Interior Stove Insulation?

[mayhem]

Pipe install is done and I'm in nealry done with the finsh work on the hearth pad and I want to be sure of something before I ruin my stove.

There is a sheet of white insulation that is at the top of my firebox (Moros 3610). I see it in my parts diagram, but I want to make sure its properly mounted in my stove before I do any serious firing. We had to use the stove Saturday morning because the alternative was to turn on the furnace...and I refuse to turn on the furnace for anyhting other than hot water in late June. I noticed that whenever I wanted to add wood once the fire got going (we kept it small and moderately warm so as to let the gaskets settle and to allow the exterior outgassing to take place and not suffocate us) through the side door that a significant amount of smoke would pour into the living area. I've managed to convince myself that the insulation either needs to be removed because its for shipping or that its not mounted properly and its blocking the outbound airpath, thus when I opened the door the smoke just takes that path of least resistance and goes out the door instead of up the flue.

I've enclosed a couple shots below for reference. One is a closeup from the base of the front opening and the other is the same shot from a short distance. Should it be right there or is it supposed to be up higher? Why would you want insualtion iside the stove anyway? Isn't that counterproductive? Or is it more of an air filter than anything else? Is there a detriment to its removal?

Thnak you.

 

[jqgs214]

Others will chime in but that insulation is supposed to be there, it helps to maintain firebox temperatures for secondary combustion. It may be misaligned but that I'm not sure of.

 

[Gunner]

Babalu... Morso question line 1....babalu line 1 please

 

[Bill]

I have the same stove, yes the blanket should be there, but when you installed the chimney you can look right down into the stove. The blanket should not obstruct the chimney, it just lays on top of the stainless secondary plate. It's possible it slipped back and needs to be slid forward towards the front doors.

Another possibility for smoke entering the room is one poor draft, or you didn't open the damper and wait one minuet to create more draft before opening the side door. Mine does not smoke out the side door ever.

One other remote possibility is your seeing smoke from the paint going up the twin cast walls and out the left lip. Mine did that while curing.

It's an excellent stove and your gonna love it.

 

[babalu87]

LOL Gunner

Smokey and wxman about summed it up perfectly. It needs to be there and wait until you get a ripping fire in there, it glows RED! Looks really cool too.

I remember when my stove looked like that. Lets see that was about 1200 gallons of oil ago

At least I have some company in the Morso corner now.

 

[mayhem]

I have no damper on the chimney, the lever on the stove itself was in the full down position, which I think is wide open (thought that might explain it if I have it backwards), it was never clsoed for the 30 minutes I ran the stove. As far as I'm aware that is the one and only adjustable item in my system.

Not sure if poor draft is possible...if it is I'll obviously need to fix it. I have about 20' of double wall black pipe inside the house (I have a great room where the stove is and its just off the center beam of the house) which then feeds into about 10 ' of the silver metalbestos. The tip of the chimney is about 3' above the outside of the peak of my roof, whcih makes it about 9' above where it pokes through the inside of the ceiling and 4.5' above the inside of the peak.

The smoke that came out was definitely wood smoke, not gasket or paint curing...we had that too, but it clearly visible when the doors were closed and it lookes and smells different.

I'll pop the chimney out and make sure the insulation isn't riding up on top of something (like a clip of some sort thats supposed to hold it down but its on top of it) and partially blocking the outlet, thanks for the suggestion. It just twists off for cleaning so it shouldn't be a big deal.

I was impressed with the stove for the short time I ran it. I heated up the living room (28wx22lx25h) 6 degrees in the short time I ran it. My last stove was medium Dutchwest Federal which, with its catalytic converter, had two basic settings...smouldering and cold to the touch or freaking blast furnace hot. Prior to the I grew up with an oroginal VC Defiant at my mother's house (old enough that it didn't have glass doors) and I remember that thing taking awhile to come up to temperature.

 

[Bill]

You have plenty of chimney height, check your rain cap! The damper handle down is wide open and that is the only adjustment.

 

[Rhone]

Smoke spills out of mine when I open the door, I have to open it a little bit and give it a moment then can open it more.

 

[littlesmokey]

Just a thought from a new guy, but was your fire hot enough to make a good draft? If you are breaking in the stove, it shouldn't be a rip roaring fire, right? Maybe the open a little and let it breathe may solve the belch of smoke.

 

[Bill]

Just an after thought, with such a tall chimney, and a break in fire, what was the chimney temperature? In warmer weather the chimney doesn't draw like it does in winter. So maybe when it's colder and you have the stove broke in and have a hotter fire it may work just great.

Also curious the last time you cleaned the chimney?

Good luck

 

[mayhem]

Brand new chinmey, it was installed about 2 weeks ago along with the stove.

I have no idea what the chimney temperature was, nor how to tell. Its all double wall, 6" clearance stuff so its heavily insulated...the outer casing was warm to the touch, but not hot...like I could have hugged it if I wanted to and it wouldn't be uncomfortable. I'd say the outer skin was probably near body temperature.

It was about 40 degrees outside, but the fire was small...just a bunch of scraps left over from the 2x4 lumber I had to cut up to make the hearthpad in the first place. Its entirely possible that it was not hot enough to create a good draft...I imagine it takes a fair bit of an energy delta in a chimney that long.

 

[Bill]

I drilled my double wall pipe and installed a probe thermometer and I have one on the stove top, very useful tools. I check them frequently in-case I need to tweak the damper. Never used them in the old days although we never used meat thermometers either. Now that I have them I wonder how I managed before? By the way it's a piece of cake drilling the double wall pipe, I thought it might be a lot harder to do then single wall pipe, but it's a breeze.

 

[babalu87]

Small fires = poor drafting
Big fires = great drafting

Need a thermometer on the pipe IMHO to really know what is going on.

 

[Gunner]

Ya, if I lit a small fire in the middle of June and opened the door, I'd get some smoke into the room too. The same setup will suck your arm up the flue in Dec.