Please ease my mind on my Monaco ZC

[Reppinger]

Ok, so I just fired up my newly installed Monaco ZC yesterday and the wife is already yelling at me. Let me explain.
I replaced a 1980 BIS 1.2 that used to be very easy to start and not so easy to keep the fire under control. I have 3 cords of 10 month splits that I thought were dry enough but now I am not so sure. I am having a hard time getting the Monaco temp up to push some heat out of it. This is why the wife is upset. She feels we wasted $ with the new stove because it is not putting out as much heat as the old one.

Maybe the wood is to wet? not sure. any advise?

 

[brogsie]

If you could borrow a moisture meter test the wood. I bet it's not dry enough.
Seems like 90% of problems is with wood that's not dry enough.
Try a package of the store bought wood that's been kiln dried. If that burns ok you know that's the problem.
Some wood dries in a year. Depend on species of wood and stacking conditions.

 

[Reppinger]

I got the kiln dried wood. It helped a little but I am still not getting the heat that I thought I would get. the unit is barely keeping the house at 66 degrees during the day. My old unit would keep it at 72 but would really eat through the wood. Maybe I should install the gravity kit.

 

[Reppinger]

Also, on cold days (or snow storms) how long do you keep the air fully open. I have not done this for more then 10 mins. Is there a way to have a thermostat on a zero clearance?

 

[brogsie]

Try smaller splits. Let the fire get going real good before turning it down. Does your stove have a cat?
New stoves are tough to get used to. Hopefully someone with the same stove can give you some pointers.

 

[Reppinger]

Does anyone have any experience with Gravity kits? Is it worth doing?

 

[BCC_Burner]

Never heard of a gravity kit, are you trying to turn your stove into a giant piece of paraphernalia?

 

[Reppinger]

Duuuuude...... I'm in PA not Colorado...

 

[weatherguy]

Are you getting it up to temp and slowly turning the air down in increments? You eventually want it hot with the air turned almost all the way down to keep the heat in the room and not going up the flue.

 

[aansorge]

You need to allow the unit to get good and hot before turning down the air. Give it too little time and it will keep dying. Be patient. Allow it to get almost to the raging inferno stage!

Unfortunately you can wait too long and you get the stove going so good that the raging inferno won't slow down when the air is turned down. To get this right takes some trial and error and a trained eye.

Just remember that the new tube style stoves love heat and need it to get efficient and put out heat.

 

[Reppinger]

Yeah that's what I have been doing for the last week or so but I am still not getting the heat that I feel I should be getting. I was hoping that someone had experience with gravity air kits and if the actually take advantage of more heat or is just a waste.

 

[MrWhoopee]

Not sure about your process, but you mentioned reducing the air after 10 minutes. That's not nearly long enough to get the stove up to temp. This unit is a secondary air type, it will probably take 30 minutes or more to get it burning hot enough. If you don't see flames dancing around the top of the firebox when you close the air down, it's not hot enough.

From the manual:
"Once you have reached the desired
temperature, the primary air can be set to a medium setting. You know you have reached the
desired temperature when, closing the primary air control, you can see a flame at the top of firebox"

"In order to achieve an optimum efficiency from your unit, we suggest that you operate it with
the air control completely closed. Make sure that you have a good fire going and an adequate
ember bed before you completely close the air control. Closing the air control too soon will
lower combustion efficiency and may cause the fire to die out. The addition of a blower (if
not already included) is highly recommended to maximize your unit’s efficiency."

You don't mention if you have the blower. If not, that's the place to put extra money.

 

[Reppinger]

Thanks for the info. I have a blower. it comes with 2 blowers. I have been able to keep the tubes firing with the air closed all this week. That will normally but the face temp of the fireplace at around 350-400. My problem might be the layout of the house. I have not been able to get the upstairs over 60 degrees with the downstairs only at around 67. My house is right at 2000sq foot and this I know that is at the top of this unit so that is why I am trying to see if the gravity kit would add anymore heat. I just cannot get a clear answer on that. Maybe I am trying to squeeze water from a rock at this point, not sure.

 

[Reppinger]

Try smaller splits. Let the fire get going real good before turning it down. Does your stove have a cat?
New stoves are tough to get used to. Hopefully someone with the same stove can give you some pointers.

this is a secondary tube stove, not cat

 

[MrWhoopee]

Thanks for the info. I have a blower. it comes with 2 blowers. I have been able to keep the tubes firing with the air closed all this week. That will normally but the face temp of the fireplace at around 350-400. My problem might be the layout of the house. I have not been able to get the upstairs over 60 degrees with the downstairs only at around 67. My house is right at 2000sq foot and this I know that is at the top of this unit so that is why I am trying to see if the gravity kit would add anymore heat. I just cannot get a clear answer on that. Maybe I am trying to squeeze water from a rock at this point, not sure.

Sounds like you are operating correctly. If you are stretching the capacity of the insert, you must expect to run it flat out with both blowers running.

I had similar problems with my house, due to an enclosed stairwell which restricted the flow of warm air upstairs. I solved the problem by placing an 18 in. air register directly above my stove. The register feeds two 8 in. ducts which supply air to 2 of the 3 upstairs bedrooms. I placed the outlet registers (in the bedrooms) as high as I could to maximize convective flow (no blowers). The upstairs is still cooler than the downstairs, but nothing like it was before.