The Drolet 1800i was installed this weekend Andrew did the installation and I assisted him, I learned a lot It has been waiting patiently in the carport It's quite heavy, 392lbs according to the website Getting it up the stairs into the house was hard, Andrew pulled and I pushed. All those years playing rugby finally payed off Cutting the damper to make room for the liner It's in New and clean inside The secondaries I've read about so much The cap and flashing It was a nice day to be on the roof Testing it, lighting the first small fire Checking the chimney, very lucky having the smoke, a vapor trail and the moon in the pic It was worth it. It did smell of burning paint, but it wasn't too bad. The second fire didn't smell, I was able to get the living room up to 75F (24C) and the rest of the floor to 71f (22C)
Congrats on the new install! Looking at the pic of the damper that was cut out...that looks strange to me...was this a masonry fireplace or a prefab unit?
It was a masonry fireplace with a steel liner He had to cut out the damper and a part of the angled "ledge" at the back A lot of dust on it came down with the "ledge"
Good...because putting a stove into the shell of a prefab unit inside a stick built "fake" fireplace is something that your insurance company could use to get out of paying if something stove/chimney related ever happened.
I saw the secondaries burn properly for the first time last night With the air closed down completely the secondaries started, it's counterintuitive I thought more air would be better but it wasn't It was amazing to see the flames hanging and dancing in the air an inch above the wood Here's a clip of it
When you close the air control lever down that shifts the air coming into the firebox from (just for example) a 50/50 mixture of primary and secondary air to 10/90 (again, just an example, not actual known numbers)
I don't think you can shut air down completely, when we installed it I saw there was about a 3/8" hole in air control plate It might be because it's EPA 2020 compliant
You could...but that hole is generally hard to impossible to access on an insert stove...if I wanted or needed to cut primary air down further (like maybe with a real tall chimney) I think I would make a permanent modification (like bend or remove a stop) that would allow me to do so at will.
100% Correct, I thinh you would have to disconnect the liner, pull the insert out and put it on its side to get at it
