Air Restricted

[southbalto]

Well, I've spent enough time on this site to know how common complaint this is. My Jotul Castine had done an adequate job of heating my home over the last few years. I did struggle, especially the first year, with poor burn times and difficult startups, but I attributed it to less than ideal wood. I was hopeful that this year would be much better since the wood I'm burning was CSS in 2010. After a rough start, I decided to do some investigating. I removed the baffle, which is actually shaped like an envelope (there is a top and bottom and the air enters through the side. Sure enough I found some insulation or gasket material that was wedged inside the baffle! It must of shipped from the factory with it inside....

The secondary action I'm getting now is much improved; however, I'm concerned now that there might be restrictions in other parts of the stove. I was able to snake a wire from the primary opening back to the air inlet on one side but I haven't tried the other air channels. I'm wondering now if it would be smart to run an endoscope or small pipe snake through the stove to make sure everything is in order.

Anyone else have an issue like this?

 

[begreen]

That's odd. Seems like a good question for Jotul. I could see packing the left and right edge of the manifold, but not the center.

 

[Huntindog1]

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/cleaning-the-jotul-f-400-castine-secondary-air-removal.44700/

There is some info in this posting that may help.

The material may have been the side gasket material talked about it that posing. It could have gotten dislodged. If so you may need to make sure your secondary baffle assembly is sealed on the sides.

 

[southbalto]

Yea, it's really odd. Hunting-thanks for the link! The material I found in the baffle is really fluffy/uncompressed. It's very different from the gasket material used to seat the baffle to the shelf. I might try to isolate the openings (left and right baffle, outside air, and primary air) one by one using plastic and apply some vacuum pressure to see if there is any other blockages/resistance inside the stove.