ICY99 said:
Do you mean that there is caulk/cement deep inside the stove ialong parts of the secondary path? I recently re-cemented all of the visible external seams but did not know how to get to the guts of the thing. I do notice that where the secondary path enters the bottom of smoke exit chamber (where the damper is), there is a 3/16 gap visible. The gap looks like it is supposed to be there though.
I am much more familiar with the Defiant, but if you look here (broken link removed to http://www.vermontcastings.com/catalog/elements/files/2007/2003688_Fireback_Replace.pdf) you will see that the secondary air in the Resolute follows a passage which is formed in the space between the fireback and the stove back, very similar in concept to the Defiant. Cement bridges the gaps between these two castings thus forming the passage, so the passage will not work properly if the cement has failed.
My stove works much better now that I rebuilt that passage and totally isolated it with stove cement from the smoke chamber and the primary air intake. Before I did this, I could stick a pencil in the secondary air port and pass it out the primary air port. That's too big a gap, and if you think about it, it cannot be right. These stoves are controlled by limiting primary air with the flapper door. But the secondary air port is always open, as it should be. If these two passages communicate, then when the primary air door is shut down, primary air will simply enter via the secondary air port -- not good!
I used plenty of stove cement and reinforced it in spots with aluminum window screening, which is easy to cut with scissors into custom shapes. In spots I used bits of gasket material. Now my secondary air passage is totally isolated from flue gasses and primary air, and everything is working much better. By that I mean, secondary combustion is easier to attain, and its easier to attain and sustain stable high temps in the firebox. The stove is a pleasure to use again.
I tore my stove apart to address this and other problems, but you needn't do that just to inspect the passage, which you can do with a bright light that you can move around inside the stove. Peer into the secondary air passage, but put the light inside the firebox, shining into the primary air ports. If light leaks into the secondary air passage, then air will also leak. Second test is to put the light in the smoke chamber and again look down the secondary air passage for light leaking in. Finally, use common sense to inspect the integrity of the secondary passage whereever you can see it. Correct as necessary.
Disassembly is best for addressing serious problems, but some repairs can be attempted without disassembling the stove. The top of the passage is really the bottom of the smoke chamber and can be worked on to some extent by reaching down through the flue collar. The bottom of the passage can be addressed by sliding a long slender stick into the secondary air port and using it like a paddle to smear cement around. Crude, but got me by until I could fix things properly.
