trump said:Red
I cant see how your wood could be "too dry" ,i burn wood that is 100 years old and has been drying for that period of time. You said you did not think your stove was heating properly,that would be either a result of wet wood,too little draft or not in reburn.IMO The last place i had my stove there was an open cleanout in the basement which i plugged in order to strengthen the draft through the stove. When working properly this stove will roast you out There are several other guys on hearth,com using this stove with very good results. Im wondering if you have adequate draft until you close the bypass and then you chimney starts pulling from a path of less resistance via your open cleanout.
Harman told the tech if the wood is too dry, it just burns up and doesn't "smolder" to produce the smoke to be burned to create the heat. I can see where if the wood is really dry it may not last as long; but I can't see how that would make it not go into AB. The tech that came out was going to go find wet wood so he could see if Harman was right. I immediately told him about you and how you burn wood from old houses and I was pretty sure that wood was very dry.
The chimney repairman that came out today said our chimney is a mess. The liner is not insulated; the pipe from the stove does not connect to the liner; the liner has no terminal cap; and it looks like there is no metal plate at the top to keep air from flowing freely around the liner. He's going to give us a quote on putting in a 6" liner (to match the stove), with insulation, all airtight from the stove to the roof. I had hoped he could put some sort of cap on the bottom of the liner or figure out a way to block it somehow so we could at least use the stove for the next couple days, but we didn't have any luck at that.
So, I guess we'll get to wait a week or two before we see if the stove is going to work once the draft issues are solved. I did learn a ton of info from this post and I want to thank everyone who replied; lots of very good information. I learned a lot about chimneys in a few short days!