Quadrafire 5700 ACC, no O.A.K., so .......?

[FatttFire]

So I have my 5700 ACC, but I have never had a O.A.K. on it. I bought my stove used from a nice lady that used it for 2 weeks then got natural gas, and divorced in the same week. So since gas was so cheap and she isn't splitting wood, she sold the stove, which she didn't like bc "it doesn't put out the heat". So long story short I bought it from her for half price of a new one. So I have been fighting this stove and we ( the Quad and I ) have come to an agreement. That we have how to run it down relatively good, but that I am still not impressed with her overall heat out-put or long burn times. So as I was doing my monthly clean out and check up of the stove, and looked up under where the ash drawer goes in. I am looking at the bottom of the fire box. I see where the OAK would run up threw the bottom of the stand, and I also notice that the OAK would run straight out the back of the stove right below the blower motor if I wanted to run it that way instead of out the bottom. Now the cover is on for the bottom and the back where the OAK would attach. I see the hole where the air enters the bottom of the stove ( the bottom of the fire box ) IF I have the OAK hooked up. So here is my question. With the ash drawer in, and the covers for the OAK all installed, is my stove getting the air it needs? I know that the base of the stove isn't air tight, but I see the 3" hole that it drawers air in from, but only cracks in the base to supply the air. Is this enough? Or is the 3" plug in the bottom of the stand, or the rear cover where the OAK would attach need to be removed so the stove gets enough air for supply?

 

[mopar440_6]

What is your chimney situation? If the chimney is too far oversized, the stove may be getting all the air it can handle but that air has nowhere to go once it's in the stove due to minimal draft. I found out the hard way that without the proper draft, it doesn't matter where you're running the stove, it's just not going to pull enough air through those secondaries to light them off and make the heat it should. Also, where in the house is the stove installed?

 

[Oldman47]

There needs to be an air flow passage to the same place the OAK would send it. If both the rear and the bottom entry are blocked, where does the air get in to go through the draft control system? If there is no open path it may well be choking off the air flow.

 

[FatttFire]

Mopar 440_6
My stove sits on the first floor, but the living space is up stairs. My Chimney is an inside masonry chimney except the last 6 ft are outside. The single wall stove pipe is 6" then goes into the chimney which I think is 8x12" clay tile. Not 100% positive on the size of the clay tile, off the top of my head.

Oldman47

I have attached an inside picture of the base of my stove. The ash drawer is pulled out. You can see the bottom cut out is in, and the back is in. The hole in the bottom of the stove is the entrance for the air intake. So the only way it is getting air is through the cracks around the ash pan and there is a small cut out in the back plate also. So ........................... I am thinking one of those needs to come off? Am I right? Does it matter?

 

[FatttFire]

In the picture the "shiny" metal rectangle is the rear cover that you would remove to attach the OAK from the back. The black circle in the bottom of the base is if you wanted to run the OAK out the bottom instead of out the back. The circle facing down of course is the entrance to the intake. This is all with the ash drawer removed. Just to clarify what your looking at.

 

[Oldman47]

That looks like the area in the bottom of my Napoleon except that I do not have the close off installed on the back yet. When I install the OAK through the bottom I will also install the back close off plate. Check your owners manual to be sure but I bet that back closure plate should only be installed if you have an OAK.

 

[mopar440_6]

Do you have a local QuadraFire dealer you could possibly contact? I've been talking to my local stove shop which is a Quad dealer and they have been extremely helpful even though I didn't buy anything from them (I was considering a 5700 but the budget was too thin). Maybe you could take a bunch of pictures and see if they can determine if there is a plug somewhere it shouldn't be or if the stove is setup correctly.

How tall is the chimney? It sounds like there may be multiple issues here but I'm willing to bet it has more to do with the chimney than anything else. I learned the hard way that these new EPA stoves just won't run right without a properly sized chimney. I've got a similar sized stove (NC-30) in the basement and a clay lined 8"x12" chimney and have run into a similar issue. The interior dimensions of my liner are 6.5"x11" (so yours is probably similar) which means the total cross-sectional area is 71.5 sq. in. The cross-sectional area of a 6" diameter liner is about 28.3 sq. in. So the chimney is about 2.5 times oversized from what the stove needs. With all that extra space, the chimney isn't creating enough draft to pull the combustion air through the secondaries. My stove will burn great with the air control completely open but it's just putting all the heat out the chimney. If I try to close it down it will choke out. I even had an incident where a high pressure system rolled in after the stove had coaled and pushed enough exhaust back out the intake that it set off my CO detectors. I would bet that even with an OAK the stove still wouldn't operate at 100% because it doesn't have enough draft.

Sorry for all the questions. I'm still fairly new with the EPA stoves but I'm trying to get enough information here so that when the more experienced members (hopefully) show up, they can give you some better direction.

 

[FatttFire]

Thanks Mopar, I will look into this.