mid last winter I got an Englands Stove to replace an undersized one I had in my house. This one is much better sized. It’s rated for 2400 sq ft, has about 6’ of single wall pipe, probably 24’ of triple wall on top of that in a straight shot up and out with a cap. About 12” above the stove I installed a damper when I had the original stove so I left it for this one.
However this year I’ve been having some issues. One night I had hit the single wall a couple times to see if it sounded like there was much build up in it. Some fell down but didn’t think much of it(I know dumb). woke up to my smoke alarm sounding. I went out and found that the pipe below the damper was glowing orange. I immediately shut the damper the rest of the way to shut off it’s air flow, it cooled right down. Took the wood out of it and put it in a bucket of water to be safe and didn’t start another fire until I could check the chimney. It was pretty obvious the bottom bit had burned but no major damage. Cleaned out what was left. Looked up the rest of the pipe and found very little build up. Reassembled and moved on.
After that I got to reading the stove manual and found where it states to never add a damper or do anything to alter its chimney system. So since then I’ve been burning it with the damper wide open. As a result, I’m eating though wood. I used to be able to burn all night, now I’m lucky to get 4 hours and I get massive heat rises in the house. If I start at 70 when I go to bed, it’ll peak close to 80 over night and the stove will be touchable by morning.
I’m going to replace my gasket as I found it’s getting a little worn, but what else can I do? Is the no damper note true? Or is it safe to use my damper? Did my night time scare result solely from my ignorance in knocking down debris and causing it to ignite in the top of the stove? It’s almost to the point I don’t like using the stove. I grew up with one in my home and never had an issue. Now I have my own place and I can’t get it right.
However this year I’ve been having some issues. One night I had hit the single wall a couple times to see if it sounded like there was much build up in it. Some fell down but didn’t think much of it(I know dumb). woke up to my smoke alarm sounding. I went out and found that the pipe below the damper was glowing orange. I immediately shut the damper the rest of the way to shut off it’s air flow, it cooled right down. Took the wood out of it and put it in a bucket of water to be safe and didn’t start another fire until I could check the chimney. It was pretty obvious the bottom bit had burned but no major damage. Cleaned out what was left. Looked up the rest of the pipe and found very little build up. Reassembled and moved on.
After that I got to reading the stove manual and found where it states to never add a damper or do anything to alter its chimney system. So since then I’ve been burning it with the damper wide open. As a result, I’m eating though wood. I used to be able to burn all night, now I’m lucky to get 4 hours and I get massive heat rises in the house. If I start at 70 when I go to bed, it’ll peak close to 80 over night and the stove will be touchable by morning.
I’m going to replace my gasket as I found it’s getting a little worn, but what else can I do? Is the no damper note true? Or is it safe to use my damper? Did my night time scare result solely from my ignorance in knocking down debris and causing it to ignite in the top of the stove? It’s almost to the point I don’t like using the stove. I grew up with one in my home and never had an issue. Now I have my own place and I can’t get it right.
