Got it all inspected and passed yesterday! Older 2-door F400, 15' of Shastavent, lots of mortar, airstone, and durarock. Just need to do the finer work now like molding around the heart and side walls. In all it cost about $1,600 (since the stove was free). Doing lots of reading/watching on here and youtube was very helpful. Cars and brains are my thing, not home projects so this was a decent first success.
Thanks! Definitely still learning it. Realized the other night my thermometer was incorrect and reading too high so now I'm finally seeing heat production after I thought I was over-firing (thought it hit 750*+ last week but in reality it was about 550*). I was previously running it around 350-400* and not seeing a ton of heat. Cruising at 500-550 is great heat. I'm realizing I cannot get lots of heat overnight in our 1500' home but 4-5 hours is very nice and beats hundreds of extra a month in electric and oil.
Are you talking about the outside air connection? If so, I have a question that would be similar to using tape like you have. How many wood stove brands/models are you aware of that use a restrictor plate over the air intake?
No woodstove models I can think of outside of older stoves. There are outside air dampers that you can use to "help" with too much draft or an inline damper on the stove pipe. This is all suggested after you rule out any potential leak on your stove. Pellet stove we service has draft settings that can be reduced to compensate a long chimney run.
A fella just yesterday told me his PE Vista (approx. 2007 manufacture) had a restrictor plate over the air intake. He seemed to indicate the stove would not put out enough heat until he removed this. 1. To me it seems like a gross miscalculation of air intake size be engineers/designers and it seems it would defeat the purpose of “one lever” stove control of it’s not allowing the stove to reach its full potential. Needing this virtually says something is miscalculated in my mind. 2. It seems this may have been added by the manufacturer based on a testing facilities recommendation and may have been an after thought by the company to comply. 3. Apparently this restrictor plate was meant to be removable. A user could assume this and therefore accept all responsibility of removing it based on the fact that this plate, meant to restrict air and prevent over-firing/over-drafting, was not welded in place. It’s actually the first time I have heard of this from a wood stove manufacturer, but since it’s an older model I think it’s also safe to assume there are “others” out there with the same. I now actually know of 2 addition brands of stoves that have this...and these were first intended as “combo” stoves...and I was recently made aware of these as well. When I think about it, the home and chimney system in a home are the variables manufacturers cannot control to keep a unit from over-firing. The problem with this though is that some of these stoves are getting complaints by users for lack of heat. More gov’ and less freedom...gov’ trying to protect people from themselves. Not trying to derail this thread. Just had a question and wanted to share some information. I look forward to your reply and I will bow out.
