Help, chimney guy took out firebricks, was this right?

[notatx]

We just moved into a house with an old (probably circa mid 1980s) wood stove. The brand is Country. It looks like this brand was bought out by another brand and then that brand was bought out by another brand that isn't too big on customer service. I found a manual online for a similar fireplace from the same brand, but it was from the 1990s, so I'm not sure how accurate it is for our stove. I have never had a wood stove or even a fireplace before.

Anyways, we had a chimney guy out today to clean it. He took out the firebricks at the top of the stove. He said you were only supposed to have those in during the season when you were not burning, to prevent drafts. He said that when the weather gets colder and you want to have fires, you need to take them out. But they weren't easy for him to take out, and I already started a fire in there last week. There was smoke coming out the chimney, so it seems like it was working as expected. If they are meant to be removed and replaced twice a year wouldn't that be easy to do? And if smoke was coming out the chimney just fine, doesn't that mean they are not blocking anything?

This guy is not inspiring a lot of confidence. He didn't really know what the knobs in the stove were for, and his first language isn't English so I'm also not entirely sure we are communicating effectively.

What I'm getting at is, can someone tell me if he was right that these bricks all need to come out for the burning season? That just doesn't seem right. I'm worried that there are safety concerns if I'm not operating this thing correctly.

Also FWIW this stove has no flue control but it has an air input control knob on the side that I guess must open some vents between the house and the stove. I don't know if that was relevant.

Thank you!

 

[EbS-P]

Can you post a picture of the inside?

 

[notatx]

OK let me try. I'm notorious for taking pictures that don't illustrate the problem I'm asking about. I took three pictures without the bricks in, and then I put one in just in case it was helpful to see how they would sit. The way there were before, the entire top of the stove was lined with them.

 

[bholler]

OK let me try. I'm notorious for taking pictures that don't illustrate the problem I'm asking about. I took three pictures without the bricks in, and then I put one in just in case it was helpful to see how they would sit. The way there were before, the entire top of the stove was lined with them.

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Yeah those brick are the baffle and are meant to stay there all the time

 

[blades]

That is a secondary combustion stove. Notice the small holes in the tube across its length. The bricks need to be in there, later models ( i have one) did not use bricks but ceramic boards. My stove has 2 controls one for the main air and a second to control the the secondary air. When the EPA reared their ugly little heads the secondary air controls vanished across the the industry. As to operation, once you get the stove up to a good fire and then close off the main some, you will notice small jets of flame from the pin holes. if you have good dry wood, 12 -18% moisture . this is wood gas being burned at this point. A temp gauge would likely register close to 600 deg F on the top of the stove just ahead of the flue at this time. I still have mine it is languishing in the garage as it sized for apx 1000 sq ft. It was used in a mobile home some 15 years ago and then in a traditional home for awhile after that.

 

[notatx]

Thank you @blades that is so helpful! There is in fact a second knob that I couldn't figure out the purpose of. I figured out that the main knob was airflow. I guess based on what you are saying that other knob is secondary air flow. So now I guess I need to google that and figure out how it works.

 

[blades]

The company shut down the wood stove production in the late 90's due to the new EPA regs. as did many other companies. Some of those were highly advanced stoves even by today,s standards. Testing was and is expensive many felt the cost wasn't justifiable vs their market share.

 

[blades]

It should control the volume of air to the secondarys allowing for a longer over all burn time and a bit of heat output regulation. Believe it or not my stove which I think was about 2 cf would run almost 8 hours sometimes a bit longer depending on wood type. When set right I wood have little or no flames below and just gases burning above all this on apx 8 ft of flue. in the mobile home.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes,. without the bricks most.of.the heat and all of the unburnt gases will disappear into the flue.

Burning with that baffle.goes a bit like this: get the fire started with a good amount of primary air (the knob you recognized first). Once that gets going well, you close the primary air (maybe to a quarter or 1/8th of the fully open position, and open the secondary air a bit.
The goal will be to either no flame on the wood (just glowing) and little jet flames on top, or only bluish and pinkish flames on the wood and little jets on top. Yellow flame on the wood is what you want to avoid (once the fire is well established; initially it's fine).

This will work best if you have a coal bed. E.g. start a fire with a bit of wood, let everything heat up, and when that gets to a glowing heap of coals, reload with more wood, get the fire going vigorously and then dial down the primary air and set.the secondary so that you see the flames above.

Maybe others can improve on this description, but I went by how my 1983 stove worked (even though that was a cat stove).

 

[notatx]

Thank you @stoveliker that wonderfully condenses a lot of information I have found online, which was fairly overwhelming. I think as a place for me to start, this is just perfect. I'll experiment along the lines you explained and see how it goes.