My brother just bought a used Appalachian 36BW insert, and we're helping him test-fire it before installing it in his house. (I'm sure that this is not the best insert, so let's just call it an entry-level model for this exercise.) The guy who sold it to my brother said they pulled it b/c they wanted to see a real fire. It was in his house when he bought it in the last year or two, and he has the original receipt from purchase in Nov. 2005. It could only have four seasons of burning.
Here's what we see on inspection/testing: The cats look good and everything "seems" generally OK; however, there is a lot of creosote build-up on this unit. We "assume" it has not been burned properly, which has led to the major gunk. We are burning some hot fires in it and melting/cleaning some of the creosote from the unit. The glass door is completely covered with soot/creosote, and of course, you can't really scrape it to clean it. I think this unit supposedly has an air-wash system to help keep the glass fairly clean, but I doubt that will help with this level of film. Guess we know why the last owners wanted to see a "real fire"...
SO...here are the questions:
1) Any suggestions for how to clean the unit (besides burning and brushing off some of the gunk in a controlled environment first)?
2) Should we look for other possible "issues" with the insert that may have led to such build-up? We've had a few Bucks and a Quadra-Fire, so we have decent experience with inserts -- but we certainly may be overlooking something critical.
3) We did notice that the stove was back-drafting when we test-fired it, including smoke coming out of the door when it was opened. It seems to be better when we attach a flue pipe to help pull the smoke, but obviously we can't recreate the exact set-up you'd have in a house by burning this insert outside. My brother doesn't want to install the insert if he can't have some reasonable expectation that it will draft properly in his house, and he'd also like it to work properly without all the build-up. I think there is something not "perfect" in our test-firing, or that burning the insert outside in the open air does not exactly replicate what happens when an insert is in a FP box, trimmed out, etc. Is this an accurate assumption (as assumptions go)?
Thanks,
Karen
Arkansas
Here's what we see on inspection/testing: The cats look good and everything "seems" generally OK; however, there is a lot of creosote build-up on this unit. We "assume" it has not been burned properly, which has led to the major gunk. We are burning some hot fires in it and melting/cleaning some of the creosote from the unit. The glass door is completely covered with soot/creosote, and of course, you can't really scrape it to clean it. I think this unit supposedly has an air-wash system to help keep the glass fairly clean, but I doubt that will help with this level of film. Guess we know why the last owners wanted to see a "real fire"...
SO...here are the questions:
1) Any suggestions for how to clean the unit (besides burning and brushing off some of the gunk in a controlled environment first)?
2) Should we look for other possible "issues" with the insert that may have led to such build-up? We've had a few Bucks and a Quadra-Fire, so we have decent experience with inserts -- but we certainly may be overlooking something critical.
3) We did notice that the stove was back-drafting when we test-fired it, including smoke coming out of the door when it was opened. It seems to be better when we attach a flue pipe to help pull the smoke, but obviously we can't recreate the exact set-up you'd have in a house by burning this insert outside. My brother doesn't want to install the insert if he can't have some reasonable expectation that it will draft properly in his house, and he'd also like it to work properly without all the build-up. I think there is something not "perfect" in our test-firing, or that burning the insert outside in the open air does not exactly replicate what happens when an insert is in a FP box, trimmed out, etc. Is this an accurate assumption (as assumptions go)?
Thanks,
Karen
Arkansas
