Just bought this fireplace for a new construction. The current house has a Quadrafire 2700i insert that provides the majority of our heat. My question is can the Stratford fireplace be loaded and burned the same way as the insert wood burner?
New Osburn Stratford
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The house was just completed a month ago so I haven’t had a chance to use it for heat yet. I have done a couple of small burns to season the paint and it seemed to burn well.
One surprise I got was it is advertised as taking 21 inch logs. The firebox narrows to 18 1/2 inches at the back so 21 won’t fit. The manufacturer reply when questioned about the listed specs was, “criss cross the logs and they’ll fit”. Not really the best way load a stove for long efficient burns. I have a whole lot of 3” cut offs for shoulder season burns now.
It’s a nice looking unit and the fans seem to be quiet. I’m anxious to really get burning for heat to see how it does.
Sounds great. Yeah to much air gaps. Well I've had mine now for 1 year and have been very disappointed with it. Spent alot of money taking out existing fireplace to put this one in. New piping and all new stone work hoping to use this as our main heat source. But does not help at all. Just in the room it's in. Have called customer service numerous times and they really don't care to help. Even though the units are very expensive. I have it in a 14x16 family room which is open to the kitchen. Dry wood (ash) 20% give or take on a fresh split. Can't get the room it's in hotter than 78° on a 30° day. Burn times are maybe 3 hours and that's start to coal down. And only puts out good heat for around an hour. And that is with the fresh air intake shut down. Was told my draft was to tall. But it's a typical 2 story house. 24ft of pipe. Salesperson where I bought it from said the house was leaking to much cold air in. But I went around with an infrared gun and found nothing out of the norm. House is less than 20 years old. Custom built. so osburn told me to close off the small air port with fireplace cement. this is found on the back side of the log keeper. Tried that then it doesn't burn hot. Another rep sent me washers to put in the ends of the reburn tubes. Never tried that. That just doesn't make sense to do. Nor did anyone else on this forum. Anyways keep me updated with yours and hope you have better luck.
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Seems you have had a lot of issues with your fireplace. I couldn't find a lot of reviews on the unit before I bought it but the overall reviews of SBI were positive and the dealer I bought it from claimed to have sold 10 and all owners were very happy with the performance. Hopefully when we get into burning season and I can put this to work I'll have better luck that you have.
Yeah same with me couldn't find any reviews and dealer said it would heat me out of the house. Man was he wrong
spudman99
Feeling the Heat
Maybe the dealer would give you names and numbers of previous Osburn customers whom you can call as a references. Of course he will say they had no problem -- that doesn't mean they did not. Also this gives you a source of field installed stoves to cross reference if there are problems.
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I Did ask him for names and numbers and he told me he could not give out that information. Just a bad experience all around. now I'm stuck with it. Not like you can just replace it.
I've read somewhere on here that SBI recommends the washers in the secondary tube in some cases. Might be hard to search the forums to find it, but I can tell you it's here somewhere.
I did try the washers but only in the first 2 tubes. Didn't get hot at all. Maybe just for fun I should try all 4 tubes. But the rep told me to play with it meaning try washers in all the tubes then try them just on one side and so on. Seems like a lot of work that (I, MYSELF) should have to do after spending over $3000 on a unit. Just saying
Talked to salesperson where I bought the unit from today. He told me there's nothing they can do it's not there problem. Told me I have to go through SBI
I should be able to give it a good test this weekend with temps not predicted to get out of the 30's . Hopefully it performs well.
Looks really nice. Was able to get some answers from sbi. He told me (in an email) to put foil tape on half of the air wash or circulating air which is the 3 inch duct on top and to the front. To lower the strong draft. Which I did and it did help some. Still doesn't get room it's in above 78° small room let alone heat 2000 sq ft. Still getting short burn times of around 3 to 3.5 hours. which is an hour improvement after constricting that duct. Tried to constrict more than half to get longer hotter burns but very difficult to get the fire even started. Also I should mention sbi rep told me to close off the small hole in the log holder also
Thanks for the information. At least I’ll have some areas to check if I my results are similar to yours.
I would think tours will perform great. I just happened to have an over drafting issue. Good luck. Keep me posted. One thing I will say is I've had much better success loading the wood in front to back (north south) also easier to load this way when there are really hot coals still.
I'm happy with the fireplace performance. It easily kept the 1280 sq ft, mostly 21 foot high cathedral ceiling house at 72 degrees while the outside temps ranged from 25 at night to 34 during the day. I could load it at 11 PM and have red coals at 7 AM with the blower still running on auto. The blower noise, even on high, is not objectionable. I loaded it north/south one time with some shorter wood that I had, and really liked the result. Since I already had to shorten my wood once from 21 to 18 inches, I'll mostly burn east/west this year then take out the andiron and block that with a piece of firebrick for next year.
The burn characteristics of this unit are different than my Quadrafire 2700i. If I waited to cut back the air until I had the same type of flames the Quadrafire needs to light the secondaries, I would burn through most of the wood load. I found that as long as there are decent flames, the air can be cut back and secondaries take over.
The burn characteristics of this unit are different than my Quadrafire 2700i. If I waited to cut back the air until I had the same type of flames the Quadrafire needs to light the secondaries, I would burn through most of the wood load. I found that as long as there are decent flames, the air can be cut back and secondaries take over.
That's awesome that yours is working great. Do you have temps of heat just in that room? Also do you have temp of heat coming from blower? North south definitely works better for me. I am getting some good results after putting the foil tape over half the vent tube (as sbi) suggested. What type of wood you burning and what moister percentage.
The room is 16X32 with a 21 foot high cathedral ceiling and two 12x12 open lofts, so a whole lot of cubic feet. At the thermostat for the furnace, which is on the wall opposite the fireplace, the temperature was consistently 72 degrees and up to 75 degrees. I don't have any idea what the temp at the blower was since I go by how the secondaries are burning when cutting back the air. The wood I am using is a mix of hard maple and cherry which has been css for two years. I've been burning for heat in two houses since 1995 and have never measured moisture content of the wood. I was considering a moisture meter after reading your posts, but at this point it doesn't seem necessary. I do have a lot of white oak that is three foot diameter at the base and red oak that is over four foot diameter at the base and has been down for two years to process. I may get a moisture meter to monitor that wood when it is css.
After decades of wood burning, I finally broke down and bought a moisture meter. It was more to satisfy my curiosity than anything else. I learned the value of dry wood years ago and developed my own methods for verifying the wood was ready to burn. The only surprise from the moisture meter was that old dry wood (greater than 3 yrs in the shed) wasn't much drier than 1 yr old split doug fir. Our wood tends to equalize around 16-18% moisture and stay there. I haven't tested in the middle of a dry summer yet. Maybe it drops down then.
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