Stove install for brother

My brother bought a house and it had an older lopi stove in it. The previous occupants had abused it and the inside was destroyed. The burn tubes, baffle, and bricks were melted, broken, and crumbling. I rebuilt it for him (new baffle, tube, brick, and paint) and we got it installed last night. I love watching a fire burn, but our stove does not have a window (yet), so it was nice to watch his fire.

It burns very well. No smoke. Decent heat output as well. I think it is rated for ~50,000 btu. His house was up to 65 when I left. It started at 50. I even gave him a face cord of dry wood to get him going. He said he never thought he would light a piece of wood with a match. The wood dad burned was fresh cut and dad used oily rags, gobs of paper, and a torch to get the fire going.

This is my brother's first stove, so I have been trying to teach him how to use it. He wanted to put a damper in the pipe because "dad always had one", but I got him to leave it out. It's a shorter metal chimney, maybe 15 ft or so.

 

Now comes the fun part. Getting him up to speed on proper wood collection, seasoning etc! Stove looks nice. Nice to help out your brother with this.

 

yep. He wants a big saw, and I have a stihl 650/660 that needs a new top end and he wants it. I told him it's a big saw, but apparently that's what he wants.
He has room for wood storage at his new place (about 4.5 acres), so we have been talking about setting up a grapple truck or grapple trailer for hauling wood home. He is a truck driver and hauls telephone poles, so he could use the grapple for work too.

 

The primary reason is because his stack is so short, so his draft is not excessive. The other reason is because the air closes down and will kill even a good hot fire in seconds. The only unregulated intake is the front burn tube, and that has such a small intake that it cannot sustain a fire on its own.

He has the damper, but it is not installed. He can add it any time if he wants. We fired the stove with dry oak/locust and had no issues with too much draft or being able to control the burn. The flue thermometer barely hit 325 with the box at 750. He is going to burn it this week and see if he wants to add the damper later.

I'm not saying epa stoves don't need a damper, just that I don't think his does.

 

He must like his brother more than I like mine..

 

Put the damper back in the pipe, use it sparingly when needed, and keep that stove away from 750-800F temperatures if you want it to last. Just how do you think it was abused in the first place?
(I’m very familiar that they’re built like tanks, but still…)

Dads had a way of knowing what worked and why, and why a damper was a smart and safe thing to have and keep in a pipe…even with modern stoves.

A 425F difference huh? Those numbers don’t make sense to me when I think about wanting/trying to burn that stove top at a much lower temperature and actually control it. Do pipe temps stay at 325 even at a much lower stove top temperature? I’m assuming they’d have to remain higher or else that much differential would spell disaster creosote levels in the stove pipe.

I’ve got a used Liberty out in my garage that I’ve never had a fire in yet, it’s just sitting out there with a few other stoves. Perhaps I’m in for some surprises when I do fire it up.

What year is your brother’s Lopi stove?
Mine is a 1998 model Liberty. That one looks like an Endeavor, which is likely a better fitting stove for my house.

 

I think it is an early 90's model. It is a 380-96. Lopi says the burn range is 400-800⁰ and we were within that range. The stove pipe actually cooled to 275 at a lower stovetop temp. That is according to a magnetic thermometer.

The previous operators left the door open and used a wire spark screen. They burned trash and anything else they could cram inside it. We found handfulls of furniture hardware in the stove when we removed it and cleaned it out. The top baffle had a huge hole melted in it and the air tube was sagging/cracked. We used a lopi before we had our cook stove and it ran in the 600-800 range consistently with dry wood and a very poor draft. They are solid stoves and they will run like that for years.

Our cook stove runs in the same range, if not hotter at times. Stove pipe temp reads 300-350⁰. There are 2 ways to get more btu's from a stove. More heat, or more surface area.

When we were kids, the chimney was at least 30 feet, maybe more. It drafted like a dust collector. He also grossly overfired every stove we had. He was not a responsible wood burner.

 

Very familiar with the two ways to get more heat, cook ranges being a prime example of major heat extraction with their large heat path. My coal stove is really too big for my house and as such throws a tremendous amount of heat, currently burning around 170 on the sides of the stove with outside air temps around the mid-30’s. With these warm temps we’ve been having I just lit it this past Saturday morning for the first time this year.

 

Everyone should have one of these:

on the rear deck of their car, too, just incase you find yourself going 200+MPH on the highway some day as well.
Never know.