Hearthstone Heritage looks great but...

[slofr8]

Hi everyone,
I just did the "break in fire thing" with my Heritage and would like your opinions. First some details.
New construction. Stove in the living room in the middle of the house. 10' double wall stove pipe straight out of the top of the stove to a stainless pre-fab chimney, no angles. All 6" as required. Top of chimney is plenty high to allow a good draft.
Last winter during construction I connected an old non air tight stove and had LOTS of draft. Thought I'd have so much draft it would be hard to keep the news paper from being sucked out. Today I connected the stove to the chimneys and lit a fire as per the manual to season the stone. I used news paper, kindling. and a couple of piece's of dry poplar so it would burn quick. Manual wanted a small fire with the door slightly open and after it would start burning good I was to close the primary air control.
Well it would take off great but closing the door would choke the fire till it wanted to die. Air control wide open. I left the door open for a long time but closing it with the air control lever wide open and it would die out. Out side temps are about 50F. Could the air control be disconnected inside?
I can't imagine what I could have done to improve performance. I'm quite sure you don't run yours with the door open all day.
Dan.

 

[Todd]

Can you look underneath the stove where the air intake is, and see if the slide is operating? Maybe it worked it's way loose during shipping? Maybe try again with more and smaller kindling.

 

[slofr8]

Hi Todd,
can't see much underneath but when the stove cools I might be able to see something from inside the fire box.
Dan.

 

[DonCT]

I have the Heritage as well, and I keep the door cracked for atleast 15-20 minutes when starting a fire. It doesn't matter if it's a small or large fire.

I wouldn't worry too much about firing the stove too fast. Just make sure that you don't go from brand new to a 500 degree fire right off the bat. I ran 3-4 small (200-300 degree) fires to break mine in. MSG has the same stove and has been burning it longer.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Old stove will always draft better then new stoves. On my tall chimney i can light the kindling and shut the door immediatly. Make shure you didnt plug the screen with your break in fire. If you have a total of 12-14' you would have marginal draft, 14-16' good draft but will have to crack the door, 16'+ you might be able to shut the door right away. These are very general statements, negative pressure in your home makes a big difference.

 

[Roospike]

Does that living room have a cathedral ceiling??

You're prolly passing up fifteen-hundred BTU/Hr/Ft with that vertical double-walled stovepipe vs using single-walled pipe. On the other hand, you're getting better draft.

1,500 BTUs per hour per foot ? Did i read that right ?

10' pipe on a cathedral ceiling is 15,000 btu difference per hour ?

Thats up to 120,000 BTU difference on an 8 hour burn.

Na ....... That cant be right......Update me there Dylan.

 

[Roospike]

I've wondered what the home BTU's difference were between single and double wall pipe and also how much stack temp made a difference in the two but just didnt find the information anywhere.

 

[slofr8]

If you have a total of 12-14’ you would have marginal draft, 14-16’ good draft but will have to crack the door, 16’+ you might be able to shut the door right away.

MSG,
about 20' from top of the stove to the top of the chimney.

Does that living room have a cathedral ceiling??

Dylan,
yes, cathedral in the living room.
I made another small fire last night and was able to determine that the air control is working.
Heres what I'm thinking.

~Learning curve from non airtight to air tight stove.
~Air tight home. Cracking open a window seems to make a diferance.
~mild temps. outside.
~I don't know if this matters but we're experiancing a streatch of very low pressure. Lots of rain last night and more forcasted for today.

I'm looking foward to some cold weather to give it a good test. I made a very small fire at 9:30 last night that was dead at 11:30 and the stove was still warm at 3:00 this morning.
Very nice radiant heat and ceiling fans spread it around evenly to the whole house.. Hope this is just a fluke.
Dan.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Does that living room have a cathedral ceiling??

You're prolly passing up fifteen-hundred BTU/Hr/Ft with that vertical double-walled stovepipe vs using single-walled pipe. On the other hand, you're getting better draft.

1,500 BTUs per hour per foot ? Did i read that right ?

10' pipe on a cathedral ceiling is 15,000 btu difference per hour ?

Thats up to 120,000 BTU difference on an 8 hour burn.

Na ....... That cant be right......Update me there Dylan.

I base that on my discussion (years ago) with Jay Shelton, whose lab had performed the room calorimetry on the H-II. That test employed four feet of single-walled pipe and resulted in a rating of 40,000 BTU/Hr, for the system. Asked if he felt that 10,000 of the 40,000 BTU/Hr were 'supplied' by the four feet of pipe, his response was a simple, "At least."



BUT, to be honest, I don't know how much heat gets radiated by the double-walled pipe....so I conjectured on the conservative side, I feel.

Dylan, the HII had much higer flue temps then the heratige. Old stoves lost alot of heat up the flue, much more then new ones. Thats a intresting number, i think it would be much lower on new epa stoves.

 

[lizzybobio]

Can you look underneath the stove where the air intake is, and see if the slide is operating? Maybe it worked it's way loose during shipping? Maybe try again with more and smaller kindling.

That's a good question, as I had to point out to the installer of my Hearthstone that there was duct tape underneat the stove, which I imagine was holding the slide.