First a little background. I inherited a my father's home. It's a small cape in upstate NY. In it's basement there was an old Shanendoah coal stove. I'm not a coal guy so I started looking for a woodstove. I noticed a floor model 30 at Home Depot somewhere around August and talked the manager down 10% due to some cracked firebrick. (BTW, brick prices must have come down because replacement bricks were $1.50 each.) I got it home and ordered a 30 ft 5.5" insulated liner to go in the circa 1980 8x12 exterior masonry chimney. The chimney was about 25 feet tall but I didn't want a liner that was too short. Anyway it arrived and was installed.
Jump up to this month and I'm finally moved into the house. I cut the pipe and assembled and screwed it together with self tappers.
First issue: What exactly is a small break in fire for a 3.5 cubic foot firebox? Seriously, I tossed in a few splits and they just looked lonely in there. I had to add a few more. Probably a 2/3 load on my little 25K btu stove in the old house. That burnt down and went out.
Next day bigger fire: Here is my issue with Englander Marketing. Most stoves state 18" and you have to wedge and kick a 16" split through the door. Well, Englander states 20". I tossed a piece of scrap 2X2 in. Wait that looks a little longer than 20" so I pull it out and grab the tape measure. It's over 24" and fits with plenty of room to spare diagonally. NOW ALL MY WOOD, SO NICELY CUT TO 18" IS TOO SHORT. I'm going to send Englander a tape measure so they can fix their marketing materials. :D Ok, my beef really wasn't an issue. I had a few issues but they were not all that hard to figure out.
Issues and fixes:
Ash drawer: A little small, I covered up the slot with a new $1.50 firebrick. The plug is too big to store in the ash drawer. Really Englander, use a bit more of that big pedestal for an ash drawer!
Smoke escaping on opening the door: This one was kind of annoying. No matter how slow I opened the door a bit of smoke would escape. I was looking at the channel the gasses have to go up when I noticed one ceramic board was forward more than the other one. A scrap pushed it back and there is no longer an issue.
Draft: Holy smokes does this chimney pull! I have an old 6" damper from the coal setup. I'll be installing it soon. I have trouble keeping the temp down. I walked away from a load at half primary air for 20 minutes and almost pegged my magnetic stat. A Few big pots of water on top and 2 floor box fans brought the temp down fast. A full load of oak with the primary shut down all the way, than backed open about 1/4 of an inch will need to be reloaded in 6 hours. I really want to cook a pot of stew on this thing. It almost boils a big stew pot. This thing heats!
So right now the stove sits cold until I can get my butt down to install that damper in the singlewall. I'll go through way too much wood without it.
Matt
Jump up to this month and I'm finally moved into the house. I cut the pipe and assembled and screwed it together with self tappers.
First issue: What exactly is a small break in fire for a 3.5 cubic foot firebox? Seriously, I tossed in a few splits and they just looked lonely in there. I had to add a few more. Probably a 2/3 load on my little 25K btu stove in the old house. That burnt down and went out.
Next day bigger fire: Here is my issue with Englander Marketing. Most stoves state 18" and you have to wedge and kick a 16" split through the door. Well, Englander states 20". I tossed a piece of scrap 2X2 in. Wait that looks a little longer than 20" so I pull it out and grab the tape measure. It's over 24" and fits with plenty of room to spare diagonally. NOW ALL MY WOOD, SO NICELY CUT TO 18" IS TOO SHORT. I'm going to send Englander a tape measure so they can fix their marketing materials. :D Ok, my beef really wasn't an issue. I had a few issues but they were not all that hard to figure out.
Issues and fixes:
Ash drawer: A little small, I covered up the slot with a new $1.50 firebrick. The plug is too big to store in the ash drawer. Really Englander, use a bit more of that big pedestal for an ash drawer!
Smoke escaping on opening the door: This one was kind of annoying. No matter how slow I opened the door a bit of smoke would escape. I was looking at the channel the gasses have to go up when I noticed one ceramic board was forward more than the other one. A scrap pushed it back and there is no longer an issue.
Draft: Holy smokes does this chimney pull! I have an old 6" damper from the coal setup. I'll be installing it soon. I have trouble keeping the temp down. I walked away from a load at half primary air for 20 minutes and almost pegged my magnetic stat. A Few big pots of water on top and 2 floor box fans brought the temp down fast. A full load of oak with the primary shut down all the way, than backed open about 1/4 of an inch will need to be reloaded in 6 hours. I really want to cook a pot of stew on this thing. It almost boils a big stew pot. This thing heats!
So right now the stove sits cold until I can get my butt down to install that damper in the singlewall. I'll go through way too much wood without it.
Matt
