Avalon Wood Stove Baffle blanket

[Jedford]

Hello, I am new to wood burning and have a few questions i'd appreciate any input on. I purchased a refurbished avalon pendleton 745 . The stoves output is on a 45 angle off the back. I still could not clear the fireplace opening so I took the legs off and set it on the floor inside the fireplace removed the damper door and used an ovalized stainless flex to get up into the liner and installed a blocking plate. The top of the burning chamber is not completely covered in fire brick ( I think the smaller one is missing ) and there is no kaowool blanket or blanket holder above the firebrick. The Air Tube spins by hand. I also do not have a chimeny cap.

question #1 Am I ok without the legs? ( the same model is available as an insert )

question #2 How important is the missing firebrick and kaowool blanket? ( can I run it a few times without them )

question #3 Does anyone know the specs on the blanket or where I may find one? ( Im near the Mass RI border but will take anything youve got )

question #4 Should I cover the opening between the hearth and stove?

question #5 which direction should the holes in the air tube be?

Thanks for any help!

Jedford

 

[EddyKilowatt]

I ran a freestanding Pendleton in my fireplace for a few years and have some thoughts.

question #1 Am I ok without the legs? ( the same model is available as an insert )

I think the stove will be sitting on sheet metal air shroud which seems marginal to hold up 300 lbs... I would suggest at least getting it up a few inches if you can and supporting it via the leg attach points (you can make leg substitutes out of metal or possibly brick). I'll let others comment on the code/inspection issues of this.

question #2 How important is the missing firebrick and kaowool blanket? ( can I run it a few times without them )

You definitely need the firebrick in order to have a complete baffle and proper flame path... good news is that all the bricks in that stove are either standard 'split' firebricks, or can be cut from standard splits, which are available at any well-stocked building supply place.

The blanket just adds some extra thermal insulation to the baffle and helps with a better secondary burn... you can run without it. I just used a piece of ceramic wool liner blanket (left over from my liner install) cut to fit the stove; it seemed to hold up fine. Kind of a bother to get it in place (remove half the baffle bricks), but probably worth doing. My stove was also missing the blanket hold-down piece, but I had pretty weak draft (12' flue) and never had any issues with it getting sucked up into the flow path. YMMV.

question #3 Does anyone know the specs on the blanket or where I may find one? ( Im near the Mass RI border but will take anything youve got )

Again, doesn't seem to be a difficult (unusually high temperature or mechanically rugged) application... foil-faced liner wrap worked fine for me.

question #4 Should I cover the opening between the hearth and stove?

Not if you've got a good block-off plate up in the chimney.

question #5 which direction should the holes in the air tube be?

Facing forward (toward the door), angled down about 30 degrees or so. If you look at the end of the air tube where it inserts into the spigot in the stove wall, you'll see a drilled hole with a corresponding hole in the spigot. There is meant to be a small stainless spring-loaded pin that inserts here to keep these holes aligned, but you can just eyeball it until you find a dealer and order the part. (Avalon recently shut down mail order of their parts, so you apparently have to go thru a dealer now.)

Hope this helps,
Eddy

 

[Jedford]

Eddy, Thank you very much. Since I decided to give wood a try Ive been on here often, learning what i can and really appreciate the whole community. Thanks to all

John