Upgrade old wood insert to cat version?

[pcoplin]

Hello all.

Our new house has a wood burning fireplace insert. It's actually pretty small, and is an older one with no reburn. It sticks out about 2 inches from the face of the brick surround, and has a blower on it. At almost full blast, it reads about 66 down the hallway on this last cold snap (25 to 30ish at night). House is pretty small at 1200 sq feet. I haven't fully damped it down before bed yet, but I don;t think I'll have coals in the morning. Is that normal?

It is a Country model with blower, the info I was able to bring up says 7-9 hours burn time on low at 78% efficiency.


Question is, how much more efficiency will I get from the wood heat if I were to replace it with a newer style ? I don't want to sweat us out of the living room, but I feel like I have to burn a lot of wood to get the place warm. I do cut my own wood, so even if I burn extra I'm not out much money, just some time.

Thanks all for the time!

 

[begreen]

Greetings. What model Country? If there is no reburn technology, then a notable improvement in heat output and decrease in wood consumption are reasonable to expect with a new cat or non-cat stove. The caveat being the new insert is going to want fully seasoned wood a <20% interior moisture.

Just to verify, does the insert have a baffle? Are there no secondary tubes under the baffle?

 

[jatoxico]

Assuming the stove is an older non-epa unit you would burn less wood to get the same amount of heat. On the other hand and just as food for thought, you may be able to make some changes to improve what you have. Hopefully the stove was installed with a full liner. If so you could insulate and install a block-off plate and see some serious gains in performance (more heat in the house, cleaner flue).

Couple questions;
Does the stove have a full stainless liner with a cap?
Is the chimney on the interior or exterior of the house?
How long has the wood been seasoning since it was cut, split and stacked?

To see what you're dealing with you just remove the surround and you should be able to see how it was installed. Take a few pics and pot 'em up.

 

[pcoplin]

Greetings. What model Country? If there is no reburn technology, then a notable improvement in heat output and decrease in wood consumption are reasonable to expect with a new cat or non-cat stove. The caveat being the new insert is going to want fully seasoned wood a <20% interior moisture.

Just to verify, does the insert have a baffle? Are there no secondary tubes under the baffle?

Thanks for the info.

It appears to be a Striker C160, but have only just compared that with size and specs from this info:
(broken link removed)

Not sure what you mean by baffle, but it is only an 18x12 or so firebox with a triangular vent at the lower front for the damper. I don;t see any tubes either.

 

[pcoplin]

Assuming the stove is an older non-epa unit you would burn less wood to get the same amount of heat. On the other hand and just as food for thought, you may be able to make some changes to improve what you have. Hopefully the stove was installed with a full liner. If so you could insulate and install a block-off plate and see some serious gains in performance (more heat in the house, cleaner flue).

Couple questions;
Does the stove have a full stainless liner with a cap?
Is the chimney on the interior or exterior of the house?
How long has the wood been seasoning since it was cut, split and stacked?

To see what you're dealing with you just remove the surround and you should be able to see how it was installed. Take a few pics and pot 'em up.

Looks to be set in a mounting box, not sure if it's stainless. No insulation or anything around it, set on bricks at the bottom of the old fireplace.

Wood was split and stacked a couple years ago, but the past couple months it was uncovered against my old house, some was a touch wet. Overall good seasoned wood.

Chimney is on the exterior, looks to be a 6 or 7 inch pipe with a spinning chimney cap.


Here are a few pics. What do you recommend?

 

[jatoxico]

Open the door and take a picture of the upper part of the inside of the stove. It will be immediately clear if it's an EPA stove.

As far as the other stuff, it looks a bit tight so adding a block off plate may require removing the insert but you should at the very least be able to stuff some mineral wool insulation into the damper area for heat retention.

A block off plate looks like this;



All above that is stuffed full w/ Roxul. On an exterior install you lose a lot of heat out the back which not only is wasted but leads to a cool liner so creosote formation is higher too. There are good thread here on the benefits and install of block offs and firebox insulation.

 

[begreen]

Yes, we need to see the upper inside of the firebox. The County S160 Striker is a modern EPA, 1.6 cu ft stove. It's a decent performing unit when burning dry wood.

 

[jatoxico]

So very quickly you, have an EPA certified stove. That means it is capable of burning smoke and gases that older stoves can't. In any case that allows the stove to extract more heat from the same amount of wood than an older unit.

Using an EPA stove is a bit different. They require dry (<20%) moisture wood. Allow the stove to come to temperature with the air full open (500 F) then begin reducing the air incrementally. If the wood is good the temp of the stove will begin to rise and as you cut more of the primary air the stove will begin to use secondary air to burn the smoke/gas. BTW you do not have control over secondary air.

When done correctly and with good fuel you will see no smoke from the chimney, only some water vapor in certain conditions. If you haven't already you should probably have the flue swept to make sure it's clean and have the unit checked or carefully read the manual to make sure everything is functional and in place.

Still would benefit quite a bit from the insulation and plate I mentioned before.

P.S blower should not be used until the temp of the stove comes up. Secondary burn requires about 500F stove top temp and over using the fan can delay getting up to operating temp.

 

[pcoplin]

In this pic you can see the upper part of the fireplace. It seems to be mostly black steel, with a shiny block off plate around the flue pipe:




The model says Striker, year 1989. I can't imagine a stove from 1989 being an EPA stove, can it? I have fire in it now, but here is a pic of the inside top.

 

[begreen]

On the side plate what is the manufacture date listed?

 

[begreen]

Hard to be tell with the stove full of wood and fire. Here's a side cutaway view of the stove with the secondary tubes circled.

 

[pcoplin]

On the side plate what is the manufacture date listed?

1989.

 

[begreen]

That should be an early epa unit.

 

[pcoplin]

Hard to be tell with the stove full of wood and fire. Here's a side cutaway view of the stove with the secondary tubes circled.
View attachment 171548

I looked closer through the glass. In the pic above you can see there is one tube all the way across (about in inch in diameter, holes in it). It sits right behind where the stove collects for the flue.

So I'm guessing this is a pretty good stove, and I'm not going to get as much money savings out of a new $3000 stove?

Thanks all for the replies. It has helped me a ton in learning the ins and outs of these.

 

[begreen]

Yes it's a decent stove made locally in WA state. What you may gain, if it will fit, would be more capacity in a larger stove. That would translate to more heat and a longer burn time. But I suspect that may be close to the largest stove they could fit. The Striker is pretty compact.

 

[begreen]

If there's room an option might be to put a rear venting stove in front of the hearth.

 

[rwhite]

Looks like a block off plate is installed. One of the pics I can see sheet metal above the stove. Seems like a good install. Not much room on the outer edges so I'm not sure how much bigger stove you could get in there. Hence the problm with most inserts is you stuck with fitting it in a pre-made hole. Other than what begreen mentioned for a free stander, I don't think I'd bother with an upgrade to a different insert.

 

[bholler]

Is there a liner hooked to it? Has it been cleaned and maintained correctly? I personally would have the system gone over by a pro or at least someone who knows what they are looking at before burning any more. From what we can see it does not look bad but there is allot we cannot see.

 

[mellow]

Black single wall pipe is not allowed on an insert install, I wonder if they only ran a short section of pipe and your draft is one of the issues.

You should have a stainless steel liner like the picture above run all the way to the top of the chimney.

Might want to have a sweep come out and look at your chimney, how often are you cleaning it?

 

[pcoplin]

SO I had made an appointment for an chimney sweep. $125 for an inspection. He calls me when he supposed to have been here, saying he'll be an hour late. So i tell him nevermind, I'll do it myself.

I get up on the chimney, no liner. Just a little topper hat that turns with the wind, on a 10 inch square terracotta chimney. I pulled the insert out, and it has a block off plate, but only a 6 inch or so pipe, with 2 inches sticking past the block off plate.

I ordered a chimney brush, pulled the block off plate, and cleaned the chimney. The angle iron part of the damper is there, and the smoke shelf is in place. I'll have to cut the metal out and break out some bricks if I were to install a liner. My plan is to remove the entire fireplace, flush with the wall, and install a standing wood stove half inside the chimney opening, half inside the room.


However, I'd still like to upgrade this stove to a newer model. I feel like it's slow to medium burn is WAY too smoky. It will also only barely have coals in the morning 6 to 7 hours later, only if I stuff it with a large piece of fir and a medium size chunk of oak, and choke it way down. Then it smokes all night.


I know a larger firebox will last longer, but my front room is not big, and the house is only 1200 sq ft. What I'd like is a bigger (or even same size standing) stove that will heat up the house quicker, but perform better on low without smoking out the neighborhood. Do newer stoves performa better on low?

Am I asking too much of the stove?

 

[mellow]

You're not giving that insert a fair chance since it did not have a proper liner installed. I would install an insulated 6" stainless liner to that insert and see how it performs, if it still doesn't do what you need then you can flip it out for a new one.

Your next step would be a catalytic stove if you want to burn low and slow, I am heating about 1200 sq ft with my catalytic insert and get burns from 8 hours in very windy cold weather to 16 hours during the shoulder season.

 

[pcoplin]

You think the liner will improve performance on low or medium? It hasnt had any problems with draft since I started using it in December.

Keep in mind this stove only had one air burner tube. I just didn't think the reburn was effective enough on low burn.

Thanks for the info!

 

[begreen]

A modern stove burning dry wood should not have any smoke coming out of the chimney after the stove has warmed up for 20-30 minutes or less. The key is dry wood. A catalytic stove should have cooler flue gases which will benefit from an insulated liner that keeps the flue gases hotter until they exit the chimney. The insulated liner will also be much safer and it will improve draft.

 

[mellow]

You may think your draft was good but I doubt it was if it was dumping into that terracotta and that was the reason you were having issues burning low if your wood is truly seasoned as well.

 

[MarylandGuy]

With inserts not being as warm as stand alone stoves, as mentioned earlier in this thread, you may consider a change. The Hearthstone Homestead has a rear exit and can be used as a stand alone or an insert. Pull the old insert out and place the Homestead on the hearth. And of course have an insulated chimney liner installed as well so the new stove drafts well.

I have that stove and it heats very well for it's size. And the secondary burn is pretty amazing.

(broken link removed to http://www.hearthstonestoves.com/store/wood-products/wood-stoves/homestead-freestanding)