Hi all,
Recently purchased an older home with a FW240007 steel wood stove installed in the 18th century stone fireplace -- 6inch stainless liner, 30ft chimney, recently cleaned and inspected. I'm having some issues getting used to this stove -- I grew up with a more modern 2-damper insert that was amazing in terms of control in terms of inducing secondary burn efficiently and running overnight (at least to still have a few hot coals in the morning to restart with) -- not the case with this Century model. Was curious if I'm expecting too much out of it -- it does a great job heating my 1800 sqft home to a toasty 73 or so, but I'm afraid it might still be over-firing due to the lack of control.
Where things get interesting with this stove is how molested it has been over the years of prior ownership -- someone re-firebricked the unit (improperly) and there was replacement glass installed (improperly).
The firebricks were not snug on the floor of the unit, causing massive air leakage to the ash bin. I re-bricked it to the factory pattern, except with a full brick over the ash drawer -- I don't use it anyway. That helped with controllability a little by closing up one leak. I also added a 5/8x1/8 fiberglass tape gasket around the glass -- there previously was not one in place -- in order to prevent another source of leakage that was inhibiting control of the fire with the single, front-mounted air inflow control.
I'm still having some relatively poor control of the burn, at least relative to the inserts I've used in the past. Am I expecting too much from a cheap stove? Could there be an overdraft issue? I do hear some serious draw through the front intake when there is even a slight breeze -- which makes me wonder about overdraft and whether a pipe damper is advisable (manufacturer spec sheet didn't say explicitly not to use one -- just didn't mention it at all). I never have to induce a draft when starting the stove up cold, nor have I ever had any smoke flow back into the house.
I've heard of some folks adding additional firebricks on top of the baffle system to force more gases into the secondary by blocking some of the cracks around the edge of the bricks, which I have yet to try. I currently have one on each side of the steel baffle support, per the manufacturers manual pics.
What else can I try in order to get a more efficient burn out of this stove and a bit more control over burn rate? So far I haven't been successful waking up to any remotely hot coals in the morning (after 6hrs). The chimney sweep did mention that it would chew through wood, so maybe I'm just SOL. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Recently purchased an older home with a FW240007 steel wood stove installed in the 18th century stone fireplace -- 6inch stainless liner, 30ft chimney, recently cleaned and inspected. I'm having some issues getting used to this stove -- I grew up with a more modern 2-damper insert that was amazing in terms of control in terms of inducing secondary burn efficiently and running overnight (at least to still have a few hot coals in the morning to restart with) -- not the case with this Century model. Was curious if I'm expecting too much out of it -- it does a great job heating my 1800 sqft home to a toasty 73 or so, but I'm afraid it might still be over-firing due to the lack of control.
Where things get interesting with this stove is how molested it has been over the years of prior ownership -- someone re-firebricked the unit (improperly) and there was replacement glass installed (improperly).
The firebricks were not snug on the floor of the unit, causing massive air leakage to the ash bin. I re-bricked it to the factory pattern, except with a full brick over the ash drawer -- I don't use it anyway. That helped with controllability a little by closing up one leak. I also added a 5/8x1/8 fiberglass tape gasket around the glass -- there previously was not one in place -- in order to prevent another source of leakage that was inhibiting control of the fire with the single, front-mounted air inflow control.
I'm still having some relatively poor control of the burn, at least relative to the inserts I've used in the past. Am I expecting too much from a cheap stove? Could there be an overdraft issue? I do hear some serious draw through the front intake when there is even a slight breeze -- which makes me wonder about overdraft and whether a pipe damper is advisable (manufacturer spec sheet didn't say explicitly not to use one -- just didn't mention it at all). I never have to induce a draft when starting the stove up cold, nor have I ever had any smoke flow back into the house.
I've heard of some folks adding additional firebricks on top of the baffle system to force more gases into the secondary by blocking some of the cracks around the edge of the bricks, which I have yet to try. I currently have one on each side of the steel baffle support, per the manufacturers manual pics.
What else can I try in order to get a more efficient burn out of this stove and a bit more control over burn rate? So far I haven't been successful waking up to any remotely hot coals in the morning (after 6hrs). The chimney sweep did mention that it would chew through wood, so maybe I'm just SOL. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
