Stove burning too hot and fast

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Cbritton24

New Member
Jan 31, 2022
3
West Virginia
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.
 
With 30' of straight-up flue the draft is going very strong. It's a shame Englander copped out on addressing this situation. There are only a few choices in this situation. Reduce the air coming into the stove, reduce the draft velocity, or replace the stove.
 
With 30' of straight-up flue the draft is going very strong. It's a shame Englander copped out on addressing this situation. There are only a few choices in this situation. Reduce the air coming into the stove, reduce the draft velocity, or replace the stove.
Any ideas on how to reduce it? My new gasket comes in tomorrow. Really hoping that helps some.
 
People reduce draft by adding one or two key dampers in the flue. However, given that your mfg explicitly states in the manual that that should not be done, doing it may have consequences for insurance pay-out in case something bad happens.
(Though the same might apply to playing with making the air supply holes on the stove smaller.)

So things can be done, but there is a big BUT there...
 
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Stoves are tested to a certain spec, draft is one of the spec's, if your draft doesnt match the stoves tested draft then your running out of spec, Englander will not advise on a damper because there is a risk of someone within the existing draft parameters using a damper and taking the stove out of parameter and burning dirty, thats why there's always emphasis on improving weak draft and not over draft, if your over drafting you need to test your draft with a meter and then add dampers to correct it and bring the stove within spec.
 
I agree with Kenny above. I just wanted it noted that there are some (semi-legal) debates about the legality of this approach (see thread "are dampers legal").
While legality I don't mind so much, safety I do, and as important as safety is my insurance paying out if shtf.

So, while I would seriously consider a damper (or two, if needed), it's good to know these also relevant parameters of this consideration.
 
Stoves are tested to a certain spec, draft is one of the spec's, if your draft doesnt match the stoves tested draft then your running out of spec, Englander will not advise on a damper because there is a risk of someone within the existing draft parameters using a damper and taking the stove out of parameter and burning dirty, thats why there's always emphasis on improving weak draft and not over draft, if your over drafting you need to test your draft with a meter and then add dampers to correct it and bring the stove within spec.
So it sounds like I likely do need to be using the damper and the warning is to “idiot proof” it. I do get some pretty insane drafts(can hear it really sucking at times). But how do I go about testing this?
 
A draft gauge Dwyer Mark II or similar. Make sure it can measure small increments of 0.01" wc; we're talking small pressure differences here.