First wood stove, lots of questions

[begreen]

Tthe OP has a cast iron stove with stone liners. It was just to clarify.

 

[Hoytman]

Ok…didn’t realize that. I’ve slept since first reading this thread and I’m usually reading other threads as well. Sort of hard to keep up with all of them. I would offer that my suggestions still apply, at least in my mind. I wouldn’t change anything I said. First burn you still have to drive moisture out of the stones and he likely has to burn oils off the steel and cure the paint and manufacturers usually recommend some ever increasing break-in fires anyway. That’s just not for oils and paint…it’s also to temper the metal some.

 

[ctreitzell]

what a great thread! I look forward to educating myself here

one thing I'll say before reading this is cladding with sheet metal is a fantastic reflector of heat and stays cool to the touch when used in close proximity to the stove body

another thing to think about:
create a mock version of your stove out of wood
just mainly the box size and feet positions and sizes for designing your hearth area on the fly
such an activity could really save you if you make a measuring mistake which is so easy to do

 

[ctreitzell]

The reason I brought that up was another fella on another forum had an issue with his GM60 (it was a Hearthstone regardless of model) and short burn times and had little control over the burn.

It didn’t take him long to swap out the GM60 for a BK King that he has turned out to love. That part is good.

He kept the Hearthstone and later let the cat out if the bag that it was windy where he lived. That’s when I asked him if he installed a manual pipe damper and he admittedly said he did not install a pipe damper. I’m not saying it would have cured his problem, but there’s a chance that it could have….for <$20. If it had have fixed the issue it would have saved him from spending another $5k on a 2nd stove in a months time. That’s near $10k spent on stoves in a month. What makes more sense to try to you? 😁

wind howls here at my house
last night the wind rolled the stones off my dry pile and rained on it plenty...thanks wind

further, my 40 foot 4"flue is blasting through the firebox loads...air i take is nowhere enough to slow it down much...I need to deepen my understanding of dampers

further, my flue is open, no cap...nothing...which doesn't help either

wind howling increases draft significantly IME

 

[all night moe]

my 40 foot 4"flue is blasting through the firebox loads...air i take is nowhere enough to slow it down much...I need to deepen my understanding of dampers

You could use a flue damper to tame that draft. AKA a key damper. My local hardware store carries them from 8'' down to 3''.

create a mock version of your stove out of wood

CAD ..... cardboard assisted design.