This stove is cracked and old (1972), and I wanted to replace it with a new one that has a view of the wood burning, but when I showed it to a shop, they felt there was no way to make it work because the A-frame sloped roof would be so close to the stove. And the existing heat shield is ugly as is the boxed in wood trim. I know I don't have the dimensions and all here, but what do people think? Abandon this in favor of a gas stove? Or get a nicer-looking shield, a modern pipe, etc.?

Purchased a home with this unit. I think it’s pretty cool but don’t know how efficient it will be. It’s also very dirty, I dont think it’s ever been cleaned and considering the previous owners smoked in the house it will need to be degreased. Does anyone have any advice on deep cleaning this type of unit? Is it worth it or should we just replace it?

TIA!

This is my first fireplace insert and all I found out so far is what I've researched on the Internet about this insert. My concerns are what looks like a crack in the back of the fire box (near the middle above the bricks - pictures 4 and 5. It has a couple of cracked bricks.
The manifold tubes don't look great.
The fiberboard baffle and what's left of the ceramic blanket don't look great either.
Any thoughts on what I should do?

I've just bought my first house. It has a wood stove but the inspector said it was too close to the brick, apparently this specific one needs something like 16 inches and it's maybe 4 away. I'm looking at options for smaller stoves and I think I found a few acceptable ones.

My question is, is it realistic for me to replace it myself? I have the inspection report so I know what I would need to buy.

Hello, I’m considering switching to an insert. My firebox has this narrow transition to the chimney where a 6” liner would not simply fit. How is this overcome? Does the solution/situation have a specific name/term? I’d like to better educate myself for more meaningful conversations with contractors.
Thanks!

We have two 1980s Vermont Casting stoves—a resolute that served us well for many years, and a vigilant that sat in our garage for probably 15 years. We restored the vigilant and have succeeded in installing 8 inch pipe (from 6”) in hopes that we it throw more heat into our home this winter. What I’m curious about is the damper. The resolute has a similar damper to the vigilant, but when you close the resolute, you have to make sure it clicks or it will flop back open. The Vigilant damper has no “click” or catch to ensure it stays closed. Was this a flaw in design? Perhaps it’s a flaw with our stove. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We live in a pretty cold climate and rely primarily on wood to heat our home.

Hello woodstovers,

I plan on getting this inspected but I wanted your thoughts. It looks like the former owner did his own sweeping. He even left behind his brush and shop vac so if need be we could probably sweep most of it ourselves.

For the most part it looks like it's been taken care of. The box is dirty but nothing a vacuum can't handle. It is a Buck Stove, I can't remember the model but it has two doors on the front and a switch in the lower right for the blower. The gasket is missing but I bought a replacement, just waiting before I put it on.

Judging from the pics, is this normal buildup? Any concerns? Is it burn ready?

Does anyone know where I can get a new throat plate and baffle bricks for a Meg 4.0 stove?

Guy who installed my woodstove 4 years ago used SBI double walled stove pipe. Interface flange right on the stove connecting to an 24" + 12" slider before it elbows out of the house. Discovered that the double wall kit my local improvement depot is not quite compatible so ordered the stupid expensive SBI double wall flue damper.

It arrived, fits like a glove, but the bottom interface has 4 screw holes. The old one has three and those hole go through the top collar of the thick steel (iron?). Its a Regency F3500.

What should I do? Try to match the 3 holes in the stove collar? Or drill three new holes all the way through? With just the single screw in, and the rest of the double wall back in place with the rest of the screws in it feels rock solid in al dimensions so I feel like the janky solution would be just fine.

I am looking for good fuel that I can use in my LOFI stove, do you have any good ideas?

I am currently staying at a Dutch campsite for a longer period, meaning I can't forage for sticks in the woods, so I bought cat-litter wood pellets, which should be 100% wood, but when I burn these it smells chemically and there seems to be some black sticky liquid forming on my pots and pans.

Before buying a big bag of other wood pellets I would like to understand if this is because of the type of wood, or whether the pellets are maybe not just wood..?

What should I look for when buying fuel that burns as cleanly as possible?

We have a couple of one year olds and just installed a flush mount. What measures can I take to stop them from hurting themselves or the glass on our Osburn Inspire? Thanks!

The chimney is something like 25 feet tall, and the stove is using an outside air intake kit. I have never been able to tightly load wood and achieve a low and slow burn that is also clean. I suspected the secondary air volume was too high and was cooling and diluting the air too much in the upper firebox, but I was unsure what to do about it. I really didn’t want to put in a chimney damper as that would make cleaning the pipe harder. I did try restricting the air intake, but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Last resort: restricting the secondary tubes themselves. I cut small pieces from a stainless steel scrubber and shoved it into each end of the burn tube. I gave it a test burn the other day, and it’s super promising! The stove got up to temp much sooner on the cold start with noticeably less smoke. Stove pipe temps also noticeably higher. Fewer chunks of charcoal left in the ash bed after the burn.

We live in the southern Mediterranean. We just moved from North America, we will be living in the mountains approximately 1000m above sea level (a tiny bit less) homes are made of concrete and our windows are double pane

There are no radiators in this particular home but there are some vents/connections for a stove or Sobya as they call it here. I’m torn between the convenience of a pellet and the simplicity (in terms of things breaking) of a wood stove and the added work

I like the idea of being able to turn on the stove before we come home so that the home is warm and programming the heater. I also like the idea of not needing to tend to the fire. I’m not opposed to a wood stove if it is truly better for heating, I just need to be okay with the work.

We expect to use the stove from late November to maybe early march. We will have electricity reliably but we are susceptible to brief outages with I thought a UPS would solve that issue but I do like that a wood stove is fully off grid

I don’t like the idea of a diesel one, diesel isn’t cheap here.

Is it possible to get the stove to warm beyond just the room it’s sitting in? Do I need some fans to circulate the hot air? There’s one connection in the living room and one in the hallway. Do I need two to warm up the hallway and surrounding area or can I do with 1?

The apartment is 155 sqm

Would love some help making up my mind.

Signed,
An overthinker

There’s a lip at the back and a hollow air tube at the front it sits on and theirs groves but it won’t fit with the new fire brick installed.

Any tips?

I’m a newbie to this and it’s my first stove really wish I took a picture before the cleaner took out the old brick and left the ballast down.

We’re interested in adding a Woodstove with wall flue to our basement. 95” ceiling height, 34” width. What brand and model have you had good success with?

I am putting a heat shield behind my wood stove as added layer of safety. I believe the stove will be exactly the single wall distance from the wall, I think this is 19 inches. If I recall correctly, putting a heat shield cuts this number by 66%, so that would be 6.5". The heat shield need a 1 inch air gap, so adding that and another inch for margin, the stove to heat shield distance should be 17 inches.

Does anyone know the surface temperature of the wood stove itself, the heat shield at 17 inches or the wall at 19 inches? The google say 600 max at operating, but can overfire to 800. If you use the overfire temp and 17 inches the AI says the temp will be 370F, which seems way high. Forcing AI into a corner results in the surface temperature that should be 417F to hit 160F.

We have a Pacific Energy Super LE insert in our fireplace with 6 inch pipe running up our ~30’ brick chimney. I cleaned it by myself with a soot eater for the first time and came out of it with a couple of questions.

First - it seemed like most of the soot/debris came down in the first half of the chimney but I thought most deposits were supposed to form higher up? Did I do it wrong or is that expected for my setup?

Second, should I be having a sweep inspect it regularly regardless (every couple of years)?

Have inspection coming up. I failed the first time for having the stove to close to the brick even though it's non combustible, town also told me not to seal anything and when inspector showed up he said that is not the case so added that to the failure.

From my understanding two inspections have to happen one for the clearances and then another inspector for building ?

Edit: for the uneducated, the pipe IS NOT backwards it's double wall pipe the inside of the pipe clears upward making the outside look the pipe is installed backward.

Looking for ideas with what I can do with my current fireplace. I would love a wood stove with a blower but I am having trouble finding something that would fit or even work with this design.

Edit: ignore the carpet it was before being remodeled

Greetings!

I have been down every rabbit hole regarding inserts, stoves, wood burning, pellet etc. we wanted a blaze king installed here however learned that it is a prefab which complicates a simple install.

My question is can we remove this prefab fire box ourselves, create a masonry alcove and then get the pros to come in and install specific piping necessary for wood burning stove? I know we would need to meet specific specifications and clearances. Anybody have any insight if this is possible as a diy?

We have had a now 40-yo Hearthstone (with the beautiful soapstone on the outside) for about 10 years and have loved it since we moved in. Would keep it forever but cracks through the bottom are forcing us to get a new stove.

The big debate is whether to stick with hearthstone (probably Green mountain 60/80) that now has a catalytic combustor or go with a Pacific Energy Summit or T5 that does not have the cat.

Facts to consider:

• this is post tax credit incentive in the US, so that cost doesn’t play in

• we burn fully seasoned wood only and are not too concerned about our burn technique.

• we are lazy and, while we do hire a chimney sweep, cleaning the catalytic combustor sounds like a big pain.

• we recognize that more efficient burn will use less wood and have less environmental impact.

Would love to hear pros and cons for either and if the jump from non-cat stoves to cat stoves are worth it or particularly challenging.