Flame shield rattle/stovepipe temps

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graycatman

Member
Mar 7, 2010
48
Mid-Hudson Valley, NY
I am new here, so first things first: thank you all for invaluable advice on what stove to buy, how to install how to burn, how to season, in short, everything i need to enjoy my woodstove experience.

My setup: early Feb. installed a PE Summit free-standing stove in my family room (26' x 12', "tray" ceiling 17' at highest). 14' of double-wall stovepipe straight up (Selkirk DSP), to 2 45's to get it through the ceiling in the right place, straight into into 14' of Metalbestos SS chimney, 2' of which is in the attic. Then straight through the roof of the family room, which is actually a subroof, past the roofline of the main roof, ending about on level, or perhaps a bit above, the highest point of the main roof.

Questions: 1. After my first few fires, I notice that when i walk past the stove after it has been warm for a while (usually only 350-450), I hear a metallic rattling, like two pieces of metal hitting against eachother. Long story short, Kathy at PE (who has been very helpful about various things I have asked her (and what do you know, PE will actually talk with their customers-yeah!)) suggested this was a known issue with the flame shield, and i should try taking out the baffle, side rails and flame shield, and then reinstalling everything, and this might solve the issue. While i was trying to get the bolt on the flame shield to budge, Kathy called back. she had checked internally and sometimes the bolt can get fused in place, so just rattle the flame shield and try to move it, and that might stop the rattle. I could only pivot the flame shield about 1/4". Put everything back. Still have the rattle. I will follow-up with Kathy tomorrow (as she asked me to). Does this ring (or rattle) a bell with anyone?

2. Outside temp of DSP, measured using a Kintrex IR gun. many interesting posts here about the usefulness/meaning/ futility of outside temps of double wall. Seems flue gasses are somewhere between less than 2x and more than 3x the outside wall temp. That's a big range. A. My outside temps 18" above the stove can be 250-270, but 12"-18" above that they drop substantially. I thought the point of knowing more or less what your flue gas temp is was to make sure you are burning hot enough to help retard creosote buildup (and I suppose make sure you are not so hot that you compromise the stack, although that seems unlikely). But if so much heat is lost going up the stack, why is the temp so near the stove so important? B. The temp on the right side of my pipe almost always measures 20-50 degrees higher than on the left side of the pipe. Any idea why this would happen?

Again, many thanks to you all.
 
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