New house & Sirocco 30

[Grizzerbear]

think I will have to unbolt the brace and remove the top section to sweep the chimney. I'm only 5'7" and I can reach chimney cap to remove it but I don't know about working a rod.

It looks good man. It says, "I burn wood, if u dont like that then f*** u". Why unbolt it. I have nearly same problem as u as our setup is similar. Just remove telescoping piece and clean from inside. Take a trash bag and poke hole in mid section of it. Place your flu brush rod through the hole and then screw on brush. Duct tape your bag to adapter or support and it will all fall in bag and little mess. Take the telescoping piece outside and clean it.

 

[rybern]

It looks good man. It says, "I burn wood, if u dont like that then f*** u". Why unbolt it. I have nearly same problem as u as our setup is similar. Just remove telescoping piece and clean from inside. Take a trash bag and poke hole in mid section of it. Place your flu brush rod through the hole and then screw on brush. Duct tape your bag to adapter or support and it will all fall in bag and little mess. Take the telescoping piece outside and clean it.

Thanks. I have yet began to research chimney cleaning; sounds like you have a better idea than climbing up on the roof.

 

[Rickb]

With that stove you should have no issues using a sooteater and go right up through the stove. No need to disconnect anything until the dirty part is done then just vacuum out any crapt stuck in the bypass area.

 

[rybern]

I lit off the first fire this morning about 730am. Temp was around 30F but was expected to get in the 50's today so I kept it small. l used 1/3 of the starter block that was included with the stove, a few pieces of mixed pine and hardwood kindling, 3 small 2" pieces of hardwood and then one 5-6" split. Going on 8.5 hours now and still have the ends of the smaller pieces and the large split left, but not in active zone anymore. I have had the air set to 3 o'clock all day after. HVAC thermostat is set to 72F and most of house is 75F with the coolest being 70F. I love knowing the heat pump hasn't cycled on one time since this morning. Very happy so far. Still have a lot to figure out. Not sure if I should open the bypass once the stove is not active or leave it close until I'm ready to add wood.

Here is a pic shortly after lite off.

 

[Pgaron]

, do you think we should spend $300 on the fan kit?

Honestly in the grand scheme of things just get it. its $300 but your talking about a whole house here. Lets say you don't get it an wish you did it will be a pain to do it. Also maybe you have a mild winter and dont need it, maybe you have a frigid winter and need it right away

 

[rybern]

Honestly in the grand scheme of things just get it. its $300 but your talking about a whole house here. Lets say you don't get it an wish you did it will be a pain to do it. Also maybe you have a mild winter and dont need it, maybe you have a frigid winter and need it right away

We did get the fan kit. I turned the fan kit on medium low today with our small fire and I'm already glad we got it. It blows right across the top of the stove and pushes heat across the room.

 

[Highbeam]

Don’t open the bypass until you’re ready to open the loading door. Late in the burn when the fuel is so consumed that the cat meter falls to inactive it’s because your fuel is not producing anything that needs to be eaten by the cat. No harm in leaving it engaged.

 

[EbS-P]

Sounds like you will be using your stove when the efficiency of your heat pump starts to drop off. I do the same thing. When it gets really cold I just turn the heat pump off as it runs primarily on resistive strips. So the stove will supply 100% of the heat during the night which means I have to run the stove hard. Without a fan it would overfire given my deep setup.
My point being when you really want the heat you want all the heat. You can only that with the blower. Will you use it all the time. No. But when you want it it’s their. It’s also a nice backup. Forget to close off the air and the stove temp is too high instead of watching keep creeping up just turn on the fan full blast for a minute. And temps are right where the should be. If it’s the cost you are thinking about you might be able to find a cheaper aftermarket fan. I went that route and it works ok. It has a rattle that I only hope a more expensive fan would not have.

as fractions of the overall budget of a house it’s insignificant and if don’t have a stack of wood that a year or to old just get a pallets of sawdust bricks. Nothing is worse than trying to run a new stove on wet wood. You want to enjoy the new house and stove not curse at While your significant other tells you this was a waste of money you try and fail to keep A totally combustible material combusting.

hope that is helpful

Evan.

 

[rybern]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I went ahead and let the fire burn out last night because the temps are coming up a bit for the next few days. Will crank it back up when it drops back down a bit.

 

[Woody Stover]

Don’t open the bypass until you’re ready to open the loading door...No harm in leaving it engaged.

It's actually helpful to leave the bypass closed, then the heat from the coals will be routed forward through the stove where more of it can be extracted.

 

[rybern]

Hey guys, its been a while and I wanted to let everyone know that I'm really happy with the Sirocco 30. I ended up getting an Ecobee T-stat and adding a sensor in our bedroom to keep that end of the house comfortable. We keep the T-stat at 69 at night and 72 during the day and with the stove going, the living room is usually only gets about 3 degrees warmer(which is totally fine with the wife). So were not shutting off the HVAC but using the stove to supplement it(wife's comfort is more important to her than saving a few dollars; T-stat settings are a compromise). Our highest electric bill was $192 over the winter and we had some really cold days.

Run times:
I'm still working on run times. I had cut a lot of wood 20" thinking we were getting a Vermont Castings so instead of cutting all the ends off, I've been angling them into the stove which only allows me to get about 1/3 of the wood that could get if they were shorter. Even so, I was happy to be getting run times anywhere from 8-12 hours (depending on temp).

Wood:
The wood we were burning was only 1.5 years old and we had some creosote inside the stove but the chimney and topper look pretty good. I ended up purchasing a Sooteater but haven't used it yet.



Thanks:
Big thanks to everyone's help with this whole thing. You guys have been a wealth of knowledge.

 

[Highbeam]

It’s normal to get gunk and goo in the firebox when you’re running the stove at lower settings. The cat burns that smoke so your flue stays clean and you get clean heat but the firebox is still pretty nasty.

 

[rybern]

It’s normal to get gunk and goo in the firebox when you’re running the stove at lower settings. The cat burns that smoke so your flue stays clean and you get clean heat but the firebox is still pretty nasty.

Thanks for the explanation. Do you think I need to sweep this chimney before winter?

A wood shed is on my list. I have already began checking out the plethora of info over in that room.

 

[Highbeam]

Thanks for the explanation. Do you think I need to sweep this chimney before winter?

A wood shed is on my list. I have already began checking out the plethora of info over in that room.

It’s best to clean everything after the last fire for the season so that all of the corrosive stuff in the system is gone during the long humid summer. That includes ash in the firebox. This also means you’re ready to go in the fall.

I sweep once per year during the off season. Some folks choose to sweep more often and some claim to go years between sweeps.

 

[Rickb]

The sooteater makes it so easy to swwep I sweep every spring before I do my spring cleaning on the stove. Also helps keep any smells down if you get some reverse draft.

 

[rybern]

Thanks guys. I have done a pretty good job of cleaning inside the firebox. But I still have to clean the chimney. I was planning to cleaning from the bottom by running the rob through a small hole in the bag. It seems like I saw that somewhere.