Happy Holidays Everyone - hope you all had a Happy New Year's.
So, as some of you may have seen a few of my first posts regarding installing and first burns of a new woodstove, you'll recall that I am newbie to all of this and am learning a lot as I go. Okay, down to business...
The first week of burns have been great with my Century noncat. Having lots of fun, getting great heat and enjoying the silence of my oil burner (after having filled twice already since November to the tune of $1040 total so far @ 3.199 a gallon - sheesh!!). I put a Rutland magnetic thermometer on the stove top and have been keeping temps, in general, betwen 400-500*F during burns. I would let the stove burn hot for the first couple hours or so to get some heat started fast and then I'd start to damp her down to increase burn time. First few days, no problem.
Starting yesterday and into today, I am now seeing that my air flow/draft control on the front of hte stove is doing nothing to damp the fire. Basically, turn her down all the way and flames still dance as if I had too much draft. Door appears tightly closed, ash pan is fully seated although I do see that the biggest area of coals are on top of the ash cleanout brick in the firebox. I am suspicous that there is air entering hte stove from the ash pan drawer box. Does this happen?
It also appears that the draft control is working properly - at least the mechanical action is. Any thoughts?
FOr background, this stove is the Century FW247001, 6" flue. This is a TTW installation using Selkirk superpipe double wall inside (~4ft vert off stove into 90* and 12" into Class A - total inside length = 5.5', again, 4ft is vert, 1.5' is horizontal). The exterior is about 11' exposed Selkirk SuperPro 6" class A. The stove states minimum 15' chimney height from the floor that stove is installed on. My total height from the floor wound up about 16.5-17' or so in order to meet code. So going with an exposed SS chimney at slightly over mfg's min height, I would think that overdraft from the chimey is not the problem. One final piece of info is that I looked up the chimney from the outside tee and found hte entire inside is black. No large build-ups but looks completely sooty. The cleanout bottom cap had 1" of water sitting in it. Good/bad?
Cheers All. Best for a prosperous 2008.
So, as some of you may have seen a few of my first posts regarding installing and first burns of a new woodstove, you'll recall that I am newbie to all of this and am learning a lot as I go. Okay, down to business...
The first week of burns have been great with my Century noncat. Having lots of fun, getting great heat and enjoying the silence of my oil burner (after having filled twice already since November to the tune of $1040 total so far @ 3.199 a gallon - sheesh!!). I put a Rutland magnetic thermometer on the stove top and have been keeping temps, in general, betwen 400-500*F during burns. I would let the stove burn hot for the first couple hours or so to get some heat started fast and then I'd start to damp her down to increase burn time. First few days, no problem.
Starting yesterday and into today, I am now seeing that my air flow/draft control on the front of hte stove is doing nothing to damp the fire. Basically, turn her down all the way and flames still dance as if I had too much draft. Door appears tightly closed, ash pan is fully seated although I do see that the biggest area of coals are on top of the ash cleanout brick in the firebox. I am suspicous that there is air entering hte stove from the ash pan drawer box. Does this happen?
It also appears that the draft control is working properly - at least the mechanical action is. Any thoughts?
FOr background, this stove is the Century FW247001, 6" flue. This is a TTW installation using Selkirk superpipe double wall inside (~4ft vert off stove into 90* and 12" into Class A - total inside length = 5.5', again, 4ft is vert, 1.5' is horizontal). The exterior is about 11' exposed Selkirk SuperPro 6" class A. The stove states minimum 15' chimney height from the floor that stove is installed on. My total height from the floor wound up about 16.5-17' or so in order to meet code. So going with an exposed SS chimney at slightly over mfg's min height, I would think that overdraft from the chimey is not the problem. One final piece of info is that I looked up the chimney from the outside tee and found hte entire inside is black. No large build-ups but looks completely sooty. The cleanout bottom cap had 1" of water sitting in it. Good/bad?
Cheers All. Best for a prosperous 2008.
