I stood in front of my stove and cleaned the glass up, something dawned on me. Check the door. Had a bill in my wallet and did the test: FAIL. As I slid the dollar out, looked at the rope and thought “how the h e double toothpicks could I let this happen?!” Looking for the culprit, I read back to the door handle. Sure enough, I see that the latch was digging into the door gasket! Yikes. Looked for the book and turns out I had the latch to face the other way. What do you guys think? Anything I should do? Maybe to just touch over that to keep it from fraying any worse? When I close the door, there isn’t any noticeable gap and did a match test against the seal. No flame pulled toward the latch. Dollar pulled tight after that was all finished up.
There's always a joint somewhere in that gasket and the gasket on my NC30 is in the middle of the hinge side looking all frayed like that too. These non-cat stoves are not air tight, they are designed to have a surplus of air at all times. A minor leak in the door gasket just satisfies the draft a little bit and means less air will be pulled through the secondary tubes on the roof. Goon 'nuff is perfectly fine so long as you still have sufficient control over the stove. Photo showing butt joint fray. No big deal.
When I fixed it it stopped rubbing so much but it was apparent that the seal gasket was not completely sealing on the door so that was fixed. If the fray is fine, I won’t worry about it until I need to replace again and likely join the two at that point.
Let me know when that happens. I’m just joining all of the group that burn regularly. Though my season is much shorter and warmer than yours.
Fatboy, If you have a correct "pull" from your chimney you shouldn't have to worry about that! You "shouldn't" get any leakage from smoke or carbon/CO2. I was going to suggest the match test but you already have done it so I think you're good! . Some stoves like the old Fishers, Kodiak's and a few others had "no" gasket, they were designed that way. I have never once had an issue in 40 years!
Well the chimney draft is really good as far as I can tell. Pulls directly when I open the door. Strongly too. No real problem at this point thanks for the input though!!
A rope gasket has to begin / end somewhere, and they just butt the two ends together. I wondered how much, if any, they leak at the joint so for chuckles, I put the joint at the top of one of my doors; no leaks that I can detect, and after running for quite a while, no brown stains indicating a leak. If the rope ends are pushed firmly together there should not be any leak. To put it another way, make the rope an inch or so longer than the channel it fits in and jam the two ends against each other when installing and no part of the rope gasket will leak. Brian
I had originally thought that the gasket cement COULD do the trick but its likely not to have any serious issues right now. The cement may also work against the door so that when it gets hard it may not perform a great seal as the gasket itself. They do have flatter material to buy at mcclendons hardware so i could opt for that as a last resort.
I have used high temp. silicone seal with good results. Only on the door, of course, and only behind the rope itself. The stuff is good for about 650F, and the outside of the door just does not get that hot. Any kind of normal stove cement turns into little strips of solid rock and is really tough to remove later. The silicone peels right out of the channel. Brian
There seem to be two basic ways to use a rope seal; one system uses a channel to hold the seal, and the seal just lies against the stove body or a flat plate. The other system also uses a channel for the rope but the opposite side has a "V" shape projection that is right in the center of the rope seal. The systems with the 'V' (like early Vermont Castings stoves) seem to last a long time while the systems that just seal against a flat face (like mine, an Ideal Steel wood stove) seem to compress the rope gasket, and the rope widens and slips out to the side a bit. No data on this, just how it appears to me going by the stoves I am familiar with, my own as well as those of friends and relatives. Brian
I wondered that too. I just figured if it was heat or just how long they burn continuously. Other times the gasket material may not be as good...wear and tear comes in many forms. I just happened to have had the door locking mechanism facing the wrong way so it was scuffing it. Now its not an issue but off to find some High temp silicone as BDF recommends.
Parents had the Vermont Castings stove. The Intrepid. I remember using this thing but it wasn’t as often as one may think. Anyways the groove V shaped that closed on the gasket was good unless one opened the door the wrong way. It would scuff but not as badly. Easily more reformed
