Quadrafire 7100 breaking in questions

[Village Idiot]

I wish I had found this place a year ago when I was planning my fireplace install, but I think I did pretty well. I have been lurking for the past few months and I finally have some questions.

We have been having a house built and should be moving in at the end of the month. We had our 1950's rambler knocked down and reused the lot since we love the location and a large remodel was not too far off of a knockdown/rebuild. When designing it, I insisted on a wood burning fireplace instead of the gas one offered. I know too many people that have gas fireplaces that are used for a month and almost never again after the first utility bill comes in. My sister cringes every time one of the kids flips their fireplace on.

My wife was pretty good about humoring me and let me select the fireplace as long as it had a high WAF. I settled on a Quadrafire 7100 for our 3,000 sf house. It has two levels and is very open so I have high hopes that the 7100 will help defray my winter heating bills.

I have a fair amount of wood since I did all of the site work on the lot last fall with the exception of a big silver maple that was in the front near the power lines. Since I wanted the wood and brush for mulch, I had the arborist leave everything so I could process it later. The main part of the trunk he left was 6' long by 36"-40" in diameter. It took a bit of work, but I got it cut up. I kept all the trees and have it c/s/s along the back property line. (I even dropped a big tree on the house once we had moved out just because I could. It was a big tree, but the little house was tough. The tree just creased the eaves.)

Enough about that. Now that we are getting ready to move in, the weather is cooling down, my thoughts have turned to burning stuff. The manual for the 7100 makes no mention about breaking in the unit, but there have to be benefits from a few small fires. My questions are how big, how long, and how many? Are there any indicators that I should be watching out for to know if there is a problem with the install? (Smoke pouring into the house being an obvious one.) I expect there to be some odor as the paint cures, but how long should it smell?

If there are any other Quadrafire 7100 owners out there that have any specific advice, please share. Sorry for the long post, but I am pretty excited about being able to live in a house with wood burning fireplace again. I just hope that my wife can take back some of the head shaking that she has been doing at me.

 

[raybonz]

I wish I had found this place a year ago when I was planning my fireplace install, but I think I did pretty well. I have been lurking for the past few months and I finally have some questions.

We have been having a house built and should be moving in at the end of the month. We had our 1950's rambler knocked down and reused the lot since we love the location and a large remodel was not too far off of a knockdown/rebuild. When designing it, I insisted on a wood burning fireplace instead of the gas one offered. I know too many people that have gas fireplaces that are used for a month and almost never again after the first utility bill comes in. My sister cringes every time one of the kids flips their fireplace on.

My wife was pretty good about humoring me and let me select the fireplace as long as it had a high WAF. I settled on a Quadrafire 7100 for our 3,000 sf house. It has two levels and is very open so I have high hopes that the 7100 will help defray my winter heating bills.

I have a fair amount of wood since I did all of the site work on the lot last fall with the exception of a big silver maple that was in the front near the power lines. Since I wanted the wood and brush for mulch, I had the arborist leave everything so I could process it later. The main part of the trunk he left was 6' long by 36"-40" in diameter. It took a bit of work, but I got it cut up. I kept all the trees and have it c/s/s along the back property line. (I even dropped a big tree on the house once we had moved out just because I could. It was a big tree, but the little house was tough. The tree just creased the eaves.)

Enough about that. Now that we are getting ready to move in, the weather is cooling down, my thoughts have turned to burning stuff. The manual for the 7100 makes no mention about breaking in the unit, but there have to be benefits from a few small fires. My questions are how big, how long, and how many? Are there any indicators that I should be watching out for to know if there is a problem with the install? (Smoke pouring into the house being an obvious one.) I expect there to be some odor as the paint cures, but how long should it smell?

If there are any other Quadrafire 7100 owners out there that have any specific advice, please share. Sorry for the long post, but I am pretty excited about being able to live in a house with wood burning fireplace again. I just hope that my wife can take back some of the head shaking that she has been doing at me.

Welcome to the forum VI.. I have a T-5 and the folks here advised a few small break in fires and I followed that advice because it would not hurt anything and in fact may help.. I suggest you do the same and beyond that burn dry seasoned wood.. Silver maple seasons really fast and it's very light when dry.. Be careful and not make a large load of small splits or you could overfire that new insert.. BTW I looked at the Quadrafire 7100 online and they are beautiful to look at.. Be sure to post pics or this never happened..

Ray

 

[Village Idiot]

Ugh, I went by the house yesterday to take pictures and discovered that the mason's crew installed the stone surround with the fascia in place. So much for the template and instructions that indicate that a 1/8" clearance is required around the fascia. I called the builder and the supervisor came right over. He was really apologetic and we got the fascia off and saw that it was bent. Oi! Well, he was really nice about it and said he would replace it and redo the surround himself.

As luck would have it, I noticed that the screen on the bottom of the fascia was welded on upside down. I took it to the dealer and the manufacturer is replacing it under warranty. It's a minor delay that won't impact the rest of the finish work at the house. So, no pictures yet.

I do have pictures of the log that the arborist didn't think I could cut up. It is 6' long. I spent a couple of evenings getting it into cookies and then quarters. He was pretty impressed and we now have an agreement that when he takes down trees in my area he drops the bucked up logs next to my driveway for free. Turns out he does not have a wood lot to process it for firewood and saves him the disposal fee.

 

[Swedishchef]

NICE! I certainly wish someone would drop off nice logs like that to me!

Take your time for the first fires. As Ray said, a few small fires and be careful not to overfire!

Andrew

 

[mecreature]

I had a few small fires "break in". I had some weird smells for a while some from paint and metal some just from dust and construction crap.

I took the face off and cleaned it up as well as I could a lot of tight spaces though.

It will fade over time. Have fun the 7100 is an awesome Wood burner. It Rocks.

 

[Jags]

Make the first fire small. Just warm the beast up a bit. This will dry moisture (from firebricks, humidity, etc.) Second one get some heat in it. Not an all out burn, but enough that you know you are heating stuff up. Build one or two more with increasing ferociousness. Then build one that gets to the upper limits of the stove. Prepare for some smells. It'll happen. Open doors and windows as needed.

Always have proper home safety equipment in place. Smoke detector, CO2 detector and of course - fire extinguisher.

Happy burning. That stove should treat you well.

And welcome to the forum.

 

[madison]

How about some pics of those 7100's, mecreature and "idiot"?

 

[Village Idiot]

Thanks for the replies. I will follow the advice and take my initial fires in stages. I have already warned my wife about the stink of curing paint and she wants to get that part out of the way before things turn cold.

We start moving in to the house tomorrow, so I will post pictures next week once I recuperate. They finished the fireplace surround yesterday sans the mantle. When they put the shelf up, it was too short and the brackets stuck out past it. Oh well, that won't keep me from burning wood. They said there is a 3 week lead time on a new piece of bluestone.

In all honesty, I am not a fan of the surrund, but it was the base option with the builder. I hope to be able to redo it in a couple of years with real stone.

 

[mecreature]

How about some pics of those 7100's, mecreature and "idiot"?

I have not taken any pics of completed project but here is one real close.

kind of hard to see the detail.

 

[Village Idiot]

How about some pics of those 7100's, mecreature and "idiot"?

The FiOS man finally came and I am back online! Only a week late, but the TV, Internet, and phone are back on. Everyone is my friend again. Funny how the fact that we are in a brand new house paled in comparison.

Here is a picture of my first burn last Sunday. I have done a couple more and I still have a lot to learn to get good at firing it. I am looking forward to the cooler weather.

The mantle should be installed this week.

 

[begreen]

Sweet! That looks beautiful. I like the hearth (bluestone?). Is that actual stone veneer or ledgerstone replica?

 

[raybonz]

Beautiful stonework and insert!

Ray

 

[madison]

Very cool, thanks for the picture.

Looks like a nice slab of bluestone for the hearth!

 

[Village Idiot]

Sweet! That looks beautiful. I like the hearth (bluestone?). Is that actual stone veneer or ledgerstone replica?

Thanks for the compliments. This fireplace is one of the keystones of our home. When meeting with builders, we presented them with our general layout needs and the Quad 7100 brochure. The hearth is a nice big piece of bluestone. The mantle will match. The first one was 1.5" too short. I felt bad sending it back, but there was no way to make it work. I wanted the overhang on the brackets to match the hearth.

The stone is Eldorado Stone Mountain Ledge - Silverton. I am really surprised how good it looks for a manufactured product. I really wanted to go with natural stone, and I may in a few years, but this is the default option that the builder provided.

 

[JJL1]

VI,

Congrats on the new Quad and I think it looks great. I am in a similar situation to you having recently (early September) had not 1, but 2 Quad 7100's installed. I bought my house 4 years ago and it came with 2 Lennox Superior (could not be further from the truth) ZC fireboxes. After 4 cold winters I finally decided that it was time to make things right. I knew it was not going to be easy or cheap, but life it too short to have bad fireplaces. I was able to save a lot of money (but not time) by doing the demo and new framing myself. Both units are operational and broken in now. I am waiting for some serious cold spells before I finish putting up the Durock and then calling in the mason to do the stone work.

For what its worth, here are a few of my observations so far:

1) It took 5 burns to break each unit in. I started with smaller burns and then by the 4th burn, started to crank things up. The installer warned me that this was an open all the windows situation and he was right. Thankfully we have had warm weather so opening the windows has not been a problem. It was north of 80 degrees in Jersey today and I had the 5th burn in the second unit today. I am sure my neighbors think I am crazy.

2) I have been using a Duraflame starter brick with smaller pieces of well-seasoned wood. I find that keeping the doors open during the first 20 minutes really helps. I get no smoke in the house doing this and it kicks some nice heat back into the room. I may actually decide to spend the $189 to buy the screen.

3) When I go coals to coals, not a drop of smoke gets in the room and the fresh load catches right away. If I add wood with active fire, I have to very slowly open the right door to avoid ash/smoke in the house. I cannot open the left door without getting some smoke in the house, not overbearing, but not perfect either. So I just load with the right door open. This is only an issue until I get hot coals going.

4) The handle gets a little hot, but the real issue issue is how hot my hand gets when loading during coals. It gets really hot in that firebox. I don't have asbestos hands, so I will invest in some gloves.

5) The blowers kick in as expected and the ACC works as advertised. I wish they had made the switches Decora. I put the override and rheostat on a wall opposite the fireplace to keep the wall with the fireplace clean of any switches. I also added a ceiling fan, so I have a 4 gang box with the room light switch, ceiling fan control, override switch (which I replaced with a Decora rocker switch) and the rheostat which is not Decora so I have to order a special faceplate.

6) The door gasket on one of the units has started to fray after 10 burns.

7) The manual says that the CAK4A should be caulked where it attaches to the unit and the flue. My installer did not do that and I noticed on one of the colder days that some cold air gets in. I may call him back to caulk. I don't notice much draft coming from the firestop above. I insulated the 3 exterior walls of the chase with Roxul R15 and caulked all of the gaps (but not between the flue and the firestop) in order keep the chase as warm as possible for draft purposes. I bought a IR temp reader and the coldest part of the chase is the cheapo uninsulated aluminum ducts for the CAK4A, combustion air and aux convection air. The ducts are literally the same temp as outside. Contemplating getting insulated ducts. Probably overkill, but that is how I roll.

8) I designed both units so that they are eye level. I hate looking down at fireplaces. It is really nice to sit on the couch and have secondary burn at eye-level. One of the units has a raised hearth, the other unit has a floor level hearth.

9) The original fireplaces were MDF mantels and surrounds with black marble hearths. I was never a fan of the look. Plus the Lennox units did not have a CAK4A kit so the air came straight down the flue into the chase and made the marble cold as marble. On cold mornings after a fire, I would wake up to ash on the hearth and ice on the folding doors. The new living room unit is Tenn. Crab Orchard hearth and mantel with South Bay Quartzite thin veneer surround in ashlar (80%) and square and rectangle (20%). The new family room unit is brownstone hearth with full bullnose since it lays on the floor and cedar hill mosaic surround. I just ordered a reclaimed wood, heart pine, planed smooth mantel with matching corbels. The floor in that room in cherry so I plan on staining the mantel to match. The stone is at the yard and the mantel should arrive in a few weeks. I can't wait to get it all installed.

I knew going in to this that it was going to be expensive and time consuming, but it was definitely worth it and I would do it over again in heartbeat. I am just glad I don't have to.

Regards,

JJL

 

[mecreature]

I really like that stone too. Looks great.