New Lopi Answer- Questions

[ManitobaSky]

How are you measuring your 16' flue height? From the top of the stove or from the floor? To me, it sure does not look like 16' above the top of the stove. I look at the door which would be about 7' and the height of the wall inside. Seems shorter than 16' to me.

Agreed, the Lopi wants 15’ from floor to cap, the Aspen wanted 16’ from base to cap. I think the chimney is right at or below the minimum before factoring in any elbows. We need to start removing things from the list of possible issues and for that we are going to need more info.
Get that wood tested, if damp source dry wood. If your current wood tests dry, start a fire with a window open a little. If this solves the problem install an outside air kit. If not draft test the chimney and add length until it meets requirements as per stove manual.

 

[Rose Lane]

How are you measuring your 16' flue height? From the top of the stove or from the floor? To me, it sure does not look like 16' above the top of the stove. I look at the door which would be about 7' and the height of the wall inside. Seems shorter than 16' to me.

Good point. I thought it was measured from floor; based on previous posts. I think the ceiling is 9.5' where it enters, then roof system is probably 8-10", and that looks like 5' above the roof to me. But if we are measuring from the top of the stove, it's too short!

 

[Rose Lane]

Agreed, the Lopi wants 15’ from floor to cap, the Aspen wanted 16’ from base to cap. I think the chimney is right at or below the minimum before factoring in any elbows. We need to start removing things from the list of possible issues and for that we are going to need more info.
Get that wood tested, if damp source dry wood. If your current wood tests dry, start a fire with a window open a little. If this solves the problem install an outside air kit. If not draft test the chimney and add length until it meets requirements as per stove manual.

Great, thank you. Good punchlist of how to approach it.

 

[wjohn]

Good point. I thought it was measured from floor; based on previous posts. I think the ceiling is 9.5' where it enters, then roof system is probably 8-10", and that looks like 5' above the roof to me. But if we are measuring from the top of the stove, it's too short!

It depends on the manufacturer so you just have to double check what the manual says. VC lists it as 16' from the floor for the Aspen C3 but other manufacturers may also list it from the outlet on the top of the stove.

 

[Rose Lane]

We woke up to a frozen water main and spent the morning dealing with that, so my planned documentary of fire starting and feeding and temperature gauging is post poned until tomorrow. Thank you all for your advice and notes.

I'm tempted to think what old graybeard mentioned is correct- the stove might claim to be suitable for 1400 square feet, but that is in someplace temperate and as a secondary heat source.

For example, yesterday was extremely cold here (wind chill around -26, but absolute temp only around 0)
and tried to get the workshop warmed up:
10:30 am built fire; interior temp 16 degrees
(fed fire six more times, every one or 2 hours)
5:30pm interior temp 45 degrees- and gave up trying to get the space warm enough to work.

The issue is that the firebox is E-W and not big enough to put enough wood in even after the coal bed is beautiful. If I load it up, the wood often falls against the glass (not a situation I'm happy about leaving unmonitored...)

 

[stoveliker]

A space that small and well insulated should not take that long to go to 45 F, also in your climate.

 

[wjohn]

Right. You say insulated... How insulated? Could be a couple of things contributing here.

 

[stoveliker]

First post says 6" rockwool in the walls.. insulated ceiling. New construction.

Begs the question whether the floor is insulated??

 

[Trevor Tahclep]

East /west or north/south a stove that size for 1400 sq. ft. should easily be plentiful to heat 350 sq. ft. even if the floor is uninsulated. Under the worst colds cut the 1400 sq. ft to 700 sq. ft that is still 2 x 350 sq. ft. of that shop, something else is happening here. We do not know what stove top temp and stove pipe temps are and I believe it could seriously help diagnose what is happening here. Could this chimney be drawing very important heat out ? Is that workshop so air tight there is not enough air feeding the stove ? Thermometer temps would help greatly. Do not know how deep this east/west stove is but I would certainly try cutting very very dry wood to 12 inch and feed it north/south and see if the temps differ very much !

 

[stoveliker]

^^ well said.

There is something wrong here and we don't have enough data to figure it out.

 

[wjohn]

First post says 6" rockwool in the walls.. insulated ceiling. New construction.

Begs the question whether the floor is insulated??

Thanks, I missed the 6" in the walls. I was mostly looking at the ceiling and wondering what R-value of insulation was able to be applied between the ceiling and the roof. Walls don't mean much without good ceiling insulation.

Agreed that if the floor is not insulated, the way that shop is sitting, that will lose a lot of heat too.

Just wondering out loud if inadequate ceiling insulation and inadequate floor insulation are an issue. It could certainly take a while to bring the temp up from 16 to 60 (or whatever desired temp). If my house is 56 when I get home and it's 12 degrees out, starting from nothing in the Aspen C3 in my ~750 square foot decently insulated house may take 2-3 hours to get it back up to 65. But it does sound like there is a stove issue going on here, too.

 

[Rose Lane]

Hello All:

Today is blustery and snowy but relatively mild, so it seemed a “fair” day to do this test.

Note: my husband did not split the wood. I know that’s incorrect - instead he ordered me a tabletop splitter so I can handle this myself. It hasn’t arrived. I moisture tested the first ten pieces of kiln dried wood I added today- and correct, they are showing a little wet for “kiln dried.” See image with average moisture content of 18% surface in the attached image.

Issue is, there isn’t any dry wood available. Local woodcutters don’t keep piles of seasoned wood on hand, and most kiln driers won’t even deliver here!

I called five kiln dry wood operations back in November- one agreed to deliver in two months -arriving next week- 2 didn’t call back, one said no, and one delivered in December. That is the wood we are using now.

So….I don’t have a solution for that other than wait a few years for the wood we have on site to dry. Not a good option.

Our wood is stored in a shed area off the barn. Sometimes snow blows in on it. We don’t have a place for interior storage.

——

The Lopi Answer Manual suggests a kindling start. I made dimensional lumber kindling of about 6” x 1” x 1.5” pieces and topped that with twigs of apple tree. Once that was fully ablaze, I added some tiny sticks of the kiln dried, and then the first three small pieces of firewood. This process took 25 minutes, all with the door open. I made a video if anyone wants to critique it 🤣 (sped up to three minutes)


Our Esse Ironheart and Pacific Energy Super LE both use a different fire starting method that allows one to close the door and walk away MUCH earlier.

——

Re: Insulation. The floor is not insulated; it is OSB under pine board; i.e. 2” of wood, approximately. I’m disappointed about that; the builders didn’t think it would matter in that size space.
The ceiling is, I think, 6” of blue foamboard (three layers) and wood cladding on the interior. Metal roof.

There are a bunch of windows on the view side of the house (west.) The way the land is situated it didn’t make sense for southern or eastern exposure.

——

Summary of the Images and Data Attached: In today’s moderate temperatures, it took almost 3 hours to get the workspace to above 50 degrees. I can work once it is above 50. It took 5 hours to get the space to 68 degrees.

The total temperature gain in that 5 hours was 45 degrees inside, but the ambient outside temp rose 12 degrees during the same period, so I think we can say the stove is only responsible for a gain of 33 degrees.

Suggestions welcome

Things I can’t feasibly do:
-Purchase drier wood this year
-Insulate the floor


Thank you for all your thoughts and suggestions.

 

[stoveliker]

If your wood is 18 pct without having resplit it, i.e. without measuring on a fresh surface, the inside is likely above 25 pct. If you measured the wood while it being less than 30 degrees, rather than room temperature, it is likely 30+ pct.

Your wood is too wet, meaning you are wasting a boat load of energy from that wood by having to boil all the water in there.

And you're loosing a lot of heat thru the floor.

 

[stoveliker]

Also, are the clearance requirements to the back wall met???

 

[Trevor Tahclep]

Your stove pipe temp log has a telling story, that flue is not getting very hot, the warmest the stove pipe temp got was at 338° at 10:10 am this at 20 inches over stove top and it took nearly 2 hours after initial start up. IMHO your flue is far from getting hot enough to create great draft and get the firebox humming . Could your dry wood quality be a problem, most definitely however at only 18% and a bit more the stove should do better than that. Have you tried cracking a window open at initial start up in order to supply sufficient fresh air to the stove for improved combustion, maybe that cabin / workshop is more air tight than it seems.

Have you tried using a couple small sized pressed firewood logs that you can purchase at Home Depot, Lowes and many hardware stores. This stove has a small firebox DO NOT PUT MORE THAN 2 PRESSED LOGS, as these are very dry and throw lots of heat, could over fire.
I would try burning a dozen of those logs and keep a temp log as you have done so well. This exercise will confirm or eliminate your kiln dry wood quality, or it will identify air restriction and/or draft problem. Inexpensive exercise that will cost only $10.00 or so and give you much needed heat as well.

With you regular kiln dried wood you could leave the stove door cracked open longer to warm the stove pipe and chimney far higher, stove pipe to at least 500° - 600° then close it, stove is burning cold IMHO.

Keep us informed.

 

[Rose Lane]

Also, are the clearance requirements to the back wall met???

Yes, I double checked on that when the stove was installed. Nothing to spare, but yes.

 

[EbS-P]

Try and couple packages of bio bricks. Make sure it’s 100% compressed saw dust. No cardboard or wax.

I burned 10 packages one winter. They can be hard to start on their own. Other than that I was very happy with them.

Pine dries fast in the summer but it needs all the rain kept off.

 

[Rose Lane]

Your stove pipe temp log has a telling story, that flue is not getting very hot, the warmest the stove pipe temp got was at 338° at 10:10 am this at 20 inches over stove top and it took nearly 2 hours after initial start up. IMHO your flue is far from getting hot enough to create great draft and get the firebox roaring. Could your dry wood quality be a problem, most definitely however at only 18% and a bit more the stove should do better than that. Have you tried cracking a window open at initial start up in order to supply sufficient fresh air to the stove for improved combustion, maybe that cabin / workshop is more air tight than it seems.

Have you tried using a couple small sized pressed firewood logs that you can purchase at Home Depot, Lowes and many hardware stores. This stove has a small firebox DO NOT PUT MORE THAN 2 PRESSED LOGS, as these are very dry and throw lots of heat, could over fire.
I would try burning a dozen of those logs and keep a temp log as you have done so well. This exercise will confirm or eliminate your kiln dry wood quality, or it will identify air restriction and/or draft problem. Inexpensive exercise that will cost only $10.00 or so .

With you regular kiln dried wood you could leave the stove door cracked open longer to warm the stove pipe and chimney longer, stove pipe to at least 500° - 600° then close it, it is burning cold IMHO.

Keep us informed.

That's a great idea on the pressed logs- I wasn't really aware of what those were for.

Yes, I am going to run another test on a mild day with the window cracked open. Trying to do one variable at a time!

Thank you.

 

[Rose Lane]

Try and couple packages of bio bricks. Make sure it’s 100% compressed saw dust. No cardboard or wax.

I burned 10 packages one winter. They can be hard to start on their own. Other than that I was very happy with them.

Pine dries fast in the summer but it needs all the rain kept off.

Do you mean like these? https://originalbiobricks.com/

Thanks

 

[EbS-P]

Do you mean like these? https://originalbiobricks.com/

Thanks

Yes. Tractor supply has something similar down here.

 

[stoveliker]

at only 18% and a bit more the stove should do better than that.

This is 18 pct on the outside of wood that has seen a kiln. Not on a freshly resplit surface. The wood is likely above 25 pct moisture content.

 

[Trevor Tahclep]

Rose Lane something along these lines. 100% hardwood pressed logs with no additives of any kind, any brand will do.

Do not have Bio Bricks in my area so no knowledge of them, however if they are 100% compressed hardwoods they will do fine.

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[wjohn]

I think that adds up to about R30 in the roof? Not great, definitely low for what's recommended for new construction in your location, but better than I was afraid of from the pictures. Should be workable. Sounds like the stove is underperforming as mentioned by several others above.

I learned how to do top down fires when I got my new stove and it's been awesome. I load the box almost full with rounds and splits, leave a little space up front for a crumpled piece of paper and some kindling, and can pretty well walk away after 10 minutes. I don't think that's going to help you with wet wood though. We are all curious to see how compressed sawdust logs work for you.

 

[Trevor Tahclep]

Every LOPI stove comes with a moisture meter, this LOPI employee explains how to use a moisture meter in this video, this should help the OP or any else how to use a moisture meter.

 

[Rose Lane]

I think that adds up to about R30 in the roof? Not great, definitely low for what's recommended for new construction in your location, but better than I was afraid of from the pictures. Should be workable. Sounds like the stove is underperforming as mentioned by several others above.

I learned how to do top down fires when I got my new stove and it's been awesome. I load the box almost full with rounds and splits, leave a little space up front for a crumpled piece of paper and some kindling, and can pretty well walk away after 10 minutes. I don't think that's going to help you with wet wood though. We are all curious to see how compressed sawdust logs work for you.

Agreed, about R30 in the roof. We know it's below spec; the builders just thought it would be nbd in this size space, I'm guessing.

I've tried doing the top down fire in this Lopi as well (before I made my husband manage the fire for a day, he was convinced that I was just building the fire wrong.). The firebox is so tiny, that it just chokes and goes out with a topdown fire build if the door is closed- if it's open, same deal as the video I posted, 30 minutes before it has taken enough to close the door.

Compared to the Esse, which literally takes less than 5 minutes before I can close the door. It's so easy to build a fire in it one can just stick in full size logs and a piece of lit fatwood, close the door, and come back to a well burning fire.