Flue Damper with Englander 13NC

[Catfish Hunter]

So the wood stove is installed and burning hot. The installation says that this stove doesn't need a flue damper - but I was considering one to help extend burn times after the fire is good and hot. Has anyone else had luck with this? My thought would be once it has gotten nice and hot, damp it down, then after a while damp the flue to extend the burn time and have coals left longer.

 

[blades]

stove control itself should be enough unless you have a very tall flue or some sort of external situation that is causing an extremely high draft rate. Once you have a hot fire going ( top of stove about 400 ) with the control wide open start sliding it in a bit at a time about every 10 minutes or so. Generally around the 1/4 way open will give about the best fire / secondary operation and time length. You will get to a point ( with good dry fuel) that the flames you see are just rolling at the top of the stove no real flames on logs themselves, this is the secondary burn just burning the gas coming off the wood. It will take a bit of experience with your stove to get things down part- several UTube vids of secondaries in action.
Adding a second damper can sometimes cause more problems than it's worth.
also note that even with the control full pushed in there will still be combustion air available to the fire from other intakes. ( glass air wash and secondary combustion air supply which are not controlled by the internal damper on the main air supply.

 

[SlyFerret]

Unless your chimney is extremely tall and your draft is too strong to control the stove even with the air control all the way closed down, I wouldn't recommend messing with your chimney.

What do you get if you close the air down all the way?

-SF

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

 

[Catfish Hunter]

stove control itself should be enough unless you have a very tall flue or some sort of external situation that is causing an extremely high draft rate. Once you have a hot fire going ( top of stove about 400 ) with the control wide open start sliding it in a bit at a time about every 10 minutes or so. Generally around the 1/4 way open will give about the best fire / secondary operation and time length. You will get to a point ( with good dry fuel) that the flames you see are just rolling at the top of the stove no real flames on logs themselves, this is the secondary burn just burning the gas coming off the wood. It will take a bit of experience with your stove to get things down part- several UTube vids of secondaries in action.
Adding a second damper can sometimes cause more problems than it's worth.
also note that even with the control full pushed in there will still be combustion air available to the fire from other intakes. ( glass air wash and secondary combustion air supply which are not controlled by the internal damper on the main air supply.

Good advice! We definitely get good secondary - but sometimes even with it damped all the way down it's still burning up too fast - it even seems to pick up steam as it goes.

I will play around with the mix of wood and damper and see if I can get it right - I don't really want to add the damper...

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Unless your chimney is extremely tall and your draft is too strong to control the stove even with the air control all the way closed down, I wouldn't recommend messing with your chimney.

What do you get if you close the air down all the way?

-SF

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

My method has been to get it going fast, fill it, let it get really hot (about max recommended operating temp on the internal flue thermometer and then damp it all the way down. It stays pretty hot with it all the way down and doesn't seem to slow down quite enough and sometimes will even pick up a bit as it burns...

 

[brenndatomu]

What is your chimney like? Sounds like high draft to me...unless the stove door gasket is getting a little loose.
I have the same situation with my Drolet 1400i...straight up 17' insulated liner in chimney...dang thing drafts like a Hoover! It acts the same way with 2 different stoves now...I need a damper...

 

[jwfirebird]

agree with make sure you dont have an air leak, mine was too flat. i read on here to pinch it round and its way tighter. air control is good with no damper

 

[velvetfoot]

I never heard the pinching it round tip before. Interesting.

 

[jwfirebird]

i dont remember exactly, but im sure i read it here

 

[blades]

When replacing gasket on door do not pull it taunt rather bunch it together as you glue it in place.

 

[jwfirebird]

this was from the factory, the first couple fires got some orange by the glass and that was what it ended up being and searching seems common on englanders. maybe from sitting from when put together to when bought not sure. i bought the 28-4000 from home depot the summers heat from lowes. they both had the doors shut but the englander didnt have the seal problem and the summers heat did

 

[Doc C]

I take a different approach with my Englander 13. When I was having problems with my englander 30 I called englander and they told me to put a pipe damper in. That's correct! That's what the factory told me.

Now that I have the Englander 13 in the place of the 30 I kept the pipe damper in place when I switched stoves.

Most of the time the pipe damper is wide open and I use just the stove control.

If it's really cold in the house, I get a raging fire, close the pipe damper while leaving the stove damper open all the way. This makes the stove top temp climb to just below the max suggested temp for the stove. When I do this the house warms up in a hurry and I have ZERO smoke coming out the chimney.

The only other time I use the pipe damper is like right now.....I have a load of small pine in the stove. The sgove damper is closed all the way and the pipe damper is closed about half way and I have good Temps everywhere and no smoke.

Most of the time I have trouble getting my pipe into the no cresote zone so I leave the pipe open and Crack the stove damper as well to move some heat through the pipe.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

agree with make sure you dont have an air leak, mine was too flat. i read on here to pinch it round and its way tighter. air control is good with no damper

What exactly did you modify? Do you have a pic?


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[jwfirebird]

I didn't modify anything, the rope gasket was flat, about 12inches from the hinge to the hinge side. I just squeezed the sides till it was round