Englander 30 NCH Please Help Me Trouble Shoot this...

[jared539]

eurekkkkaaa i got it working like a charm. i found some window expafoam seal that my buddy sells for his company... its like expandafoam but its more weather sturdy... anyway it dries in 5 minutes. i slapped a bead around the outside of the door seal and closed and rested a few bricks against it and then sealed the door lip all the way around to make sure it was air tight. i got the fire going again using some 2 by 4 chops and some cut pieces of the fire wood. i get it going good by gradually closing the door. i finally get it closed and to my surprise the fire stayed lit ... i left the room and came back 10 minutes later thinkking it would chit the bed again but it was going even hotter... so said alrighty.... lemme try to close the air supply... to my surprise i heard wind howling in my stove pipe told me that this thing was air tight and i had that tight draft i was missing.... the fire at the bottom of the coals disappeared and the entire top of the rods was passing flames through every hole... i gave it some more air and set it at a good rate .... i had my knob slid a little farther out than the ash lip...

thank you for the input guys...

anyone out there that has one of these stoves with a clean out door you need to expandafoam it shut or something .... it makes a huuuuge difference especially me with a larger sized flue


thanks again !!

 

[jared539]

that whole post i was talking about the chimney clean out door and making it air tight... i never mentioned that to start... just excited

burn baby burn

now i can relax with a beer instead of nursing the fire all night long...

early Christmas present

 

[HotCoals]

Very good to hear!

 

[BrotherBart]

Great. Here's yer shirt.

 

[jared539]

haha thanks! ... yea i got the thing going good now... even with the temp about 50 last night i got the draft going good... it was really windy last night too.. is wind good for the draft or bad? I could hear the strong wind in the stove pipe... the wind gusts had to be 40 miles an hour last night... it sounded like my roof was going to rip off... it was a weird weather night ... do you think the stong wind was the reason why my fire was roaring with the door closed or do you think that it was really because of my sealed clean out door?

I had that fire going perfect... the air control felt like a dimmer light switch with the amount of control i had over it!

 

[BrotherBart]

Wind over the top of the chimney can increase draft. But the only way to find out how much is to fire it up when the wind isn't blowing.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Im not recommending this but i just hooked up a 30 in my workshop,the only chimney in the room is 12x12 inside measurement clay liner thats right 12 x12, its a monster. I thought for sure i would have to drop down a 6" pipe inside it and run it out thru the flue thimble. So just for the heck of it i tried the stove "as is" in the chimney. To my surprise it works fine and the stove cruised right up to 700 Deg stovetop, good draft even when cold its, not hard to get a draft going. Im not sure if ill leave it like this but for now i get good temps and good secondaries.

 

[jared539]

Hi Randy,

The only thing i did was air tight the seal of my clean out door... this created an air tight suction that helped my draft especially when i close the door to the stove. It still amazes me how much that helped!

i cant wait to go home and burn some wood... kinda stinks that its 50 degrees in New England on December 22nd... maybe i wont burn tonight but the next time i do I WILL BE IN CONTROL!

2 cords of seasoned wood in my yard! YEAAAAAAAA

jared

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I dont remember anyone on this forum who ever attempted to hook up a 30 to a 12 x12 chimney,and have it work as well. Still experimenting with the concept. Im amazed myself that it works....so far.

 

[jared539]

Guys shave the stove going good now with the door closed. For some reason smoke still coming of the chimney at a fair rate. The tubes are lit but still seeing some smoke. I thoughtthese stoves burned with no smoke coming out if the secondary burn was working???

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Guys shave the stove going good now with the door closed. For some reason smoke still coming of the chimney at a fair rate. The tubes are lit but still seeing some smoke. I thoughtthese stoves burned with no smoke coming out if the secondary burn was working???

I have found that the higher the stovetop temps the less smoke you will see between 600 and 750 seems to be the sweet spot. Sometimes you have to back the air down to stop the smoke.

 

[jared539]

yea for some reason i cant get the stove to burn that hot... i dunno... maybe my wood is wet... it seems like when i reload the wood (after i get it with nothing but coals from the kindling and small pieces).... the stove is so hot that i can barely load it it wants to burn my hand going anywhere near the door... when i throw in a full size piece of wood i leave the door cracked to get it going.... once i get it going good i close the door ... for some reason the big pieces don't burn to the point that it gets hot enough (with the big pieces in) to get the secondary burn going... i notice that even when the kindling is burning down i see that the kindling in the back is really black but for some reason doesn't burn as thoroughly as the wood in the front.


i dont get it ... it doesnt burn as hot as i want... im going to the store today to get a wood meter to see how seasoned the wood is... i will post back later... in the meantime .. any ideas ??? Seasoned Oak... how often do you get the stove burning that hot?? how do you reload it and all that?

 

[jared539]

i think thats where my problem with keeping the door closed starts... when i get it going hot as hell i go to throw full pieces in the stove and they do not seem to want to get hot enough to get to the secondary burn.... kind of sucks

 

[PapaDave]

leeave96 asked about your splits/wood. Lots of folks presume their firewood is "seasoned" when in fact it's marginal. You can still burn it, but will see results like you're having.
MANY, MANY posts about this every year. Not ragging on you, just trying to inform.
Sounds like the wood may be a bit wet still. Once you get that meter, you'll know for sure.
Good on 'ya for getting the cleanout sealed up, and glad the stove is burning better.
Merry Christmas eve!
Oh, welcome to the Hearth, in case that hasn't been said yet. :coolsmile:

 

[jared539]

im going to upload some videos so you can see if its normal or not... you guys that own this thing would know a lot better than me...

 

[jared539]

thank you papa dave i appreciate it.... yea at this point im thinking maybe its the wood... im going to get that meter today and post the videos.. with more information on the wood and videos to see whats happening i am sure you guys will be able to help clear up some of my confusion and trouble shooting. thank you for the welcoming to hearth.com ... you guys are great and i appreciate everything .... i dont take anything as ragging and im not afraid to ask stupid questions... perfect recipe for a forum right!? i ask the questions other people are afraid to ask becuase you never know what you think is right just may not be .... investigate and inspect what you expect is my motto....

 

[jared539]

This first video is when i just put the wood in the stove and let it sit for about 5 minutes with the door cracked... i close the door and you can see its going good



[youtube]http://youtu.be/6lZw7UkHFUk[/youtube]



this second video is when i come back 10 minutes later i have the air control fully open and the wood isnt burning as well... is this normal? do you guys see anything worng with this??? i expect it to be burning the secondary burn at this point ... would you expect that too???



[youtube]http://youtu.be/kr-FQKwYR90[/youtube]

 

[jared539]

I'd try lighting a big load of lots of kindling and small splits to see if you can really get the flames roaring with the door cracked open. After that see if you can close the door and maintain a good fire. Have you been able to get a really nice fire going for an hour and there still isn't enough draft? Then you have a problem, I think. My clay chimney starts quite slowly in my opinion, but after a half hour or less it is working great even from a completely cold start. My chimney is 6 5/8 inches round clay, so it is the right size just a material that heats up a little more slowly than steel.

you can see from the videos i just posted that the fire i going good and then it wants to die out 10 minutes after i close the door...

 

[jared539]

..if there is maybe it's unhooked?

The last one hundred times people wondered that, it wasn't.

To the OP, the next time the stove is down to coals load the wood pointed front to back which is call North/South loading. It allows better airflow between the splits. If you have burned enough to get a chimney draw and have a good coal bed and it doesn't burn then you are trying to burn rocks. :coolsmirk:

And get over wanting to see a bunch of fire out of those tubes up top. What you are after is a nice burning fire and a stove top temperature around 550 to 600. Be careful with that N/S loading until you get some practice. Too much wood stuffed in there could get you in a overfire situation.

HI Brotha Bart... i wanted you to see what my situation is with the videos... does this look normail or is there something wrong... im getting a wood meter today to end the speculation that it may be the wood.. i appreciate you taking a look at my videos

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Where are you putting the temp guage? I put it right in the front of the stove before the raised portion in the steel. thats where you will see the hottest temps. Looks like your draft is kind of lazy and your splits are too big or too wet or both. try splitting down to smaller pieces.

 

[jared539]

Where are you putting the temp guage? I put it right in the front of the stove before the raised portion in the steel. thats where you will see the hottest temps. Looks like your draft is kind of lazy and your splits are too big or too wet or both. try splitting down to smaller pieces.

I have a thermal gun with a red laser... it tells me what the temp of the stove is... its usually around 500 on the top plate


you can see in the first video with the door cracked the draft is goign crazy ... i close the door and it goes good for about ten minutes... the second video shows after 10 minutes it dies down a bit

 

[laynes69]

I also think wet wood and lack of draft. Seasoned wood and a liner will solve these problems. I dealt with the exact same thing the first year with our furnace. After having seasoned wood and a liner the second year, performance was great. The moisture in the wood won't allow for high enough temps in the larger flue to produce a good stable draft.

 

[BrotherBart]

HI Brotha Bart... i wanted you to see what my situation is with the videos... does this look normail or is there something wrong... im getting a wood meter today to end the speculation that it may be the wood.. i appreciate you taking a look at my videos

For one thing don't build up that pile of coals in the back of the firebox. Before you put more splits in either rake the coals out in to a flat bed if it is a large bed or up to the front if they have burned down some. You want those splits sittting level and close to each other. But you really should be burning those coals down a lot more before putting on more wood. Before long you are going to have a firebox full of coals and no room for wood.

Rake the coals to the front and open the air to burn them down before adding wood. There is a lot of heat in those coals.

 

[jared539]

HI Brotha Bart... i wanted you to see what my situation is with the videos... does this look normail or is there something wrong... im getting a wood meter today to end the speculation that it may be the wood.. i appreciate you taking a look at my videos

For one thing don't build up that pile of coals in the back of the firebox. Before you put more splits in either rake the coals out in to a flat bed if it is a large bed or up to the front if they have burned down some. You want those splits sittting level and close to each other. But you really should be burning those coals down a lot more before putting on more wood. Before long you are going to have a firebox full of coals and no room for wood.

Rake the coals to the front and open the air to burn them down before adding wood. There is a lot of heat in those coals.

okay will do!

is that why you think the big pieces aren't burning? what did you think of what you saw in the video ... is that normal?

 

[jared539]

it seems like the fire wants to burn up the middle .... the side dont want to burn as well... do you guys get the same results too?