Ready for another 23 years!! What I did: Firebrick/Baffle Question: Quadrafire 3000 - 1987 Vintage

[Beowulf]

Never one to let well enough alone, I am looking at the firebox of my 1987 Quadrafire 3000 to see if there is anything I should do to it before launching the burn season. It has worked great us for the 7 seasons we have had the place, with the last season being the best, after I learned how to run it effectively from info on this forum. I am now looking to optimize it for this coming year.

From what I have learned here, it seems having a "hotter" firebox helps get and keep secondary combustion going on a non-cat early EPA stove like this one. To that end, I have these questions:

Firebrick Question:

I am contemplating replacing the fire brick; several are cracked and most look to be "worn" a little thinner from many years of fiery splits being slammed into them.

In looking around inside the firebox, I wonder if installing firebrick the rest of the way up the sides of the stove would be a good idea or not. My thoughts are that it would force the heat out the front, more, than radiating out the steel sides. The stove is in a corner, so heat radiating out the sides does more to heat the exterior walls than the heat forced out the front that seems to heat us more.

Question: Is extending the brick up another three or so inches inside the firebox sidewalls a good or bad idea, or at best a waste of time?

Baffle Questions:

The baffle is a flat steel plate sitting on a couple of pieces of angle iron. It's about 3/8" thick and goes back to the back wall of the firebox. There are (8) firebricks sitting on the top of the baffle that cover most of the upper surface of the baffle. Not sure if this was original or not, since the stove came with the house.

There is now about 1 1/2" of space between the top of the bricks and the actual top of the inside of the stove. I read in a QF3100 manual that I downloaded (closest I could find to mine) that there should be a Kaowool blanket that sits on top of the baffle. I do not see any fire bricks mentioned in this manual, on top of the baffle area. Maybe they had not bred the special fireproof Kao sheep back in 1987 to harvest Kaowool from, so they used bricks instead of the Kaowool?

Questions:

1: Should the fire bricks sitting on top of the baffle stay, or be replaced with a Kaowool blanket? Or maybe a fiberboard?

2: If the fire bricks stay, should I put a Kaowool blanket on top of them? How much clearance should I have from the top of the Kaowool blanket to the inside top of the stove? (i.e. how thick of a piece of Kaowool should I think about for the 1 1/2" space that is there now, if I leave the bricks?


Thanks for taking a look at this post. Mods, if this belongs in The Gear, please feel free to move it.

 

[Beowulf]

Not much input, so I made some decisions and acted on them:

Regarding the Kaowool. Decided that the bricks sitting on top of the baffle would stay, after some cleaning of the roof of the baffle area. Had a little creosote up on the top where the blower directs air across the top of the stove.

Then put a 1/2" thick Kaowool blanket ($25) on top of the bricks. Paranoid enough about it lying flat that I pulled the chimney pipe off and stuck the camera in the baffle area to see if it was flat. It was. Still have about an inch of clearance over the blanket.

 

[Beowulf]

Went down to the local stove shop and picked up 20 firebricks, then visited the local hardware store for a diamond saw blade and a small tub of refractory cement.

Cut new bricks to fit in original positions, then added the two up above the main firebox area on the sides, as well as a few skinny strips that probably were missing from days gone by. Used a couple of globs of the refractory cement to anchor the upper tiles in place, as well as filled in some gaps in the corners. The old tiles used to move around easily and frequently got ash behind them that forced them to lean into the firebox. I used what I hope was a reasonably small amount of cement to anchor the key bricks in place, without making future removal too much of a pain. (I hope!)

 

[Beowulf]

Here the old girl is, ready for another 23 seasons or so...

 

[RonB]

You definitely needed new fire bricks. Very neat job of installing them and the cement looks good. Curious to know how it will look at end of season though. Keep an eye on smoke spillage after opening door because you have reduced the volume of the path for the smoke over the baffle by adding the insulation. Seems like a good thing to do but let us know how it turns out after burning for a while. Is that a secondary burn tube with holes at the top back?

 

[Beowulf]

You definitely needed new fire bricks. Very neat job of installing them and the cement looks good. Curious to know how it will look at end of season though. Keep an eye on smoke spillage after opening door because you have reduced the volume of the path for the smoke over the baffle by adding the insulation. Seems like a good thing to do but let us know how it turns out after burning for a while. Is that a secondary burn tube with holes at the top back?

Thanks RonB

Yes, it definitely was ready for new bricks; when I got them out, some were getting down to less than 1/2" thickness in spots, other than the obvious cracks...

The reduced path also concerns me, but we seem to have quite a strong draft, so hope it works out. $25 experiment, at least.

Yes, this model has a single secondary burn tube, and a row of holes behind it that I think are connected into the primary air that blows downward in the lower section. For an early EPA stove, it has always had nice secondary burns and relatively long burn cycles with dry oak.

 

[Todd]

Did your check all the inside fire box welds for any cracks while you had the bricks out?

 

[Beowulf]

Did your check all the inside fire box welds for any cracks while you had the bricks out?

Yes, vacuumed it out, then gave it a thorough inspection. No cracks or even noticeable warpage; other than the angle retainers for the firebricks. Actually kind of surprised that a relatively modern stove has held up this well over 23 years of sometimes 24/7 usage for whole seasons.

 

[burleymike]

That looks great it sure did hold up well. My old insert was probably about the same age and it did warped/cracked welds like crazy.

 

[Todd]

Did your check all the inside fire box welds for any cracks while you had the bricks out?

Yes, vacuumed it out, then gave it a thorough inspection. No cracks or even noticeable warpage; other than the angle retainers for the firebricks. Actually kind of surprised that a relatively modern stove has held up this well over 23 years of sometimes 24/7 usage for whole seasons.

Looks like a keeper then, it would be interesting to see how long it can last.

 

[BrotherBart]

It is the paint color that keeps it young. Well, that and having the door handle on the proper side. :coolsmirk: It looks like you burn a wood stove right. Hot enough to stay clean and heat the joint but not like a blast furnace that wrecks the stove. Keep on doin what yer doin.

Have I ever mentioned that I love big ole steel stoves? Especially brown ones.

 

[firefighterjake]

It is the paint color that keeps it young. Well, that and having the door handle on the proper side. :coolsmirk: It looks like you burn a wood stove right. Hot enough to stay clean and heat the joint but not like a blast furnace that wrecks the stove. Keep on doin what yer doin.

Have I ever mentioned that I love big ole steel stoves? Especially brown ones.

I thought it looked a little pinkish in color . . . . . . I'm guessing due to the lighting or flash.

 

[rhetoric]

Thanks for this (old) thread! Just bought a quad 3000 for $100.00 for the shop. This will help me get it into tip top shape. Love Pink!

 

[SKIN052]

Well done

 

[leah]

Never one to let well enough alone, I am looking at the firebox of my 1987 Quadrafire 3000 to see if there is anything I should do to it before launching the burn season. It has worked great us for the 7 seasons we have had the place, with the last season being the best, after I learned how to run it effectively from info on this forum. I am now looking to optimize it for this coming year.

From what I have learned here, it seems having a "hotter" firebox helps get and keep secondary combustion going on a non-cat early EPA stove like this one. To that end, I have these questions:

Firebrick Question:

I am contemplating replacing the fire brick; several are cracked and most look to be "worn" a little thinner from many years of fiery splits being slammed into them.

In looking around inside the firebox, I wonder if installing firebrick the rest of the way up the sides of the stove would be a good idea or not. My thoughts are that it would force the heat out the front, more, than radiating out the steel sides. The stove is in a corner, so heat radiating out the sides does more to heat the exterior walls than the heat forced out the front that seems to heat us more.

Question: Is extending the brick up another three or so inches inside the firebox sidewalls a good or bad idea, or at best a waste of time?

Baffle Questions:

The baffle is a flat steel plate sitting on a couple of pieces of angle iron. It's about 3/8" thick and goes back to the back wall of the firebox. There are (8) firebricks sitting on the top of the baffle that cover most of the upper surface of the baffle. Not sure if this was original or not, since the stove came with the house.

There is now about 1 1/2" of space between the top of the bricks and the actual top of the inside of the stove. I read in a QF3100 manual that I downloaded (closest I could find to mine) that there should be a Kaowool blanket that sits on top of the baffle. I do not see any fire bricks mentioned in this manual, on top of the baffle area. Maybe they had not bred the special fireproof Kao sheep back in 1987 to harvest Kaowool from, so they used bricks instead of the Kaowool?

Questions:

1: Should the fire bricks sitting on top of the baffle stay, or be replaced with a Kaowool blanket? Or maybe a fiberboard?

2: If the fire bricks stay, should I put a Kaowool blanket on top of them? How much clearance should I have from the top of the Kaowool blanket to the inside top of the stove? (i.e. how thick of a piece of Kaowool should I think about for the 1 1/2" space that is there now, if I leave the bricks?


Thanks for taking a look at this post. Mods, if this belongs in The Gear, please feel free to move it.

How did u get your baffle out?

 

[begreen]

Old thread from 4 years ago.