New USSC 6041 insert

[Dudenhymer]

Hello all,

Been lurking here for the past few weeks picking up info for the USSC 6041 I picked up from Northern Tool. I installed it into my masonry fireplace vented into a cleanout T then runs 4" diameter stainless flex all the way up the 25 foot chimney. There's enough of a draft already running through the chimney that I didn't bother running a FAK to the outside, just pulling air straight from the back of the fireplace.

I've learned way more about this stove from reading posts here than I did reading the manual that came with it.
- Removing the FAK cap under the burn pot.
- Plugging the two 2" holes behind the fake firebrick with 1.5" electrical knockouts.
- The hidden controls to adjust feedrate, room fan, draft fan, agitator duty.

After the first few days of running, the gear worked it's way off the agitator motor. It chewed up the motor shaft. I had to file the shaft down to get the gear back in place. I read about that issue somewhere before I bought the stove. Bad on me for not checking that first but I knew right where to look when the agitator stopped working.

My house is a 2900 sq ft cape cod. Fireplace is in the living room with a cathedral ceiling and a large ~6x9 ft bay window at the top of the room. I'm losing lots of heat through that window so i'll be pretty much running this thing wide open come Jan-Feb.

Just wanted to say hello and thanks for the great info.

 

[Mt Bob]

Hello all,

Been lurking here for the past few weeks picking up info for the USSC 6041 I picked up from Northern Tool. I installed it into my masonry fireplace vented into a cleanout T then runs 4" diameter stainless flex all the way up the 25 foot chimney. There's enough of a draft already running through the chimney that I didn't bother running a FAK to the outside, just pulling air straight from the back of the fireplace.

I've learned way more about this stove from reading posts here than I did reading the manual that came with it.
- Removing the FAK cap under the burn pot.
- Plugging the two 2" holes behind the fake firebrick with 1.5" electrical knockouts.
- The hidden controls to adjust feedrate, room fan, draft fan, agitator duty.

After the first few days of running, the gear worked it's way off the agitator motor. It chewed up the motor shaft. I had to file the shaft down to get the gear back in place. I read about that issue somewhere before I bought the stove. Bad on me for not checking that first but I knew right where to look when the agitator stopped working.

My house is a 2900 sq ft cape cod. Fireplace is in the living room with a cathedral ceiling and a large ~6x9 ft bay window at the top of the room. I'm losing lots of heat through that window so i'll be pretty much running this thing wide open come Jan-Feb.

Just wanted to say hello and thanks for the great info.

Slap together an interior storm window for the coldest times.Stay warm.

 

[FirepotPete]

Hello all,

Been lurking here for the past few weeks picking up info for the USSC 6041 I picked up from Northern Tool. I installed it into my masonry fireplace vented into a cleanout T then runs 4" diameter stainless flex all the way up the 25 foot chimney. There's enough of a draft already running through the chimney that I didn't bother running a FAK to the outside, just pulling air straight from the back of the fireplace.

I've learned way more about this stove from reading posts here than I did reading the manual that came with it.
- Removing the FAK cap under the burn pot.
- Plugging the two 2" holes behind the fake firebrick with 1.5" electrical knockouts.
- The hidden controls to adjust feedrate, room fan, draft fan, agitator duty.

After the first few days of running, the gear worked it's way off the agitator motor. It chewed up the motor shaft. I had to file the shaft down to get the gear back in place. I read about that issue somewhere before I bought the stove. Bad on me for not checking that first but I knew right where to look when the agitator stopped working.

My house is a 2900 sq ft cape cod. Fireplace is in the living room with a cathedral ceiling and a large ~6x9 ft bay window at the top of the room. I'm losing lots of heat through that window so i'll be pretty much running this thing wide open come Jan-Feb.

Just wanted to say hello and thanks for the great info.

Hello all,

Welcome to the forum!

Take Bob's advice if you can and do something with that window for the winter. I have a 1800sqft cape cod, a large window in the living room where the stove is and need to get it updated but until then...plastic.

A couple of tips on your stove. Keep it clean. My 6039 is basically the same stove. I run pretty steady on HR3-5 depending on the weather. Your stove has settings PR/CR 1-5, mine has HR1-9 so you can see I'm running on what would be the lower end of your settings. Burning corn at 1.5pph on HR1 and 5pph on HR9. I really need to lower that upper number as I have never ran it above HR7 for any length of time. The reason is that these stoves have had a history of the front wall and the door warping at very high temps and I don't need to ruin it just for a few degrees in extreme cold.

To bad you didn't take and add a zerk to that gear box while you had it out of the stove. They are known for not having much grease in the auger and agitator gear boxes.

I just scored a used 6039 for scrape parts, free to me! I will try and take the gear box off in the next few days and take pictures of how to add the zerk and weep hole and ask Lake Girl to add to the US stove sticky.

By the way. Where has Lake Girl been? Hope she's OK.

Been lurking here for the past few weeks picking up info for the USSC 6041 I picked up from Northern Tool. I installed it into my masonry fireplace vented into a cleanout T then runs 4" diameter stainless flex all the way up the 25 foot chimney. There's enough of a draft already running through the chimney that I didn't bother running a FAK to the outside, just pulling air straight from the back of the fireplace.

I've learned way more about this stove from reading posts here than I did reading the manual that came with it.
- Removing the FAK cap under the burn pot.
- Plugging the two 2" holes behind the fake firebrick with 1.5" electrical knockouts.
- The hidden controls to adjust feedrate, room fan, draft fan, agitator duty.

After the first few days of running, the gear worked it's way off the agitator motor. It chewed up the motor shaft. I had to file the shaft down to get the gear back in place. I read about that issue somewhere before I bought the stove. Bad on me for not checking that first but I knew right where to look when the agitator stopped working.

My house is a 2900 sq ft cape cod. Fireplace is in the living room with a cathedral ceiling and a large ~6x9 ft bay window at the top of the room. I'm losing lots of heat through that window so i'll be pretty much running this thing wide open come Jan-Feb.

Just wanted to say hello and thanks for the great info.

 

[Dudenhymer]

Dang, thanks for the tip on over heating. I bought a digital meat thermometer from Walmart and have the TC mounted parallel inside the middle output grate where the convection blows out. I know the numbers themselves are probably meaningless because everyone is set up different. I normally run around 180-200 degrees on PR-4 or PR-5 my auger range is stock 2.00 to 5.00 Sitting around this past Saturday I decided to see how much heat I could pump out so I cranked the auger up 3.50 to 6.50 running this way on PR-5 burning oak pellets. I slowed the draft fan down as much as I could and got the temps up as high as 266 degrees. I could barely sit in front to make adjustments, holding my hand about 6" from the output burned the hair off the top of my hand. I tried running like this on PR-3 overnight but I kept my draft too low and the pot backed up on me. This thing is fun to play with. I would love to try burning some corn but not sure where to find it here in VA.