Vermont Castings 0041 Overfire

[ebarrieau]

Hi All,

I rebuilt the 0041 that came with my house last year (made a forum post about it around this time last year). It is upgraded to the 2490 - like packages. New combustion package, all new fire brick, all new gaskets all over the stove, new grates (the old ones were warped), took apart all of the air passages, cleaned and reassembled with plenty of stove cement. I did not take apart the outer frame of the stove, nor did I tighten the tension rods - at the time I just wasn't comfortable having it that far apart and trusting that I could get it back together safely.

Throughout the winter I found the stove incredibly difficult to control - get a good coal bed load it up, wait for it to light then flip the damper. I would habitually get stove temps 750-850°F - turning down the primary air inlet to completely closed had little effect on slowing down the burn. My thought initially went to I have a leak somewhere, but I couldn't find any. Recently I have thought that maybe it was over-drafting. Last season I ended up just using very small loads and watching the temps like a hawk. I would split all of my wood small and only put one or two small splits at a time and the house would still get 85°+ with the air choked all the way down.

The stove setup is: top exit into 6" single wall pipe up 24" then elbow, 12" to wall then step up to 7" pipe though the wall to the chimney. It is a clay lined, brick chimney, 12"x12" and goes up probably 25-30' from where the wood stove enters.

My question to you all is what would you recommend I do before this heating season to make this more controllable? My initial thought is to put in a flue damper, but the Acclaim manual recommends against them.

 

[fbelec]

do the dollar bill test again on the doors and if that doesn't show anything you should have done the sides. it really isn't difficult to do. when i rebuilt the defiant they give instructions on making a 2x4 guide that goes front to back with notches in the 2x4 to hold the front and back which holds the sides. and or use a rope wrapped around it to keep everything in place for the replacement of everything, you can try a pipe damper but don't close it to much. if you close it to much you should see where the smoke comes out from and you'll know where your leak is.

 

[ebarrieau]

Hi fbelec,

Thanks for the thoughts. I will give those a shot. I have seen a smoke bomb at my local stove shop for finding leaks, but I have not seen anyone on the forums. Or anywhere else on the internet, using that sort of method.

 

[fbelec]

That's not a bad idea use it on a cold stove and it should hang around in the stove awhile