To recap how this started if you haven't followed the related thread, the sweep that came to my house earlier this week broke my baffle board in half, and pretty good, too. Wasn't just cracked, it was pretty broken. So I had to get a replacement. I knew I could always order from SBI and my options were the vermiculite board that came with my insert or the c-cast board that comes in the Osburn model. The vermiculite board was $55 + foreign transaction fee + shipping. The c-cast board was $110 + same ancillary costs. There had to be an alternative, so I started shopping.
I looked at the usual online hearth suppliers (quite a few of them are right near me), didn't really find anything, so I hopped over to Amazon. I ended up finding what seemed to be some random company selling SBI replacement baffles for just a little bit less than the vermiculite boards from SBI, but they weren't vermiculite or c-cast, they were made of superwool by Lynn Mfg (actual Amazon seller was called something else). Did some quick research and from what I gathered Lynn supplies insulation products to the hearth industry as OEM parts. Cool, but what the heck was superwool? Well, come to find out that these superwool products are a newer material that is cheaper to make than c-cast products but insulates better than c-cast. Companies are moving more and more to the superwool stuff. Sold.
I ordered it on Amazon late Monday night, it shipped Tuesday afternoon, and was on my doorstep Thursday afternoon...all for free shipping. I only had two options for shipping, both of which were free: standard and economy, both of which projected the board to arrive sometime next week starting Tuesday. I've had good luck with sellers who don't use Amazon fulfillment and selecting the free shipping and getting it much sooner than expected. Case in point, I bought replacement firebricks as well the same night, fulfilled by Amazon, still hasn't shipped yet.
Box was directly from Lynn Mfg and was packaged nicely. Was kind of worried about it showing up broken, but the guys at UPS paid attention to the fragile label. Gave it a couple of taps, felt solid and sturdy compared to vermiculite. It was the right dimensions and everything, but seemed like there was a slight bow to it where the edges curled up/down depending on how you looked at it. Not sure how these are made so hard for me to gauge what would cause that. It looked very minor so I put it in anyway and having it resting up on the tubes confirmed it was definitely bowed. Currently have it in there so that the middle is sitting on the tubes and edges flare up. Not sure which way would be best, maybe the other way?
Started up a fire with some small splits to warm everything back up, get some coals and ash in the firebox, then put in 5 med sized splits.
So initial thoughts. Maybe this is just placebo effect so don't take this as scientific by any means right now, but I feel like I am getting hotter temps than I was before under similar load sizes. Secondaries seemed more robust and more blue in color. So far so good.
I looked at the usual online hearth suppliers (quite a few of them are right near me), didn't really find anything, so I hopped over to Amazon. I ended up finding what seemed to be some random company selling SBI replacement baffles for just a little bit less than the vermiculite boards from SBI, but they weren't vermiculite or c-cast, they were made of superwool by Lynn Mfg (actual Amazon seller was called something else). Did some quick research and from what I gathered Lynn supplies insulation products to the hearth industry as OEM parts. Cool, but what the heck was superwool? Well, come to find out that these superwool products are a newer material that is cheaper to make than c-cast products but insulates better than c-cast. Companies are moving more and more to the superwool stuff. Sold.
I ordered it on Amazon late Monday night, it shipped Tuesday afternoon, and was on my doorstep Thursday afternoon...all for free shipping. I only had two options for shipping, both of which were free: standard and economy, both of which projected the board to arrive sometime next week starting Tuesday. I've had good luck with sellers who don't use Amazon fulfillment and selecting the free shipping and getting it much sooner than expected. Case in point, I bought replacement firebricks as well the same night, fulfilled by Amazon, still hasn't shipped yet.
Box was directly from Lynn Mfg and was packaged nicely. Was kind of worried about it showing up broken, but the guys at UPS paid attention to the fragile label. Gave it a couple of taps, felt solid and sturdy compared to vermiculite. It was the right dimensions and everything, but seemed like there was a slight bow to it where the edges curled up/down depending on how you looked at it. Not sure how these are made so hard for me to gauge what would cause that. It looked very minor so I put it in anyway and having it resting up on the tubes confirmed it was definitely bowed. Currently have it in there so that the middle is sitting on the tubes and edges flare up. Not sure which way would be best, maybe the other way?
Started up a fire with some small splits to warm everything back up, get some coals and ash in the firebox, then put in 5 med sized splits.
So initial thoughts. Maybe this is just placebo effect so don't take this as scientific by any means right now, but I feel like I am getting hotter temps than I was before under similar load sizes. Secondaries seemed more robust and more blue in color. So far so good.
