ESW Madison - Pics

[spirilis]

Received my new Madison today... had a little fun taking it apart, putting it back together and bolting on the fan.

The new stove (need to buy stovepipe this weekend & hook it up)-


Taking off the heat shields and back plate, we get to see the primary air intake system and the esteemed "Automatic Air Setback" mechanism.


The air draft control rod on the front of the stove pushes & pulls this mechanism all the way in the back.
When the air draft is all the way in (Full air), the AAS mechanism doesn't work (since the slider is clear of that S-shaped metal bracket you see on the left). Consequently, you can reset/disengage the AAS by moving the air control all the way in briefly.

Primary air is metered by moving the air draft lever on the top front of the stove inward (more air) or outward (less air), which widens or narrows the gap between the movable bracket and the stove's chassis. Primary air makes it way into the primary air channel (which travels all the way through the top center of the stove) through a gap (not illustrated here) above that movable bracket.


Turn down the air a bit, then twist the rod counter-clockwise and you "latch" the primary air control onto the S-shaped bracket (which freely moves up & down). When latched, you can see a new "channel" in the movable bracket lets air directly into the primary air channel (as opposed to making air travel above that bracket into the gap between it and the chassis) When the stove gets hot enough, the bimetal spring you see at the bend of the 'S' bracket must move its little piece upward to unlatch the air control so it's sitting square and no longer letting air through the center of the movable bracket.


Firebox. 18" maximum split side loaded east-west, 16" looks like a comfortable size for north-south loading.


Closer look at the primary air outlet and the control rod


Illustrating the firebox flue exit - see how primary air gets superheated by the hottest part of the stove


The ash bucket. An extra welded piece on the front helps keeps the ash bucket latched shut.


Inside the pedestal, looking at the back. The primary air goes through a long rectangular gap up above where the OAK inlet is located, into the area between the stove's chassis and the "inner" rear steel plate which contains the primary air mechanisms and secondary air inlet.


Looking towards the front inside of the pedestal, we have the ash dump hole and the doghouse air inlet (illustrating how the doghouse air is unmetered and unaffected by the primary air control)

 

[spirilis]

Here's the fan bolted on to the "outer" rear plate, illustrating the oiler hole.



Another look at the oiler hole:

 

[jeff_t]

Thanks for all the pics. I'll get a better look when I get on a computer. I like the specs on the stove. I'd like to try one, as some seem to struggle a bit with it. Guess I like a challenge.

Your flue setup looks a bit 'less than ideal'. I'll be watching with interest.

 

[spirilis]

Yeah I won't be lighting any breakin fires for a little while ;-)

 

[MaintenanceMan]

Great write-up. Looks good!

 

[spirilis]

I'd like to try one, as some seem to struggle a bit with it. Guess I like a challenge.

I don't recall who all had troubles with theirs, might go search later when I have the time, but this reminds me- I didn't actually get a pic of where secondary air comes in. I'm assuming that huge rectangular bulge below the primary air inlet is the secondary air inlet manifold and it has a slot under where air comes in.

If so, since all air has to come up through that space between the inner heatshield and chassis, it may be possible that the primary air simply can't breathe as easily as the secondary (since the secondary manifold forces primary air to squeeze through a rather wide but narrow gap) and so the secondaries breathe too easily (thus potentially cooling the burn tubes) to get the fire going "critical" if the wood is less-than-seasoned or your firestarting technique (or choice of firestarter) just sucks.

In that case, two strategies:

1. Find a way to make the primary breathe easier

2.Light all your fires with the intent to get the secondary zone blazing hot as early as possible. Top-down fires, in other words.

Some sort of washer between the inner heatshield and upper screw hole (just below primary manifold) might help if there's enough play. Alternately choking off the secondary inlet slightly (crumpled aluminum foil?) may rebalance things.

The fact is, the primary air has to travel a much longer distance and contort itself through more twists, turns and odd-shaped (wide-but-narrow) restrictions than the secondary does. So making it breathe easier should be important for any mods we do with it.

 

[spirilis]

First fire tonight! Just a small kindling fire per the breakin procedure. Stovetop hit a max of 120F I think. (manual says first break-in fire should hit ~300F or so, so next fire will be a bit more aggressive)

Shout outs to Clark's Ace Hardware for the stovepipe, got all 22ga and had their guys cut it to size. Fits like a glove.



Nice big, tall stove with a nice big, deep firebox (compared to the old Jotul 8 for sure). That little kindling fire seemed to draft beautifully with flames licking the baffle. That's 1/4 supercedar + small scoop of pellets + a handful of kiln dried kindling pieces.

 

[spirilis]

Felt bad about babying the stove on its first fire. So I stoked it up with 3 wood briquettes (2lb each) and 8 more sticks of kiln dried kindling.

By 200F stovetop temp, the secondaries were lit like a christmas tree:


Later on, the wood briquettes steadily burning on their own:


After a while they swell and start "falling away" from one another, and then (lack of proximity/wood briquettes aren't "helping each other" burn hot) the burn usually gets slower/smokier, so I opened the door and poked them all together towards the back. That lit up the center of the rear burn tube in a minute or 2. Still burning away and now I have the basement slider open ..... courtesy of the paint fumes ;-)

Max temp observed so far is 330F on the stovetop.

 

[begreen]

Next fire get the stove up to 450-500F and you will be done with baking in the paint.

 

[spirilis]

Not a lick of charcoal left in the firebox, all fluffy ash. Impressive.

This morning I did an 8-brick fire, it hovered around 450-480F most of the burn until late in the cycle when it finally pushed 500F and the AAS latch finally disengaged. Turning the draft control counter-clockwise now, it just falls back into normal position when you let go. Burning beautifully and even at the coaling stage of the wood briquette burn cycle there's a beautiful display of wispy bluish-yellow flames near the top.

 

[spirilis]

Tried a reload with some of the splits my coworker gave me (got almost a cord from him, mostly poplar). Tossed them on the wood briquette coals, gave it a minute (firebox got smoky), cracked the door a pinch and the splits caught fire... looked outside when the stovetop was ~450F and no visible smoke from the chimney. Guess that firewood's dry enough to burn (measured around 19-20% but that was on the outside of the splits, he said it'd been sitting there covered for over 2 years since he bought a pellet stove and didn't need it anymore...)

Tell you what though, compared to the Jotul 8 it replaced, that Madison throws the heat. Basement stairwell is a damned inferno right now. This is without the blower turned on (still need to figure out how I am going to run power over there).

 

[begreen]

Sounds like it's broken in now and ready for winter.

 

[MaintenanceMan]

They had a Madison out of the box and on display last night at my local Lowes. Finally got a good look at it. Solid looking product. I'd be curious what the burn times would be like.

 

[spirilis]

Just tried a top-down fire with a pair of oak splits and poplar kindling. Four bow-tied pieces of newspaper + quarter supercedar + gel, it worked exactly as advertised. 300F stovetop temps by 15-20min or so.

Ended up later with a dark firebox with glowing red, opened the door and realized it was smoky. Fixed this by pushing one split on top of the other and it went up in flame. I only say it's oak because I recognize the acrid smell of the smoke. Gonna have to double check the moisture meter on those. It's a mix that is over half poplar so there's a few harder woods in there. These splits sat in a standard rick for over 2yr but in the shade just inside the forest...

 

[BrotherBart]

Top down rules!

 

[spirilis]

ADDENDUM:

The Automatic Air Setback system depicted in my first post, with an "S-shaped" bracket and a bimetal spring pointing to the right, is actually incorrect - my stove and many others were accidentally assembled with the AAS spring ("Thermostatic Actuator" assembly) 180 degrees from how it's supposed to be oriented. ** The bimetal sprint should be pointing to the left, in light contact with the S-shaped bracket at all times.

** - not totally sure about this now, still tuning the spring to find the right trigger spot...

Here's a pic of the correct orientation (spring somewhat hidden here, it's touching the S-bracket):



To swap the Thermostatic Actuator around, here's a quick rundown of the procedure:

1. FIRST AND FOREMOST, save yourself a LOT OF TROUBLE by removing the front burntube and the 2 baffles (carefully) as mentioned in the Owner's Manual, then spray WD-40, PB Blaster or similar liquid aerosol lubricant on the back-side of the screws holding the Thermostatic Actuator in place. If you have Brake & Parts cleaner (an acetone-based spray typically used for cleaning automotive grime and brake dust), give it a thorough spray with that beforehand to reduce the amount of soot/creosote caked up on the screws' threads, then spray WD-40 or similar on them to lube 'em up.

Also open a nearby window to ensure the chimney drafts properly, that'll help keep the smell of the cleaners/lubricants out of your living space.

Picture from inside the stove, talking about the soot-coated screws to the upper-right and lower-left of the thermostatic actuator's cup:

(note in this image, the bolt holding the S-shaped bracket is already removed, that's the hole on the right)

2. With those lubricated, remove the rear heat shields so you have access to the primary air damper assembly. Using a 1/2" socket, remove the big bolt holding the S-shaped bracket to the stove.

3. With that bracket removed, using a 5/16" socket CAREFULLY remove the 2 screws holding the Thermostatic Actuator to the stove. If, when loosening the screws, it really seems to "bind up" on you just stop and turn it clockwise to tighten a bit, then try loosening again, working back and forth. If in doubt tighten it all the way (not too tight, just lightly firm) and re-oil the threads from inside the stove before proceeding.

4. Assuming you were successful in removing those screws, remove the Thermostatic Actuator assembly and turn it 180 degrees so the bimetal spring is pointing to the left. Reinstall the 2 screws possibly with some anti-seize compound added to the threads.

5. If you broke either of the screws for the Thermostatic Actuator, I feel for you. Try to remove the other screw so you can get the Thermostatic Actuator out of the way and use whatever tools you have available (hammer, dremel, vice grips, pliers, drill, etc) to get the broken screw out cleanly. I went through a bit of hell with this myself.

6. I replaced my screws, they require #10-3/4" or so Sheet Metal screws, I used stainless and the only kind I could find was a pan-head philips so I just used a screwdriver to install those. If your old screws are still in decent shape, you can reuse them.

7. Reinstall the S-shaped bracket by its bolt, taking care to wiggle the bracket up and down and see if it falls freely, but without too much sideways free play. I suspect some graphite lubricant might be a good idea inside the sliding parts of this mechanism as mine binds up a bit. I should be receiving some graphite lube tomorrow and might revisit this. Tighten the bolt until it's tight, check how freely the bracket moves up & falls on its own, and loosen a tiny bit as needed to make it fall freely but without having too much side-to-side free play.

8. Verify the primary air control will "latch" when you pull the air control out (from the top center of the front of the stove) and then turn it counter-clockwise; try holding a lighter to the bimetal spring (Thermostatic Actuator) in the back and see if that causes the AAS to de-latch, which should cause the air control to "fall back" clockwise to its resting spot.

9. Reinstall all the heat shields, carefully place the baffles back into the stove (pushing them all the way to the back and against their respective sides of the stove), then reinstall the front burn tube.

That's it. I think step #1 is the most important of all, and on top of that it'll give you a taste of experience for what it's like to change the burn tubes or baffles.

 

[Michael6268]

Englander quality control???
YIKES!

 

[spirilis]

Englander quality control???
YIKES!

Yeah, well I imagine a situation like this is a mfr's worst nightmare... beyond that the stove seems well built. Hopefully we don't see anything more like this but existing owners will need to do something (or ignore the AAS feature).

 

[spirilis]

Also a chronicle thread where we found out about this defect on some stoves here-http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/air-lever-on-englander-madison.147372/

 

[spirilis]

Fwiw, the baffle fiber boards are 8+3/4" by 15+3/4" in size, two of them, for a total baffle area of 17+1/2" by 15+3/4"

 

[sean b]

Interesting looking stove. How's it doing for overnight burn times? I'm also wondering how it is that it doesn't have the hearth requirements that most stoves do. This might be the stove for me as my hearth was custom built for the VC Encore 1450 and doesn't have much room to spare for higher capacity stoves.

 

[spirilis]

Can't really speak to overnight burns yet until I get a few in. A burn I did at 10pm one day was still holding coals for reload at 4am, with a little time to spare but that was a small/medium load of wood chunks.

My guess is the height of the pedestal gives it the generous hearth requirements, plus the fact the pedestal always has cold intake air flowing through it. The side clearances you can thank the heat shields.

 

[sean b]

Local Lowe's had this one on display today, with 5 more units in stock. For $750, I'm liking this stove more and more. If I have to re-cut some of my firewood to make sure it's 18" or less, I'm okay with that.

I just can't see spending $2500 to $3000 or more right now... just to have a really nice looking stove when these England products seem to deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

 

[spirilis]

It's a pretty sweet stove for the money IMO. I am delighted with my purchase so far.

 

[MaintenanceMan]

....these England products seem to deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

They certainly do! And excellent customer service too.