Need wood heater info - not drawing

I fired mine up on Jan 29, and used it often since, only problem was during reloading at certain times, some combsution gases and some smoke, cannot open the door for very long. No problem, think some minor improvments may help there.

I have 3 feet of 6" stove pipe running vertically, then a 90 deg turn horizontally to the concrete wall, which is another 3 feet of pipe transitioned to 7" stove pipe before it stubs into the wall, then it goes back to 6" pipe that was embedded in mortar/concrete at the chimney base for about another 4 feet before it 90's up to the 8"x12" flue tile. The one section of pipe in the masonry at the bottom of the chimeny rusted out, so it's now 6" dia or so without the pipe, I yanked it out as it could have caused a restriction, I think I will try to reline that section from the concrete to the tile flue after the heat season ends and make a solid connection there of the same size. It looks like they used the pipe to form the hole, buried it in mortar, just that the pipe rusted out over time. The chimney is a big masonry structure with a footprint almost the size of a sheet of plywood, has an adjacent fireplace flue, it's about 18-20 feet tall and on an outside wall. The draft I get is real good, it will bend a flame over with just the horizontal section stubbed out of the concrete wall, I lose some draft with the 90 to the stove connected, think I will use 2 45's to the stub at the wall to improve that and elimnate the one 90, maybe that will help eliminate the problem when I open the door to reload, sometimes when the fire is just right, mostly coals, you can reload with minimal smoke leakage, other times you have to shove the wood and stoke real fast to avoid the smoke leak. At the other end of the basement, the 2 garage doors do leak some fresh air in, and when I climb to the top of the chimney I can feel warm air draft out the top with no fire going, so it seems I've got ideal conditions,as the basement/garage stays about 50-55, so it's warmer air that shouild rise, no cold chimney to deal with, kind of opposite of what you describe at your new place, it really seems to make a big difference having that air flow from the doors and even with the 2 90 deg turns in this flue it still has a strong draft. It is mentioned in the attached website that 1 90 is all you should have in the flue if possible, 45's might be a lot better for improving the draft.

The other night, I used to much split dry dead elm when I loaded it up to get a new fire going after cleaning out the ash, used some paper and dry bark for kindling, in no time the thing was running away and the 7" section of pipe was glowing orange in low light, this section kind of acts like a chamber or expansion area the heat certainly concentrates there. In the time I went out and came back from checking the smoke drafting out the chimney, that fire was roaring like it was out of control I had to quickly correct it by closing the oxygen from the front damper and adjust the flue damper down, she started back puffing a little smoke, so I had to open/close until it stopped, well I could live with some smoke in the cellar or getting smoked out, but it was getting out of hand temperature wise and realized how dangerous one of these could be unattended. With both dampers adjusted back, in a short time it did slow down and cool right off. Pheeeeww !!!! The pipe is about 18" from the gyp. board ceiling board or combustible ceiling as it heads to the concrete wall, I think they call for the distance to be about 3 times the pipe diameter which is about 3" shy with the 7" pipe I have here, you should be able to touch the area with your hand without pulling back because it's too hot, I'm going to install a heat shield over the pipe, and keep the fires mild and only when I'm here. I'd use care with the headspace above your pipe to the ceiling, that runaway could have burned this place down had I not been right there, though the space seemed to be adequate that gyp board was quite warm. I've cycled it hot and have burned some dry wood, to minimize creosote building up, the run away fire did not crackle, and I pulled the pipe apart after that fire the next day, no sign of a chimney fire or any creosote, just fine soot, so it seems to be burning clean and when burning the flue temperature at the top has to be over 300 deg.

I tightened things up when I put it back together made a better transition into the concrete wall, tighter fit, though I will do a permanent one later and stay with 6" to get rid of that 1 7" section, tightened the neck on the stove, fired it up and I noticed improvment with smoke leaks at reload time, when I change out to 2 45's instead of 1 90 in the stove pipe, I think I'll have optimum draft all the little improvements seem to have made a difference.

One other thing I saw information on was the correlation between the firebox size and flue size, length etc. should be calculated to size things properly when building, that is probably good for anyone building something new.

• Wood Stove Information

Mama Bear is a bit smaller, but all those Fisher stoves were good and are still very popular in my area. They sell pretty high - since they can't legally be sold new anymore.

Seems you must have a real bad draft problem; I know those stoves work great when hooked to a proper chimney.

The only difference was - their little stove had fire bricks lining the inside walls, ours did not.

They could not get that stove to throw heat to save their lives - we on the other hand had poker games in gym shorts, and indoor beach parties in the dead of winter with the temp in our side of the house about 90 degrees (ohh the good memories !) The did not seem to have any problem with smoke comming out of the stove, so I don't think chimney draft was their problem.

I don't exactly know what the fire bricks are for (too thin a stove wall ??), but the only recommendation I can make is to remove the fire bricks, and if that doesn't work, scrap the stove and find another.