These two topics might or might not be related.
I am running a 16-17 year old Cat stove with a warped damper houseing. I noticed the other day that I had a gap above the cats where the felt tape insulation had been that was empty. The culprit was a loose bolt. the boltholding that damper extender to the roof of the stove was loose and when putting wood into the stove it got banged around....moved back and forth ever so much, and eventually the felt worked it's way loose. Nobody seems to cary the felt except mail/internet order companies. So, I went to lowes bought two door gasket kits 3/8 and 5/8 inch and took the stove apart. cut the gasket into several pieces, glued it in, re attatched the damper extender.....tighter this time, ....and I'm back in business. Clean burns. High temps. Glowing cats. I do wonder however if this had an adverse effect on my wood consumption. here it is the beginning of Jan and I have been very unscientifically pulling from 4 diferrent wood stacks. I started out pulling from one main stack of 3 year old oak. Then I started to cherry pick from a "punky stack" to add pieces that I thought were ready for burning. Then I started grabbing from another stack because it was odd shaped and I wanted the tarps covering it to fit better. Then it started raining a lot, or the boys would forget to pull wood until it was dark and I let them start taking from the closest stack....so I have no valid way of saying how much wood I have used to date. I probably should go out one day this week and move wood from one spot to another to consolidate at least two of these stacks but I am rather lazy and probly won't.....I will just eyeball it all and say that I have burned less than 2 cords.
I am running a 16-17 year old Cat stove with a warped damper houseing. I noticed the other day that I had a gap above the cats where the felt tape insulation had been that was empty. The culprit was a loose bolt. the boltholding that damper extender to the roof of the stove was loose and when putting wood into the stove it got banged around....moved back and forth ever so much, and eventually the felt worked it's way loose. Nobody seems to cary the felt except mail/internet order companies. So, I went to lowes bought two door gasket kits 3/8 and 5/8 inch and took the stove apart. cut the gasket into several pieces, glued it in, re attatched the damper extender.....tighter this time, ....and I'm back in business. Clean burns. High temps. Glowing cats. I do wonder however if this had an adverse effect on my wood consumption. here it is the beginning of Jan and I have been very unscientifically pulling from 4 diferrent wood stacks. I started out pulling from one main stack of 3 year old oak. Then I started to cherry pick from a "punky stack" to add pieces that I thought were ready for burning. Then I started grabbing from another stack because it was odd shaped and I wanted the tarps covering it to fit better. Then it started raining a lot, or the boys would forget to pull wood until it was dark and I let them start taking from the closest stack....so I have no valid way of saying how much wood I have used to date. I probably should go out one day this week and move wood from one spot to another to consolidate at least two of these stacks but I am rather lazy and probly won't.....I will just eyeball it all and say that I have burned less than 2 cords.
