Wood Stove Insert with Air Leaks

[begreen]

Yeah tricky, right? On our new door (and I believe how it is supposed to be), the glass is still installed over those screws. I think the problem was that the gasket was previously mistakenly running in the wrong place, so that the screws couldn't screw down tightly enough because the gasket was running under them, so then they stuck out more and then they hit the glass. Now the glass gasket runs more to the side of the screws (instead of behind them) which allows the screws to screw down enough to no longer make contact with the glass. Here is a picture of the new door sealed. You can imagine why it took so long to figure all this out!

View attachment 302354

Hopefully, at some point I will get a chance to see one of these in person. I'll have to take your word for this, but it looks like there is a radius on the corner of the glass and it heads upward right before the screw. Otherwise I agree, running it over a screwhead would make a pressure point.

What is the purpose of this screw and the one above it. I thought it was for the glass clamping bar, but could be totally wrong, never having seen this model Hampton. Covid really reduced my stove shop visits.

 

[MegCog]

Hopefully, at some point I will get a chance to see one of these in person. I'll have to take your word for this, but it looks like there is a radius on the corner of the glass and it heads upward right before the screw. Otherwise I agree, running it over a screwhead would make a pressure point.
View attachment 302376

What is the purpose of this screw and the one above it. I thought it was for the glass clamping bar, but could be totally wrong, never having seen this model Hampton. Covid really reduced my stove shop visits.

I think the screws are what attach the decorative grill? Like the decorative grill somehow screws on to the frame of the door. In this picture you can see the corner of the glass on the top right and the reflection of my hands in the glass.

 

[MegCog]

Would these pictures be examples of the "premature steel corrosion" that my owner's manual says can happen due to over firing? My stove is 1 year old, burned from probably October-May, but we definitely didn't burn as much as we would have because we were flying through wood since the fire was so out-of-control with the air leaks. So on nice sunny January days for instance I would just skip the fires. Is the corrosion pictured below normal for 1 year of moderate use during the burn season?

My owner's manual also says that over firing voids the warranty, but in this instance I don't see how I should be the one held responsible. I am the only one this entire time who has mentioned the possibility of over firing and everyone else has said that's not going to be a problem, it won't damage anything. And I've been told to just build bigger, hotter fires. I'm just trying to get ready to make a strong case for a new stove and be ready to advocate for myself because up to this point pretty much the only progress that has been made has been at my initiative, my problem-solving, and my follow-through. So I am a bit nervous about the pushback I will receive and just trying to make my case the best I can.

 

[begreen]

I think the screws are what attach the decorative grill? Like the decorative grill somehow screws on to the frame of the door. In this picture you can see the corner of the glass on the top right and the reflection of my hands in the glass.

View attachment 302385

Thanks, that's much clearer and it shows the glass clamp bolt. I agree with your dad. That's bad design and a problem in the making. It should have at least had a flathead screw countersunk there.

 

[begreen]

Heat accelerates oxidation. I am not seeing signs of overfiring there.

 

[MegCog]

Thanks, that's much clearer and it shows the glass clamp bolt. I agree with your dad. That's bad design and a problem in the making. It should have at least had a flathead screw countersunk there.

Yes I think my dad said the same thing about a flathead screw!

 

[MegCog]

Heat accelerates oxidation. I am not seeing signs of overfiring there.

So would you recommend asking for a new stove? I have my doubts about if my current one can be fixed, but I am obviously not a mechanic. It's hard for me to imagine why my newly installed door would fit as poorly as it does if there were not some structural problem with the stove itself. But if it were possible to fix then obviously I would be thrilled. It's been over a year with a subpar stove and honestly I am just ready for things to be resolved. I have been waiting 7 weeks at this point for the Regency rep to get back with me and he hasn't yet which leads me to believe this may not be an easy fix.

 

[begreen]

I don't know what adjustments are available for this door. If it is not correctable so that the door gasket seals well all around the door frame, then yes it is time to escalate. A leaky door is going to cause erratic burning. It's certain that the stove was not UL or EPA tested with a leaky door. Stay vocal and keep a good written record.

 

[MegCog]

I don't know what adjustments are available for this door. If it is not correctable so that the door gasket seals well all around the door frame, then yes it is time to escalate. A leaky door is going to cause erratic burning. Stay vocal and keep a good written record.

Ok so it sounds like I should give him a chance to see if the door can be corrected and go from there if it cannot. But if the door can be fixed, then you are saying that my stove would not have sustained any additional damage from the year of air leaks, and I can move on feeling like I got my $7300 worth, right?

 

[begreen]

There is no way I or the dealer would know how the stove has been run for the past year other than through physical observation, looking for signs of stress, excess sooting, warpage, cracks, paint discoloration, etc. That is much harder to do online than in person but I don't see anything obvious from the pictures shown.

 

[MegCog]

There is no way I or the dealer would know how the stove has been run for the past year other than through physical observation, looking for signs of stress, excess sooting, warpage, cracks, paint discoloration, etc. That is much harder to do online than in person but I don't see anything obvious from the pictures shown.

Thank you so much for all your help and knowledge! I really appreciate you sharing your experience with me and giving me perspective.

 

[MegCog]

Hey someone asked me to update this saga as relevant and I do have an update.

Today after over seven weeks the Regency rep finally called and said he would be coming next Tuesday. He is hopeful that replacing the latch and adjusting the door will be enough to fix the stove. I said I would love for him to look over the stove and make sure it has not been damaged from all the months of using it while it was installed improperly. I feel nervous that I am paying top dollar for what is now a "used stove" that took more abuse than it would have otherwise and that it might be compromised in some way. It also makes me nervous that he said that the old door was warped when removed it (although I think he thought that was a factory defect). He said the main thing he would look for is weak joints where it's been soldered (at least that is my understanding of what he said). He again reiterated that in order to over fire and damage the components of the wood stove at all I would need a 1200 degree fire, kiln dried wood, or a chimney fire or some other such catastrophic circumstance. He said that if every time there was a leaky gasket it caused over firing then they would have long-term issues with many stoves.

Any advice on things I should check for while he is there on Tuesday? It has been so difficult to get a hold of him at all that I would like to be prepared for the appointment and know anything I should check or do or say while I have him here. In retrospect I have kicked myself 100x over for not doing the dollar bill test when he first replaced the door last June. I would have immediately known then that the door was not creating a seal. I don't want to make that same kind of mistake again! And it is hard for me to just "trust the experts" in this circumstance because they have let me down so many times. So I want to do my due diligence.

 

[bholler]

Hey someone asked me to update this saga as relevant and I do have an update.

Today after over seven weeks the Regency rep finally called and said he would be coming next Tuesday. He is hopeful that replacing the latch and adjusting the door will be enough to fix the stove. I said I would love for him to look over the stove and make sure it has not been damaged from all the months of using it while it was installed improperly. I feel nervous that I am paying top dollar for what is now a "used stove" that took more abuse than it would have otherwise and that it might be compromised in some way. It also makes me nervous that he said that the old door was warped when removed it (although I think he thought that was a factory defect). He said the main thing he would look for is weak joints where it's been soldered (at least that is my understanding of what he said). He again reiterated that in order to over fire and damage the components of the wood stove at all I would need a 1200 degree fire, kiln dried wood, or a chimney fire or some other such catastrophic circumstance. He said that if every time there was a leaky gasket it caused over firing then they would have long-term issues with many stoves.

Any advice on things I should check for while he is there on Tuesday? It has been so difficult to get a hold of him at all that I would like to be prepared for the appointment and know anything I should check or do or say while I have him here. In retrospect I have kicked myself 100x over for not doing the dollar bill test when he first replaced the door last June. I would have immediately known then that the door was not creating a seal. I don't want to make that same kind of mistake again! And it is hard for me to just "trust the experts" in this circumstance because they have let me down so many times. So I want to do my due diligence.

Let him come and try to fix it. But he is full of chit. What you had was way more than a leaky gasket and it absolutely could overfire a stove.

Just the fact that he said a 1200 degree fire tells me he doesn't know what he is talking about. That is a normal temp for a fire in a noncat stove

 

[begreen]

It's good that word from Regency finally came in. With a gap in the glass large enough to run a popsicle stick through, a lot of air was fed to the fire at the front, bottom center, regardless of where the air control was set. Were you compensating with smaller loads of wood in order to maintain control of the fire?

I'm sorry you have had all these hassles. FWIW, there is a 1200º fire inside the firebox at peak burn in most secondary combustion stoves. That is the temp required for secondary combustion. However, that heat should be in the firebox and not wrapping around the baffle and heading up the flue liner. If it was for a sustained amount of time, that could stress out the liner depending on the temp and length of time.

 

[MegCog]

It's good that word from Regency finally came in. With a gap in the glass large enough to run a popsicle stick through, a lot of air was fed to the fire at the front, bottom center, regardless of where the air control was set. Were you compensating with smaller loads of wood in order to maintain control of the fire?

I'm sorry you have had all these hassles. FWIW, there is a 1200º fire inside the firebox at peak burn in most secondary combustion stoves. That is the temp required for secondary combustion. However, that heat should be in the firebox and not wrapping around the baffle and heading up the flue liner. If it was for a sustained amount of time, that could stress out the liner depending on the temp and length of time.

We were not compensating with smaller loads - just the opposite! From the beginning, we were not getting the heat we expected (we were having difficulty even heating the room on mild days even though our wood was dry) and our installer told us that wood stoves are not "rocket science" and that we just needed to build bigger, hotter fires. He said that we needed to just build as big as we could and pull the damper all the way open if we wanted to get the expected heat. I figured out pretty early on that I had air leaks, but was never told to operate my stove any differently as a result. Eventually, once I knew we were having air leaks, I started damping the fire down all the way pretty much all the time to try to make up for how quickly we were burning through wood. It was the chimney sweep I brought out as a second opinion who told me that even if I fixed the air leak, it wouldn't make much a difference for the functionality and heat output of our stove (in his defense, this was before I had narrowed down the specific place of the leak and realized that popsicle sticks would fit in the gap).

That chimney sweep also mentioned how strong our draft was on a 64-degree-F day outside as well as how tall our chimney is (both are indicators of strong draft). Draft tends to increase with temperature difference and many people with wood stoves may struggle to get the draft started on a more mild day, but that has not been the case for us. Because of the oversupply of air, we were going through wood very quickly and not getting much secondary burn for very often. Using the damper usually barely made a perceptible difference with the fire.

I just asked my husband his estimate of the chimney and he said about 30 feet. Is that better or worse than if it was 22 feet?

 

[MegCog]

It's good that word from Regency finally came in. With a gap in the glass large enough to run a popsicle stick through, a lot of air was fed to the fire at the front, bottom center, regardless of where the air control was set. Were you compensating with smaller loads of wood in order to maintain control of the fire?

I'm sorry you have had all these hassles. FWIW, there is a 1200º fire inside the firebox at peak burn in most secondary combustion stoves. That is the temp required for secondary combustion. However, that heat should be in the firebox and not wrapping around the baffle and heading up the flue liner. If it was for a sustained amount of time, that could stress out the liner depending on the temp and length of time.

So should I ask that he also inspect the liner while he is here?

At this point I am just so discouraged to have paid soooo much money to get something nice, now I don't know if it's still nice (or damaged), and I'm not sure who I can trust to tell me if it needs to be replaced.

 

[begreen]

How has the insert run this past year? With full loads of wood or partial loads? Do you know how hot it would normally get and if so, where was the temperature measured?

A disinterested party, like a certified sweep, should be able to assess the condition if concerned.

 

[MegCog]

A disinterested party, like a certified sweep, should be able to assess the condition if concerned.

Did you see my other reply above? Answering your questions of if we compensation with smaller loads...

 

[begreen]

Did you see my other reply above? Answering your questions of if we compensation with smaller loads...

No, I didn't see it. That is terrible advice. With the air wide open and the glass leaking, a lot of heat went up the liner. If you want more heat from the stove you don't run it with the air wide open. Closing it down increases the vacuum in the firebox which in turn pulls air through the secondary ports for hotter firebox and cleaner burn. As long as there is sufficient draft, the insert will produce more heat into the room with the air 75% closed than with the air wide open.

 

[MegCog]

No I didn't. That is terrible advice. With the air wide open and the glass leaking, a lot of heat went up the liner. If you want more heat from the stove you don't run it with the air wide open. Closing it down increases the vacuum in the firebox which in turn pulls air through the secondary ports for hotter firebox and cleaner burn. As long as there is sufficient draft, the insert will produce more heat into the room with the air 75% closed than with the air wide open.

Thank you! I always suspected this was the case because we truly were not getting the heat that we would expect out of this stove...ever... I think our draft is very strong (like I mentioned above) which means we already have strong air flow and then add to that the leaking glass and trying to max out the heat and we probably lost a lot of heat up there. But eventually I stopped expecting any heat out of the stove and just ran our furnace and used the fire for ambiance, damped down so that we could try to conserve wood.

Here is one of the pictures of some of the stuff I used to put in the gap between the glass and the gasket. Sorry it's the wrong orientation - I don't know how to fix it!

While I was looking back at my earlier pictures and videos of the wood stove, I remembered that we also had issues with an air tube at the top falling out for quite awhile as well as issue with the fan blower making funny noises. Both of those I think actually did get fixed though. Although our fan has not been coming on or staying on hardly at all lately, even when we appear to have a nice hot fire going... Oh well I guess another thing to discuss with the rep....

 

[begreen]

Either the trimwork screw is wrong (is the hole countersunk?) or the door design has a defect with the wrong type of screw for that location.
I think your stove is not getting hot because all the heat is heading up the flue. Try running it with the air at least 50% closed or more once the fire starts burning well. Turn down the air in increments so that the fire doesn't smolder.

Starting a fire and running an EPA stove

Questions about starting a fire and avoiding a runaway stove come up so frequently I decided to document starting our stove. This is a Pacific Energy Alderlea T6 with about a 3 cu ft firebox. The stove is connected to a straight-up, 20' interior flue. The outside ambient temperature is 34ºF. The...

www.hearth.com

 

[MegCog]

Either the trimwork screw is wrong (is the hole countersunk?) or the door design has a defect with the wrong type of screw for that location.
I think your stove is not getting hot because all the heat is heading up the flue. Try running it with the air at least 50% closed or more once the fire starts burning well. Turn down the air in increments so that the fire doesn't smolder.

Starting a fire and running an EPA stove

Questions about starting a fire and avoiding a runaway stove come up so frequently I decided to document starting our stove. This is a Pacific Energy Alderlea T6 with about a 3 cu ft firebox. The stove is connected to a straight-up, 20' interior flue. The outside ambient temperature is 34ºF. The...

www.hearth.com

That picture was the old picture before the Regency rep replaced the door. The glass now seems sealed well as far as I have been able to tell. It is now the door itself that has air leak issues.

Ever since I gave up on getting heat from our wood stove and realized the extent of our air leaks, I typically now only open the damper to start the fire and then close it down 100% all the way. I have never had the fire smolder even doing that. Typically there is not a huge difference between 100% shut and 100% open as far as the fire.

 

[MegCog]

The Regency rep came today and said that we need a new stove. He said that no matter what he does to adjust the door or replace/adjust the latch, the handle doesn't work right and the door will not seal. He added some additional gasket on the firebox to temporarily get the door to seal while we wait to get a brand new stove. He said something may have been welded wrong or dropped or broken in freight. I had mentioned previously that we might possibly need a new stove and the answer had been that there is no way the stove unit is itself the problem. So I was thankful that this time the Regency rep actually volunteered that we do indeed need a new stove.

We had one interesting conversation today. After I built my fire, I said that even though the wood stove seemed to be passing the smoke test and sealed better, I was surprised by how I wasn't seeing more "ghosting" of the flames and how the fire still seemed a little "out of control". My husband mentioned that our wood is dry, a lot of it was testing around 10% with a moisture meter. The Regency rep said that 10% dry wood might be TOO dry and cause us to not be able to control the fire, even when the damper is all the way shut. He recommended that we use more like 18% dry wood, or mix some wetter wood in with the dry stuff to be able to better slow down and control the fire. I have never heard of wood being too dry! Is this a question for another thread? The chimney sweep we had out commented on how high our chimney is and how strong our draft was so is this just a result of us having strong draft? Have any of you ever heard of having too dry wood and using "wetter" wood to control the fire?

 

[bholler]

The Regency rep came today and said that we need a new stove. He said that no matter what he does to adjust the door or replace/adjust the latch, the handle doesn't work right and the door will not seal. He added some additional gasket on the firebox to temporarily get the door to seal while we wait to get a brand new stove. He said something may have been welded wrong or dropped or broken in freight. I had mentioned previously that we might possibly need a new stove and the answer had been that there is no way the stove unit is itself the problem. So I was thankful that this time the Regency rep actually volunteered that we do indeed need a new stove.

We had one interesting conversation today. After I built my fire, I said that even though the wood stove seemed to be passing the smoke test and sealed better, I was surprised by how I wasn't seeing more "ghosting" of the flames and how the fire still seemed a little "out of control". My husband mentioned that our wood is dry, a lot of it was testing around 10% with a moisture meter. The Regency rep said that 10% dry wood might be TOO dry and cause us to not be able to control the fire, even when the damper is all the way shut. He recommended that we use more like 18% dry wood, or mix some wetter wood in with the dry stuff to be able to better slow down and control the fire. I have never heard of wood being too dry! Is this a question for another thread? The chimney sweep we had out commented on how high our chimney is and how strong our draft was so is this just a result of us having strong draft? Have any of you ever heard of having too dry wood and using "wetter" wood to control the fire?

How are you testing your wood. 10% is almost impossible to get to without the use of a kiln in most of the USA

 

[MegCog]

My husband just used his moisture meter. I know you are supposed to use the moisture meter on freshly split wood so maybe that is why the moisture is reading so low. This wood has been split for awhile and has been sitting inside our house for maybe a week or so while we waited for our wood stove to get looked at/fixed.

Regardless of the actual moisture of our wood, is that problem hypothetically possible? Having too dry of wood?

I think what is more likely a bigger problem is us having too strong a draft. How might we remedy that? Other than wetter wood?