn off the embers so I can reload.

I think I am pretty much burning it correctly. I do have issue in that my thermometers are completely inaccurate. The magnet one that came with the stove for the pipe will get into operational range (300-600) but the pipe seems cooler than that. The one from my old stove was just a oven therm and it's burnt up pretty bad I use that to compare stove top temps from the old stove to the new one and the new one gets a hotter stove temp (again on the actual burner top) than my old VC but it's not putting out the same heat at all. I have been running this for a week pretty much constant, so it's not the bricks needing to be heated up.

I think VC 30 years ago quite possibly had a better design than we have achieved with all of this technology? I don't know. The dealer has my old VC to try to refurb/resell and I am thinking about trying to get it back.

If I open the door to load or poke this thing it's the gates of hell, but on the outside there is not enough heat. This thing should be running me out of the room it is in from too much heat. The differential between top temp and exhaust temp is pretty good based on "seat of pants" and comparable to the old stove so I don't think it's all running out the stove pipe.

Are you running a napoleon and have any tips?

I think its a huge ass stove with a vastly overstated output at this point. I don't plop 1900 down on something without doing the research but I have been had.

 

[KB007]

I'm guessing that the oak your burning is not well seasoned. Wood doesn't really season much when it's lying on the ground in rounds or logs. It's only when it's split and the surfaces are exposed to the air that it really starts the seasoning process. Second thing you might want to do is get an IR thermometer even if you only borrow one to be able to confirm (or not) that your thermometers are reading accurately. most of the magnetic ones are off by a pretty big margin. Are you loading N/S or E/W? I find N/S in our Napoleon works much better. Does the 1400C have the baffles? Are they installed correctly and aligned properly? If not a lot of heat can go rushing up the flue. Are you seeing good secondary burn when you shut the air down?

Can you describe your burn cycle (from start up to re-load to give us a better understanding of just what temps / timings you are letting it run? This may help diagnose any issues.

We have a Nap 1450 (same firebox as the 1400, without the cast iron shell) and we have used it to heat our 1800 sqft house (plus 1800 sqft basement) and it would keep the basement quite hot at times - up to 90F with a good hot fire going. I would strongly suggest you get the blower as it makes a huge difference in getting heat from the stove. We have one on our Nap and with it off the heat doesn't circulate in the room at all. With it on, the heat moves around very nicely. You may not want to get one right now because you think you've made a bad decision and don't want to "throw good money after bad", but I think the blower will help you a lot (ours does).

Do you know anyone who has any good, well seasoned (once split) wood that would give you a couple of loads worth just to try it out with good seasoned wood? Or maybe buy a couple of those bags of "dried hardwoo firewood" just to do a comparison? I did find the 1450 pickier than our old non-epa stove and it did tend to coal a lot more with greener wood then once we were able to burn better, seasoned wood.

Don't give up, it's a good stove, it's probably one of these things, or something else fairly easy to rectify. Like I said, our 1450 makes big heat once we figured out the proper way (and wood) to burn it.

 

[ControlFreak]

Hi Mousie,
Looked at the Napoleon site to see this stove. Looks like they've taken the same steel firebox that's in the 1402 insert, 1400 free-standing, and put it inside a cast-iron jacket. I have the older 1401 insert which has the same firebox. I heat a 2900 sq ft home with this.

I will second what KB007 said.
1. High moisture content will hinder the heat produced. I find it amazing how the fire can be "burning" but the stove just doesn't produce. Fallen wood with no bark, if it's split in the summer should be OK by the fall as long as it wasn't sitting on the ground, so it doesn't sound like your wood is wet. I split and stack my wood a year in advance and I still get some pieces that sizzle, but the fire takes off and produces abundant heat a few minutes later.
2. Your Resolute was not jacketed like the 1400C. The Resolute would be giving you a lot of radiant heat that is now isolated by the cast iron jacket. If you got ripped off, it was the dealer by telling you that a blower was not needed.

This is a very good stove and will produce more heat per pound of wood than the Resolute. The combustion technology in the 1400C is very different from the Resolute. You should be able to fit a full load of 8 splits into the 1400C and get a 8-9 hour burn time between reloads without having to use kindling on the restart. If you reload too frequently, you'll accumulate an increasingly deep coal bed. The biggest difference in behavior is that these "secondary burn" EPA stoves all produce a big burst of heat for 2-4 hours after first loading, then slowly taper off as the coals are burned off. You'll get a lot more heat than with the Resolute, but that additional heat shows up for the first 3 hours on average. I've heated with my 1401 for close to 15 years on a 24/7 basis with 4 cords/year. I'm now to the point where I'm burning no oil for heat, but I do supplement with a second stove in the basement when the temps get into single digits if I want the kitchen to stay above 65.

Hang in there, and be patient. You have a good stove there, just get the blower.

If you can't handle the big burst of heat early on, then you might be happier with a catalytic stove since they can produce even heat on a low-burning fire, more like you experienced with the Resolute. But they have their problems as well.

Enjoy, Dan

 

[sawzall]

I too think it might be your wood. When my wife went over to some freinds of ours that had a woodburner goin she came home and gave me the go ahead to install . I had been waiting for this day for a long time. This was the tailend of September and as I was waiting for my 1400 to arrive I found myself out on state land cutting tree tops that had been left behind by foresters years prior, my first year was pure frustation lots of coals and minimal heat. This is my third year with this stove and I couldnt be happier and its all due to well seasoned wood. I can have this stove crankin in a short order and it'll cruise at 550-600 stovetop for three hours before the temp starts to slowly fall. This is all with draft pushed all the way in then backed off just a smidge. Before you throw in the towel do yourself a favor and find an arm load of truly seasond wood I think youll see a difference. By the way I too am keeping nearly 2000 sq ft toasty warm in single digits to below zerow temps. I hope this helps good luck

 

[daveswoodhauler]

I second the wood issue. I have red oak that was cut spring of 2009, split/stacked in fall of 2009 and its still not ready to burn yet. I think other woods would be ok to burn, but oak is a different kind of animal.

 

[begreen]

The old Resolute was a radiant stove, then new stove is much more convective in nature. If you want to get more heat out of it, ask your dealer if you can try the blower from a floor model for a day as a test.

 

[mousie]

Thanks all for your responses. I moved into a different wood stack today from a different tree and it's burning a lot hotter. I think it's a combo of the wood isn't seasoned enough and I need the blower. I will keep on keeping on, glad to hear from folks that are getting enough heat in similar sized areas. My house is pretty tight but not enough that I need external air for combustion. I guess the VC resolute was better with burning my not as seasoned wood. If I am getting huge piles of coals that don't want to burn off (e.g. like 6" of coal bed) would that be an indication that the wood isn't aged enough?

Thanks again.

 

[precaud]

This is a very good stove and will produce more heat per pound of wood than the Resolute.

My experience of these steel-firebox-with-cast-iron-jacket type of stoves is that they are pretty sedate heaters. There's simply too much metal mass for the firebox size for it to get hot and really radiate. The heat will dribble out eventually, but not like the VC you're used to.

 

[herdbull]

Just my 2 pennies worth but the oak I have burned this season was cut and split over a year ago. It literally leaves no big chunky coals and almost burns down to dust. Now something like elm or ash has a lot more bigger chunkier coals that requires a burn down after a while to get rid of them.

As for the blower, some people use them some don't. In my own personal testing my house is much warmer when I use it. Besides that I run the risk of an overfire if I don't run the blower. For some reason this stove gets pretty hot very easily and the blower helps vacate that heat from the stove.

 

[wood-fan-atic]

I dont have a Napolean, but i CAN tell you that I, too have experienced coaling problems with oak that is 'less than optimal'. It reads in the very low 20's (22-23) on the MM, doesnt sizzle, and fires right up. HOWEVER----> this does NOT mean that it is perfect for my EPA insert. I had occasionally been very frustrated by this huge pile of coals that I had to perpetually shovel out of my stove to make room for more fuel. Now, I should say that I am able to heat my house, but the cost of that heat is frequent reloads (3-4 hours), a full bucket of coals shoveled out every morning, and using approximately twice as much wood as I should have......all with a 'NEW, upgraded stove'!! :-S

The bottom line is that the new EPA stoves require TRULY DRY WOOD, that our old VC ( I had a large Dutchwest cat) stoves weren't as picky about. I have been in your shoes ,and lived to tell about it. Next years wood is 80% ash and 20% black locust, most of it already split and under roofed racks.

 

[Kenster]

So, you have your answer. Bad fuel and lack of a blower. You have to use too much energy to remove moisture from the unseasoned wood giving you less energy to produce heat. Some trees can be down on the ground, even bucked, for years and still have a high MC. It doesn't really start to season until it is split. Hardwoods like oak really need at least two full years of seasoning ONCE IT"S SPLIT! If you split it real small and it gets lots of sun and especially wind, you MIGHT accelerate it to be able to use it in less time. Maybe. Get yourself a Moisture Meter. Lowe's sells a "General" brand one for $30. Measure only from the inside, with the grain, on a freshly split piece.
For your modern stove it ought to be 20% or less.

Hopefully you can scrounge up some really good wood to get you through the winter. Maybe someone with extra will trade you a load of their dry wood for your load of wet/green wood. Report back to us how you like the stove once your feeding it the proper diet. And reconsider the blower.

 

[WhitePine]

For what its worth, we have a 1400 on legs and no blower or outside air kit. It can heat our 2,000 main floor by itself without any problem. We do have an open floor plan and run a couple of large ceiling fans pushing up on low to stir the air. I didn't order a blower because I just don't like the noise.

 

[partybob99]

Hi Mousie,
Looked at the Napoleon site to see this stove. Looks like they've taken the same steel firebox that's in the 1402 insert, 1400 free-standing, and put it inside a cast-iron jacket. I have the older 1401 insert which has the same firebox. I heat a 2900 sq ft home with this.

I will second what KB007 said.
1. High moisture content will hinder the heat produced. I find it amazing how the fire can be "burning" but the stove just doesn't produce. Fallen wood with no bark, if it's split in the summer should be OK by the fall as long as it wasn't sitting on the ground, so it doesn't sound like your wood is wet. I split and stack my wood a year in advance and I still get some pieces that sizzle, but the fire takes off and produces abundant heat a few minutes later.
2. Your Resolute was not jacketed like the 1400C. The Resolute would be giving you a lot of radiant heat that is now isolated by the cast iron jacket. If you got ripped off, it was the dealer by telling you that a blower was not needed.

This is a very good stove and will produce more heat per pound of wood than the Resolute. The combustion technology in the 1400C is very different from the Resolute. You should be able to fit a full load of 8 splits into the 1400C and get a 8-9 hour burn time between reloads without having to use kindling on the restart. If you reload too frequently, you'll accumulate an increasingly deep coal bed. The biggest difference in behavior is that these "secondary burn" EPA stoves all produce a big burst of heat for 2-4 hours after first loading, then slowly taper off as the coals are burned off. You'll get a lot more heat than with the Resolute, but that additional heat shows up for the first 3 hours on average. I've heated with my 1401 for close to 15 years on a 24/7 basis with 4 cords/year. I'm now to the point where I'm burning no oil for heat, but I do supplement with a second stove in the basement when the temps get into single digits if I want the kitchen to stay above 65.

Hang in there, and be patient. You have a good stove there, just get the blower.

If you can't handle the big burst of heat early on, then you might be happier with a catalytic stove since they can produce even heat on a low-burning fire, more like you experienced with the Resolute. But they have their problems as well.

Enjoy, Dan

+1, Get the blower.. night and day difference..

 

[mousie]

Just my 2 pennies worth but the oak I have burned this season was cut and split over a year ago. It literally leaves no big chunky coals and almost burns down to dust. Now something like elm or ash has a lot more bigger chunkier coals that requires a burn down after a while to get rid of them.

As for the blower, some people use them some don't. In my own personal testing my house is much warmer when I use it. Besides that I run the risk of an overfire if I don't run the blower. For some reason this stove gets pretty hot very easily and the blower helps vacate that heat from the stove.

Thanks Herdbull. I need to fire up my fluke meter and see if I can find the temp probes tomorrow. I am using a Rutland temp guage (cheapo magnetic) on the stack and can get into overfire if I am not careful on a new burn. I also run a kitchen variety stove thermo on the burnter top that only reads to 600 and I have pegged it several times. I put the Rutland guage on the stove top one time and it was claiming 800 which I refuse to believe.

Once you kill the damper on it it will cruize for 550-600 on my kitchen thermo, which is probably still 800 on the rutland. Need to find my leads for the temp probe on mr. Fluke and see what's what.

On my VC I probably overfired the thing constantly - I would run it as hot as I could get it until the metal windows started to glow then back it down. One time I had half the stove glowing....no animals were injured......

 

[mousie]

Not sure if anyone is still interested in this thread, but I tested out my thermometers with a fluke meter and a temp probe today. The fluke is rated to +- 0.1*F and the probe was the original never used that came with the meter.

I loaded a burn on a bed of still hot coals, placed the Rutland, my kitchen stove thermo and the meter temp probe as close to eachother as could reasonably be achieved on the stove top (to be clear, the steel on top of the burn box, not the cast iron skin of the stove)

I opened the air up and let it catch, then compared temps on the two thermostats vs. the fluke meter. I brought the stove top to 650*F and in the process was shutting off air to keep from overshooting that target

Rutland burner guage - magnetic - accurate to 500*F after that it greatly overstates temperature. At 650*F stove top, the Rutland guage was reading 825*
Generic chinese oven thermometer that I used with my last stove - accurate to about 425* then reads low. At 650*F stove top the oven thermo was reading 550*

Just thought it was an interesting test. So I am easily achieving the burn temps I should be and need to be careful not to overburn on starting a new load. I kept the meter on there and it hovered from 650 down to 550 over an hour and a half, then coasted for another couple hours between there and 475. At 475 I turned the air back on to full open and another hour or so it was ready to reload.

Rutland thermo's are good for measuring exhaust pipe temps, not stove tops. Oven thermo's aren't very good for either, but I know that I shouldn't ever go over 575 or so on the oven thermometer and should be in safe conditions.

And now I don't need to buy an infrared sensor either

 

[gnedinok]

Similar issues here with not so seasoned wood (lots of coals). A friend had a large oak down for 1+ year. We cut, split and started burning right away. It seemed awfully heavy which was odd to me until I researched it. Ditto on the comments here, it really does not season until split. Seasoned wood is getting hard to find here in central Oklahoma this time of year, especially with the extreme weather we have had (and I'm too cheap to buy it anyway). I've pretty much decided that cleaning out the coals is my only option until next year. We have been cutting and splitting next years wood and should have an ample supply of well seasoned wood on hand by then.
I have also had issues with more than usual creosote piling up on top of the ceiling baffles in the roof of the stove which hinders the draft. Just have to remove baffles every 10-12 days and remove fallen creosote. Hopefully this will not be an issue next year with the well seasoned wood.
Lastly, the stove fan is a must. 1, it moved the warm air out into the room and 2, it cools the stove in the event of over fire. Turn it down about halfway and the noise level is tolerable.
I do miss the simplicity of my old Country Flame but with a little practice and knowledge gained here I believe this stove will give years of good service.


"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming:
Wow What A Ride"

 

[mousie]

thanks again for all the helpful replies. I am dealing with the coals by running a full pack load, then raking up front and dropping a single or two splits on it and burning them hot for a cycle. It seems to work at reducing coals. Also, I am trying to extract max heat out of this (It is 5*F right now) so I am running it as hot as possible and I don't care about burn times. It's keeping the heater from coming on, but barely. I used the heater to bring up from 64 to 67 and kept burning and I am still sitting at 67 three hours later, so it's pretty good.

Next will be the blower, but I haven't ordered one yet. I am starting to figure it out, it's just a lot different animal than the one I had grown used to.