Isle Royale Smoking... a lot

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The installer is Wood Heat.
I am actually more concerned today than before. The wall behind the stove reached 191 degrees last night. the stove top reached 798. That is too hot for my comfort zone. I have two friends who's house burnt down because of a wood stove and I have four young kids at home 9 and under. Last night I didn't go to sleep until the wall temp dropped to 165.
This is bad. I am suppose to be sitting in front of it with a glass of wine and instead I'm there with an infrared thermometer until I can let myself fall asleep.
For starters, I have to go back to an insulated pipe. But I shouldn't have too.
My stove does operate with a fairly quiet whistling sound. I'm curious if I have a leak or if it's normal for the stove. I'm just trying to figure out what is going on with my stove.
As always, thank you guys, and gals, for your continued help. Lord knows this is getting old.

Oh, and my manometer was reading about .10
 
Thanks for letting me know who the installer was. I have heard of them but its all been good things. I can't offer much in the way of help as I am new to wood burning stoves and inserts.

I am using a different installer for my Jotul 550 (EE Chimney Sweeps)
 
The only whistle I have ever heard is when I try to really clamp it down on a ripping stove. I believe the whistle is coming from the primary air hole. This is rare for me.
 
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Mine whistles thru the small hole in the primary slider when my draft is high, were the secondaries really rolling? When they get going it sucks air in due to the unregulated secondary air. Stay with it, I know the frustration, try shutting the pipe damper sooner to keep the secondaries from building up, it's like a train, once you get momentum it's a lot harder to slow it down
 
Also can you hold your hand on the wall? If so I think your ok, search on here lots of folks concerned about it before. Double check your clearances for piece of mind.
 
Kobeman, There is no way I can keep my hand on the wall. 191 is too hot. Water boils at 212 to put it in perspective.
Mine whistles when my draft is at .08. It just whistles all the time. But when I adjust the slide the flame will sometimes extinguish so I may not have a leak either. But having said that, I could not lower my stove temp last night; I had to wait for it to go down as the wood burned all while I searched for something non flammable to put between the stove and the wall, to no avail.
This morning my wife said she wants window rope ladders installed and we discussed where to meet outside in case of a house fire (seriously). My oil fired boiler never looked so good.

I just checked my email...I sent Quad the video I shot last night (you know me and videos) and they want to contact Wood Heat to come out. I wonder why Wood Heat never contacted me when I sent them the video of my smoke alarms going off and my house filled with smoke? I guess it's harder for them to blow off Quad. What jerks.
 
If you can put the flame out than I don't think its a leak, when in a panic you could cover the big round hole under the back under the blower, this will cut some air to the secondaries and stop the freight train
 
Kobeman, I'm thinking about that putting the flame out comment I made and I am realizing that when I am starting the fire I can put it out by sliding the primary to the right. But when the fire box was filled up for the night, as it was last night, I couldn't do a dam thing as the primary was already all the way to right and my damper was completely closed and my draft was.1. It was during this, as you know, I got that 190 plus wall reading. I don't have it figured out. But I am not burning it tonight!
 
I'm playing around with covering the hole where the OAK would attatch tonight, I got it covered with tin foil and I cant say it has made much difference, there are lots of places for it to pull air under there. I'm glad you have Quad's attention and I will be waiting to hear what they come up with.
 
Quad fizzled out. They simply never got back to me. Naturally, I'll never recommend them. Anybody who doesn't get back to you when you have a 193 degree wall is in a class by themselves.
 
Some manufacturers handle customers personally, some by dealers. Quad is pretty well known to go through their dealer networks. Its akin to having a problem with your pickup truck and calling Ford directly - they will point you to your dealer.
 
What's the dealer doing for you?

The wall temps mystify me. You have the clearances required by the stove? I've never had a problem with the Isle Royale creating hot walls. Are you sure your thermometer is working right? I've been looking at the videos you posted with the high stovetop temps, and it just doesn't look the inside of my stove when the stovetop gets to 700...let alone above that. There's a lot of active flame in that video. Usually when the stove takes off, it's massive secondaries creating the heat.

Where are you taking the wall readings? Directly behind my stove (closer to the floor), it doesn't even really get warm on the wall. It's the pipe throwing off most of the heat in my setup.
 
Northwinds.
Thank you very much for your interest. I don't know what is going on. I have ordered 1" wall spacers from Amazon and plan on either using them with a sheet of 5/8" fire code drywall and painting it to match my walls or re-installing the insulated chimney pipe. I don't know if there is a way that is thought of as the way to go. But I'll do one thing or the other.
At this time I'm just keeping the fire small by only having 3 or 4 logs at most.
The high temps were had when I filled the fire box for an overnight burn. I never do that again!
Once my fire gets going I just can't slow it down. But, when it is being started and it is a small fire and I close the primary I can put it out.
Well, at least now I can. I went to the hardware store and bought two 1/4" bolts and one 5/16" bolt in my own attempt to slow the air into this thing.
In case you don't know, the primary lets air into the firebox via three holes. The two on the sides are 1/4" and the one in the center is 3/8".
I have already tightened the hinges and the glass. The ash pan looks okay, I actually used a grinder carefully on the griddle because I wasn't sure if the "lip" that was touching the porcelain was preventing the gasket from sealing the griddle correctly. I don't think it made a difference as far as closing tighter with that lip gone. I'm keeping my manometer at .05 (which helps before it was at .08. I don't know what else to do.
Yes it is 15" away from the wall with a single wall chimney. The high reading, yes I have another video if you want to see it, was taken maybe two feet above the stove. I do believe the infrared temp gun to be accurate it is usually right there with my stove top thermometer and there is no way I could touch that wall.
I was really, really scared. I stayed up that night until the fire died off and realized that my families fire evacuation plan was faulty. Meeting at the shed is a bad idea on cold nights. None of us are dressed for that kind of cold and we wouldn't have time to dress either, naturally. Fortunately, we have a barn with a heated room so that is what I had the pleasure of thinking about that night. And Quad tells me to go to hell, basically, after I send them the video. As far as Ford, Jags, it reminds me of Firestone. Sometimes the manufacturer has to step up to the plate and take responsibility before somebody dies.
As far as where is the dealer at Northwinds, after I sent my dealer the pictures and videos of my house filling up with smoke, because the chimney was three and a half feet too short, they never, ever returned my calls. Then, when I opened my credit card dispute to get their attention I think it sealed the deal there. Ultimately, my dispute just expired. I fixed the chimney myself and they got paid in full. Any stove issue was never resolved nor did they call to make an appointment to inspect it, come to think of it. You have got me. I was warned about them doing poor work and being underhanded but I, for some reason, thought how bad can they be? They had the product that, at the time, I wanted though too.
 
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I thought single wall clearance was 18" minimum?

The documentation actually confuses me a bit. According to the manual if installing flat against a wall the pipe needs to be 15" for single wall and is reduced to 13" for double wall - YET...if corner loaded, single wall needs 28" and double wall reduces it to 12".

Page 10
http://hearthnhome.com/downloads/installManuals/250_5763.pdf

Most other stoves of that size (say the PE Summit or the F600) has a higher clearance requirement. Ultimately that would probably be my solution if inclined to use single wall pipe. I would move the stove out some more. Me personally - I went with double wall to eliminate the issue all together.
 
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I'm pretty sure that in this case the pipe manufacturer's clearance requirement trumps the stove. Single-wall must be 18" or more. You could add pipe shielding or replace the connector with double-wall stove pipe.
 
I'm pretty sure that in this case the pipe manufacturer's clearance requirement trumps the stove. Single-wall must be 18" or more.

I am in full agreement with you and have even contacted Quad to confirm or deny their published numbers. They confirmed them as correct but I am still weary of the 15" clearance for single wall. The math doesn't really work if you look at the other published numbers.
 
On page ten of the manual I am reading letters a and b for single wall pipe clearances at the back of the stove. (Thank you though)

Understood - and that is what BG and I are posting about. I am simply not comfortable with the published 15" clearance - even with the blessings of Quad. And to BG's point - the pipe manufacturer states min of 18". I believe the manufacturer of the product (pipe) should trump the stoves numbers. Simply my opinion.
 
Usually when speccing out any system of combined components you design for the weakest part. There are a lot of stoves that have clearances as close as 5-6", but with a single-wall pipe on the stove the pipe becomes the gating factor as soon as it leaves the stove. The stove mfg. has no say so about that clearance. They can only spec for the stove.
 
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On page ten of the manual I am reading letters a and b for single wall pipe clearances at the back of the stove. (Thank you though)

I'm just thinking out loud here based upon my review of the manual.

Look at letter "a." It says that's the distance from combustibles to the inside diameter of the flue collar. Look at "h". That's the pipe itself. For 'h", the distance is 18".

The bottom line is your wall is way too hot if your thermometer is accurate. I would be doing something to fix that.

I've got a corner installation, and double wall pipe, so my situation is different and cooler (temps) than yours.
 
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"H" is actually the clearance needed from the pipe to the ceiling.

Yes, but that's the only clearance listed that I found that is from the pipe to a combustible. It's also consistent with the 18" minimum from single wall to combustibles.
 
Are you referring to the air holes in the doghouse plugging with bolts?, not sure that will help because I believe the primary air also washes the glass, not 100% on this tho. I think easiest solution to the wall temps is to go to double wall connector, that's what im running.
 
What are your stack temps? I agree with Northwinds ,I watched the clip, looks like the start up air isn't closing or the front air slide isn't shutting, that flame is what mine looks like with air open . If it is open then this would make since-High flue temps causing your wall to get hot due to the short clearance. I think I'd find a different dealer, or if going it alone I'd pull the cover off the start up air assy on the back and make sure everything is status quo
 
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