Learning the new Englander Madison

miked_187 said:

My thinking about the damper rod turning on the AAS was backwards,

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I have the same stove and the big brother. No on hearth at this time. If i remember correctly, the AAS twist to the left to set it up. Facing the stove. It works better if you let the stove cool down before reloads or from a cold stove. On hot reload it will not work and if you force it to stay it can never shut and give you an overfire condition. Reason is that the stove is too hot on hot reloads to the AAS mechanism too work properly.

begreen said:

Sounds like there is some misinformation here as well as a learning curve. 1" sticks are going to ignite quickly with a hot fire. That is kindling. The temps you are reporting are far from overfiring, in spite of what the support person said. This is a steel stove. The breakin period is minimal and primarily to bake in the fresh paint on the stove. You can not completely cut off the air on any EPA stove. That would smolder the fire which these stoves are designed to prevent.

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makes sense

The Englander is going to run and burn differently than the Defiant. @spirilis was an early Madison owner and documented the AAS operation. This thread may be helpful.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/esw-madison-pics.146903/

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great thread with all those photos, plus I know what to look for on a mis-assembled AAS when I take the back off "real soon now" and how to fix it if so, thanks for the pointer

For the Madison Englander, I have a question about the fiberboard. I have been experimenting with the placement of the fiberboard on the baffles. I have pushed the two pieces to the back and then pulled them toward the front with different results. When pushed toward the back, the glass on the stove gets dirty and smoke billows out when I open the door to re-load. When I have the fiberboard pulled toward the front, the glass stays clean and smoke doesn't billow out when I re-load. I read in another thread that you want the fiberboard pushed all the way towards the back. Can someone tell me the reasoning for this? Thanks.

henjj said:

For the Madison Englander, I have a question about the fiberboard. I have been experimenting with the placement of the fiberboard on the baffles. I have pushed the two pieces to the back and then pulled them toward the front with different results. When pushed toward the back, the glass on the stove gets dirty and smoke billows out when I open the door to re-load. When I have the fiberboard pulled toward the front, the glass stays clean and smoke doesn't billow out when I re-load. I read in another thread that you want the fiberboard pushed all the way towards the back. Can someone tell me the reasoning for this? Thanks.

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I'm not so sure secondary combustion would be bypassed as there's plenty of places for secondary air to come in along the firebox, but you're pushing the smoke directly to the back of the stovetop where the flue exit is located, reducing the smoke's residence time in the stove and reducing the amount of heat you trap from the fire's hot smoke. It's your firewood but you won't be getting as much heat per cord that way. Much more heat dumped out the chimney.

Also don't try using the Automatic Air Setback system, it will trigger super early when you run the stove that way. The AAS's bimetal spring protrudes in the back right side of the stovetop chamber (chamber above the baffles) and with the baffles forward, flames would hit it directly (instead of the bimetal spring housing receiving heat towards the end of the smoke's residence time just before it exits the flue).

Silenced38 said:

Unfortunately they dont sell any kind of pressed wood blocks within 100 miles of my area. But they do sell bags of kiln dried hickory blocks for wood smokers. As soon as i get my fiber board replaced ill try a bag of those.
Now of the things ive noticed 1 is the pine burns way better than the hardwood and 2nd the stove either has to be super hot or in the coal stage before i can open the door without smoke pouring out.

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Add another 3-6 feet of pipe to increase your draft.