hey there woodstove folks! i have several calls and emails in to Woodstock Soapstone but not heard back so i thought i would try here. We bought a house with a 2013 Progress Hybrid and have been ignoring the lower level where it is installed in favor of the living room with the large window and the Vermont Castings Resolute. but now that i have mastered the VC, i wanted to get familiar with the PH in anticipation of this next winter. i have read the instructions/manual many times and lurked about on the forums here reading anything i can about the PH.
heres the rub: our model doesnt have a carefully sliding, graduated damper lever on the back. it has a simple open/close flapper. i took it apart yesterday trying to match the mechanism with the manual and it is opposite. lifting the lever UP opens the damper fully and lowering it closes the damper. there is no halfway as there is no friction and the weight of the handle itself chooses DOWN for you. secondly, the fire will not start with the damper OPEN and everything else closed. the door has to be cracked open or the ash tray door opened. the draft is good on our chimney, its 16" vertical out of the top of the stove, 16" horizontal to the wall, then 18' out. if i leave a door cracked it burns well and hot. so i vacuumed the top ports inside and could see light through to the damper (when i had the back off). so i know its clear, but obviously the fire doesnt pull well from the ceiling of the stove and isnt getting air down low.
i have been unable to find an exploded diagram of the stove, but in reading here people have mentioned primary and secondary intakes. the crux of this post is to find out where exactly, down below, does the stove pull air from? then i can go look for that since it must surely be blocked due to the observed behavior. i would like to get it figured out and learn the intricate subtleties i have read about here.
thank you for any help or wisdom!
d.
heres the rub: our model doesnt have a carefully sliding, graduated damper lever on the back. it has a simple open/close flapper. i took it apart yesterday trying to match the mechanism with the manual and it is opposite. lifting the lever UP opens the damper fully and lowering it closes the damper. there is no halfway as there is no friction and the weight of the handle itself chooses DOWN for you. secondly, the fire will not start with the damper OPEN and everything else closed. the door has to be cracked open or the ash tray door opened. the draft is good on our chimney, its 16" vertical out of the top of the stove, 16" horizontal to the wall, then 18' out. if i leave a door cracked it burns well and hot. so i vacuumed the top ports inside and could see light through to the damper (when i had the back off). so i know its clear, but obviously the fire doesnt pull well from the ceiling of the stove and isnt getting air down low.
i have been unable to find an exploded diagram of the stove, but in reading here people have mentioned primary and secondary intakes. the crux of this post is to find out where exactly, down below, does the stove pull air from? then i can go look for that since it must surely be blocked due to the observed behavior. i would like to get it figured out and learn the intricate subtleties i have read about here.
thank you for any help or wisdom!
d.
