help please.I am new to wood stoves.

[disneygal922]

Hi everyone. We just moved to Colorado and our rental has a wood stove as the primary heat source with no instruction manual. I have never actually used a wood stove, only the fireplace in the home where I grew up. I have a few questions that are really dumb. How do I know if the flue is open and how do i open it? What do these knobby things do? The nights are starting to get chilly and I don't want a $400 electric bill be cause I have been using the electric heaters in each room. I have attached a photo to this post.... I think. thank you all very much.

Here is another photo.

 

[BrotherBart]

Welcome. That is an 80's model Sierra 1000.

Moving the thread to the classic stove room where folks can help ya.

 

[disneygal922]

Welcome. That is an 80's model Sierra 1000.

Moving the thread to the classic stove room where folks can help ya.

Thank you!

 

[240onts]

The knobs control the air entering the stove. When they are closed,no air. When they are open, air. They are used to control the burn, heat output. You should have the chimney cleaned before burning!

 

[disneygal922]

Thank you. I believe our landlord had it cleaned before we moved in but I will double check with him. Any idea about the flue? Wood stoves do have flues right?

 

[BrotherBart]

As 240 says the first thing is to make sure you start with a clean chimney. And with dry wood. How is the wood supply?

Operating the stove is pretty straight forward. You start a small fire using small pieces of kindling on top of crumpled newspaper with those knobs on the front turned all the way to the left to give it full air. After the kindling is starting to burn down you put a few larger pieces, not to large, on top of it with the air still open. After the wood is burning well turn the knobs about halfway closed to the right to stabilize the fire.

You will have to practice with the air and the wood loads to get used to using the stove. We will be here for questions. Start small. That is fire in your house that you are dealing with.

The "flue" is the chimney.

 

[disneygal922]

Oh. I didn't know the chimney and "flue" are the same. Growing up with a fireplace my dad always had to open it for my mom and i. Is this similar? Thank you all so much. I feel really dumb but want to make sure I know what I am doing before I start. I don't want to start a house fire.

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah it is the chimney. He was opening the flue damper for the fireplace chimney.

Hit us with a pic of the stove including the chimney pipe. I am on the right coast and need to go to bed but we will get you going with the stove. Little worried about how close to those walls it is installed though.

 

[Simonkenton]

I have had a wood stove that had a flue damper. There was a metal piece, like a big 20 penny steel nail, that stuck out the side of the flue. There was a knob there that was a handle, it was about 2 inches wide and wrapped with a spring, to keep it cool so you could touch it. You had to turn that spring, which was oval shaped, so that it was parallel to the stove pipe, to make the flue open. That spike that sticks out of the side is connected to a plate that is inside the flue. In a six inch flue, the plate is about 5 3/4 inch diameter, so that when it is turned sideways, it blocks the flue. There are a couple of little holes in the plate, to let a little smoke through when you set it "closed."

However flue dampers are very rare these days and you probably don't have one. The air to the flue is controlled by those two knobs. If your house is all warm, and the wood stove is off, turn those knobs all the way to the right and the flue will be closed off. That way, no warm house air will go up the flue.

 

[disneygal922]

Thank you all again. Here are three more photos. (Sorry two of them are sideways) It is in a corner, the back of the chimney is about 18 inches from the corner and the rear two corners are at least 12 inches maybe more from either wall. We are still moving in so the couch (the brown thing on the left) is currently sitting in front of it. I can easily walk around the entire stove.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

i was looking at that , i do not know what the clearance requirement is for that particular stove so you will want to find that out to ensure the 12 inches off the corners meets the required clearances

 

[Jags]

Yes - please make sure your clearance to combustibles are met.
One other suggestion - while learning a new (to you) stove, I would highly recommend a stove top thermometer. You use it like the speedo on your car...it tells you when you hit the right speed without going over.

 

[BrotherBart]

Sierra put all of the clearance requirements on a small metal plate on the back of the stoves.

 

[Simonkenton]

You might need a free standing heat shield, I recommend the classic hammered copper.
You don't have a flue damper. That looks like a big, old, bad ass wood stove to me. Fire it up! That bad boy has a big fire box.

 

[disneygal922]

Hi everyone! I want to thank you all for your advice. We had contacted our landlord for a chimney sweep/inspection and when they came out they said they were going to recommend to our landlord we get a new stove. They said the current one is perfectly acceptable in the meantime as long as we use common sense. We really only use it in the evenings after the sun goes down and on REALLY cold days. After calling around and getting several quotes, our landlord just called and we will be getting a new stove on December 9 that will better work in our home. My question is, how many days prior to the new installation should we stop using the current one?

 

[stoveguy2esw]

its gonna need to be cold, so probably the day before and shovel out all the ash/coals in the stove that way the installers can come in and remove the old stove quickly and safely which will get the new stove in place and burning that much faster.

IMPORTANT once you clear these coals out they will stay active in the ash for a very long time so either place them in a METAL container with a lid (also metal) and remove outside sit on a non-combustible surface such as brick or concrete and allow them to cool, OR take the container outside and hose it down thoroughly with water to put the coals out just fill the thing up with water on top of the coals.