Help needed on 1980s Kent Tile Wood

[coldman]

I just purchased an ~ 1980's Kent tile wood stove, and have a couple of questions:

This stove doesn't have any radial holes thru the stoves' circular flue collar, which are normally used to secure the stove pipe to the stove. I read elsewhere in this forum that if these holes aren't included by the manufacturer, they shouldn't be added by the home owner. Will drilling these holes thru the flue collar potentially damage the wood stove by possibly leading to cracking in the collar later on? It would seem to be much safer to have the stove pipe rigidly attached to the stove than just pressed down into the flue collar.

Also, I previously owned a Sherwood, a great stove, which had a top slide damper bar to control the inlet air. However, this tile stove has a lever arm on the bottom of the stove which, I believe, does the same thing. I'm just not sure where the inlet air enters the stove. Does the "left" position put the damper fully opened? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much.

 

[stoveliker]

Regarding the last question: just make a kindling fire with the door open. Close the door and see what the flames do. It they snuff out, move the lever to the other side. If they don't, move.the lever to the other side, and see if the snuff out then.

 

[coldman]

Regarding the last question: just make a kindling fire with the door open. Close the door and see what the flames do. It they snuff out, move the lever to the other side. If they don't, move.the lever to the other side, and see if the snuff out then.

Good idea, I'll give it a try.

 

[Max W]

You must have a different model Kent Tilefire than the one we had. On ours there was a knob on the upper left front corner with a wedge shaped open - closed indicator for air intake. Sliding it to the right was open. There are plenty of pictures online. Ours was a secondary stove in a finished basement and later in the garage which is frowned upon by the powers that be. Before we sold that house the buyers insurance co. required that I remove the garage stove and class A chimney.

 

[coldman]

You must have a different model Kent Tilefire than the one we had. On ours there was a knob on the upper left front corner with a wedge shaped open - closed indicator for air intake. Sliding it to the right was open. There are plenty of pictures online. Ours was a secondary stove in a finished basement and later in the garage which is frowned upon by the powers that be. Before we sold that house the buyers insurance co. required that I remove the garage stove and class A chimney is a different model.

You're right, it is a different model than the Tilefires shown on-line. Back in the mid-1980s we had a Kent Sherwood which also had the same black knob in the upper left front corner for inlet air as yours. I don't know if my Tilefire is an earlier or later model than yours was. I would guess that it's older, except for the fact that there is a lockout feature on the door so that you can't open it without the secondary combustion damper being pulled all the way out. Seems like that might be a newer feature, since my Sherwood did not have this.

 

[Max W]

I don’t know when ours was made. We bought it used. It also required that the damper be opened to open the door. Yes, that would seem to be a newer feature.

 

[coldman]

I don’t know when ours was made. We bought it used. It also required that the damper be opened to open the door. Yes, that would seem to be a newer feature.

Thanks for all the information, Max W and stoveliker, it's definitely helped.