Now that I know my flue temperatures I’m going to try a key damper to hold some of that heat in. Lowe’s has the imperial brand for like 8$. My fancy flue probe temperature meter thing is at 18” above the stove. How close should the damper be to the stove or the probe? Too close to the stove might melt the damper, too close to the probe might bugger up the probe temperature readings. Are either of these valid concerns? Currently, to get the stove above 600 I need to run flue temps up near 900. Thanks!
There was just a thread about this, lots of good points here. Installing a damper in my flue Is this on your nc30? I know it is very dependent on your setup/chimney but I think you might be happy if you install one. I can routinely see STT at 650-700 with the internal flue temp at 500-550. This is with very dry softwoods. My damper is just above the stove top.
I assume the 900 is internal so 450 roughly for surface, sounds like my Summit, fought that thing for a little over 2 years. Could not get a decent stove top temp no matter what I tried, flue temps were impressive, installed a damper to no avail, gave up. I would think you could install the damper just above the stove top, good luck with that, hope it works for you.
Got it in. 12” above stove, 6” below probe. Seems to help a lot. Same intake settings, fully closed damper, gives slightly warmer stove and about 150-200 degrees cooler flue temps. Wood seems to last much longer too. This is for my nc30. The chimney is only 19’ all vertical. Burning softwoods.
Mine has certainly reduced the amount of wood that we burn and has made it easier to control the stove in varying conditions... glad yours is working out.. one issue I had with mine was the hole on the far side getting larger with wear. I was able to put a small bead of weld on the pin which kept it from pulling through. Been in place for about 3 years now..
I installed one on my drolet "eldorado" a few years back. I thought the sir control in the front of the stove was more than adequate and up until then had always listened to "epa stoves do not need a key damper" statements. Yeah right! Unbelievable difference in burn times.
