Heartbroken over a poor investment.

[webby3650]

A second stove of any type for more heat could help alot to get off those fossil fuels.

I'm all for that!

 

[jatoxico]

A beer says the installer did not insulate the damper, 2 says there ain't no block off plate.

Wendy is this an exterior chimney? If you have a small cape the insert may be enough to heat the first floor if you make sure the heat gets into the room and is not going up the chimney and if you burn good fuel. First year is not uncommon to have wet wood. Ask your installer to stuff the damper area with Roxul insulation or you can do it yourself for $40-50.

 

[razerface]

I have less experience then the posters before me,,,but it sounds like the stove is not rated to handle your sq footage. I would go bigger. AND do the stuff jatoxico just mentioned while installing

 

[prezes13]

Wendy I have a lopi cape cod 2.2 cf fire box, my house is a raised ranch, open floor plan living room dining room and kitchen with vaulted ceiling, three bedrooms and a bathroom just under 1200 square feet of living space upstairs where the insert is, house was built in 1994 well insulated 2 by 6 construction. This insert is rated for 1200-2200 sf it gets my house warm enough72-76 degrees but never cooked me out of the house. I don't have a block off plate and i have flexible ss liner which is not insulated. As far as bio bricks not the best from my experience try Eco Bricks you can get them at BT Enterprises in Bristol, I would love to help you run your stove but I am a beginner myself. Also huge difference if you run your stove 24/7 or few hours a day and let it die out.

 

[ddddddden]

Your insert is too small to live up to your expectations and undersized for your climate and square footage, no matter how well seasoned your wood is. Take the Superior offer and upsize - you'll be much happier.

A bigger stove, drier wood and a block off plate (if you don't have one) would probably solve problems.
If the dealer is offering you a bigger stove for just the price difference, jump on it. This is a long term investment and will pay off down the line.

. . .I would go bigger. AND do the stuff jatoxico just mentioned while installing.

+1
The bottom line is that you can stuff only so much wood into a tiny firebox. If you're serious about heating your home with wood, that means burning 24/7 in winter. . .not much fun with a small stove that would require loading every ~5 hours.

The lil Winterport insert firebox is only like 1.2 or 1.4 cubic feet of space. Good for heating a thousand square feet or so and maybe four or five hour burns.

. . . Superior Hearth's solution?? Buy a bigger stove for an additional $800.00.
Has anyone a suggestion for me?

Trade in while you can.
When installing the new stove, get them to seal the damper area of the masonry chimney with a block-off plate.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/make-a-damper-sealing-block-off-plate

Looks like Superior carries Enviro and Pacific Energy stoves too. . .maybe look at those if the big Jøtul is too pricey or won't fit. Moving forwad, you can improve your wood supply and burn technique. . .why hinder your efforts with a stove that is too small for your needs?

(broken link removed to http://www.superiorathome.com/Retail/Inserts/wood.html)

(broken link removed to http://www.superiorathome.com/Retail/Stoves/wood.html)

 

[Soundchasm]

I don't know which Jotul you've got, but my opinion (not shared by all) is that life is much tougher for an insert than a freestanding stove. A freestander of the same size might do the job by adding all the radiant heat. So if it's an insert, I'd start trying to mitigate its weaknesses with the techniques mentioned by jatoxico. That stuff will benefit whatever you put in there. And BTW, this is my 3rd year with the Rockland, and the first two years had a pretty steep learning curve. Now that I've discovered jatoxico's advice, I'll take it myself this summer.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Just an FYI....not all inserts need a blockoff plate at the bottom, I too have a SS liner, an outside brick chimney....
I did some experimenting this year, I ran the insert without the surround. I came to the conclusion that my insert does not give off heat near the top back or sides. It comes out the front and up the flue. The more I closed the flue, the less heat would go up the flue, the hotter the stove would get, the warmer my room would get. I did this for over a week using an ir thermometer. I did this experiment because many people here say that is the answer, I told my friend who installed it and said I was crazy and not to listen. My problem was babying the stove, not filling it up, amoung others like too many windows and no insulation, the weather, ect....just saying, while we wait for Weny's response....

 

[smokedragon]

Missed the part about the Bio Bricks. With those, you should have had some heat, barring crappy house layout / flow, and other hinderences. A smaller fire box is not going to help with the nasty winter we've had.

I agree......if he burned through 100's of dollars of bio bricks, it should have been kicking the heat out.

I tried some of those in my smoke dragon this winter (ECO bricks, but same thing) because my grandparents house has a woodstove that they don't use. They wanted to have a small amount of wood on hand for a power outage and thought these would be a good option. They burn very hot, and are 7% moisture or less. They are also very dense for a nice long burn. If the stove wouldn't throw out heat with those, then something else is wrong.

I know many people (myself included) that the first question is firewood.....but that is not a question with a stove running on bio bricks.

I for one think this is an issue of "it will heat up to 1500 sqft" meaning 1500 sqft in south georgia, not 1500 sqft in CT. The BTU numbers and square footage claims from most of the manufacturers are inflated.

Wow..... Where do we start.... You need to answer alot of questions in order to get help and a few pics of the room would help......you may need to upgrade to the biggest insert possible, 1 size up won't cut it.....
What type of wood are you burning?
How long has it been split and stacked? What is the MC?
Do you run your stove fully open?
How much wood do you burn at a time?
At what speed do you run your fan?
How cold is it outside?
How many windows do you have? Are they single pane?
What's your insulation like?
How big of a space are you trying to heat?
Are you burning 24/7 or do you cold start everyday?

I second all of these questions (except the wood, since I don't think that's the main issue).

I still think the issue is you were sold a poor solution. A stove rated at 1300 sqft is not going to heat a 1400sqft house in CT. Especially if you have single pane windows, drafty house, etc.

That top square footage number is more like winters I see in NC, with a well insulated home (for most manufacturers).

 

[mstoelton]

I know this has been asked but I did not see the answer.

Are you running the fan on the insert. Inserts due to their lack of profile (not sticking out into the room) need a fan to distribute the heat they produce. This can be compounded by not installing block-off plate, insulating flue etc.

Does the insert have a fan and Is the fan running?

 

[johnpma]

tank#2 of oil......how is your hot water heated?

 

[BurnIt13]

tank#2 of oil......how is your hot water heated?

And what size tank?

I know this has been asked but I did not see the answer.?

There have been no answers yet....we are all still sitting on the edge of our chairs waiting for the OP.

 

[MishMouse]

With under seasoned wood your stove is not going to put out the heat that it is supposed to.
Since you are trying to heat 1.4K with a 1.3K stove you are not going to be able to just burn wood, you will only be able to use it to supplement your current heat load. The stove is just not going to be able to handle heating 1.4K.

When I first bought a stove I went with one that could handle 1.4K and I have a total of 2.K, my intent was to heat my 800 (open) basement to above 70, I had to run that thing above 650 to even keep the basement above 65 it might of heat 1.4K if I ran that thing till it glowed red. When buying a stove always take what they say it heats with a gain of salt. Go for a stove that heats a bigger area than you will be heating. A stove that heats between 1.8 - 2K would have been a better choice. My mistake of going to small cost me around $600. But, since all the piping is in place you might be able to make a deal with your dealer to get a larger stove at a discount since your dealer should have told you that the stove would have an issue fitting your needs.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

joining in late ,

a couple things i see
1. the OP says the stove is reaching 500F when its burning so its gotta be lighting off secondaries and burning pretty well,

2. burning biobricks eliminates the "green or unseasoned wood" angle,
3. she says they think her flue isnt drafting right were this the case it would be hard to get the stove to reach those 500F temps on the stove surface.
4. i see no mention of a blower, inserts are severely limited in projecting heat using strictly radiant heat, if the unit doesnt have a blower as most of it is inside the fireplace a lot of heat gets trapped back there.

also i would check as mentiuoned above if the insallation included a block off plate above the smoke chamber. if its not there a large percentage of generated heat gets wasted into the chimney above.

as for BTU projections , one should note that stoves do not create BTU's , the fuel does, now at 40K BTU with 1 lb of wood containing roughly 8500 BTU of stored energy, the unit would have to burn roughly 4.75 LBS of wood per hour to "release" that much energy , of which a percentage of this heat has to leave up the flue (usually 30% "ish") in order to create and maintain draft. this is just the nature of the beast with a wood stove. so "output" of heat would need a higher "lbs per hour" of consumption to give that much heat to the room. the stove should have been an EPA rated unit which would have come with a tag which listed the tested output, do you still have that tag (usually its taped to inside of glass or placed in the stove)

lastly, do we know how well insulated the house is?

 

[M1sterM]

...He said the wood was a bit damp ( though it burns fine in our other fireplace ) and we weren't getting the stove hot enough. ..

Can't believe no one else has mentioned this (I think). You have an open fireplace that you're trying to heat the house with, too? That's got to be sucking a ton of heat out of the house as well.

I know everyone else has already said this, but if your wood is not fully dry, you're really strangling what the stove can do.

 

[woodgeek]

Lots of good points above, but I would say...

You are not the only first time insert user to have this problem....we get one a week in here. You are making oodles of heat (cuz there is just ash afterwards), but it simply not getting into your conditioned space. You need to figure out where it is going and fix it. Choices are:

1) up the flue inside the liner (because YOU are giving it too much air, which carries the heat up the stack)
2) up the flue outdside the liner (because the INSTALLER didn't seal the top plate on the chimney or the block off plate)
3) out the walls of the chimney (because exterior masonry chimneys suck heat to the great outdoors)

or some/all of the above.

Solutions are:
1) try closing the air down after you have a good fire going with dry wood or bricks, heat should jump up and you should get 'secondaries', and burn can get longer.
2) ask installer if top plate sealed and block off plate installed...send someone on roof to inspect, look behind surround, post pictures here.
3) if chimney is exterior, make sure damper area is either blocked with a metal plate or roxul batt insulation, AND line the masonry firebox with roxul batts between the insert and bricks.

 

[begreen]

This has been a miserably cold winter back east. If the insert hadn't been burning is it possible that you would be on oil tank #3 or 4 by now? Semi-seasoned wood will burn ok in a fireplace but it will burn poorly in a modern wood stove. Dry wood makes a world of difference. Get next years wood delivered and stacked soon and try to avoid getting oak and hickory if possible. It takes at least 2 yrs to season.

Question: Is the insert fireplace on an exterior wall? Did they put in a damper sealing block off plate when the insert was installed?

I would also recommend having a home energy audit done. The house sounds like it may need some tightening up and insulation.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Can't believe no one else has mentioned this (I think). You have an open fireplace that you're trying to heat the house with, too? That's got to be sucking a ton of heat out of the house as well.

I know everyone else has already said this, but if your wood is not fully dry, you're really strangling what the stove can do.

This is a great point........I find closing my basement door and doors to rooms that I do not heat with the insert helps quite a bit in heating up the room......why? Because it stops the cold draft from coming into the room being heated. We were sitting on the couch in front of the insert, we could feel a draft on our necks, I said this is impossible, sure enough, closed the doors and the chilly necks disappeared.....
You may have this issue and not even know it....having another fireplace is probably sucking out whatever heat you are creating, that could be a cause. Still we don't know about the window and insulation situation......
I have 11 single pane Windows and no insulation and I can get my room 72-76 degrees only when properly burning...

 

[fire_man]

having another fireplace is probably sucking out whatever heat you are creating

It's not just that an unused fireplace can suck heat up the flue. I was amazed the interior rear brick wall of my unused fireplace typically measured 32 degrees during this winter, and that was with a well insulated block off plate replacing the damper. The outdoor cold conducted through the exterior chimney brick directly into the rear wall of the fireplace. It's a MAJOR source of cold into a house that I don't hear mentioned very often.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

It's not just that an unused fireplace can suck heat up the flue. I was amazed the interior rear brick wall of my unused fireplace typically measured 32 degrees during this winter, and that was with a well insulated block off plate replacing the damper. The outdoor cold conducted through the exterior chimney brick directly into the rear wall of the fireplace. It's a MAJOR source of cold into a house that I don't hear mentioned very often.

really good point as the cold being conducted through the brick is what it is, even closing the damper in the flue would have no real effect on this.

also, the unused flue may be downdrafting due to the active flue pulling air out of the house using the other flue for "replacement" air.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Our home (not the cabin) was built in 1921 of brick, not brick veneer. It has two coal fireplaces. In addition to chimney caps (which we keep closed year-round) we also have fireplace "shields", which cover the opening of the fireplace to keep cold air from entering the room. They knew in 1921 that a brick chimney and fireplace can be a great source of unwanted cold air.

 

[fire_man]

Fast forward to my house built 64 years later and they lost the recipe for common sense. Now that I understand this heat loss, I will try to fix it.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Speaking of recipe, Wendy O, have you tried baking cookies while burning to help keep you warm........
I guess you forgot about us.......

 

[WendyO]

A beer says the installer did not insulate the damper, 2 says there ain't no block off plate.

Wendy is this an exterior chimney? If you have a small cape the insert may be enough to heat the first floor if you make sure the heat gets into the room and is not going up the chimney and if you burn good fuel. First year is not uncommon to have wet wood. Ask your installer to stuff the damper area with Roxul insulation or you can do it yourself for $40-50.

Jatoxico ~Let's start drinkin.... NO insulation - NO block off plate. I mentioned it to Superior Hearth and they said "I didn't need a block off plate - it's not standard with an installation" - of which I don't believe them. It's just a way to get out of doing something additional, God forbid. " No insulation needed either" . Are these procedures really not standard when installing?? It's not an technically an exterior chimney, however it backs up to room that was a garage - still a slab floor - converted into a barnsided "mantown" with a large open fireplace on an opposite wall. This room IS blocked off from the rest of the house, as it's only used on weekends and gets to be about 40 degrees when not used. We bought the Roxul the other day. We'll do it.

 

[WendyO]

Lots of good points above, but I would say...

You are not the only first time insert user to have this problem....we get one a week in here. You are making oodles of heat (cuz there is just ash afterwards), but it simply not getting into your conditioned space. You need to figure out where it is going and fix it. Choices are:

1) up the flue inside the liner (because YOU are giving it too much air, which carries the heat up the stack)
2) up the flue outdside the liner (because the INSTALLER didn't seal the top plate on the chimney or the block off plate)
3) out the walls of the chimney (because exterior masonry chimneys suck heat to the great outdoors)

or some/all of the above.

Solutions are:
1) try closing the air down after you have a good fire going with dry wood or bricks, heat should jump up and you should get 'secondaries', and burn can get longer.
2) ask installer if top plate sealed and block off plate installed...send someone on roof to inspect, look behind surround, post pictures here.
3) if chimney is exterior, make sure damper area is either blocked with a metal plate or roxul batt insulation, AND line the masonry firebox with roxul batts between the insert and bricks.

Woodgeek - I am climbing on the roof this weekend and looking down the damn chimney! I will get pictures.

 

[Kosmik]

We heat our fairly well insulated 1500sf home in WV with a 2.1cf stove rated for "up to" 2,000sf and it struggles when temps drop to near or below 0f

2.2cuft firebox on a 1,300-1,400 sqft home for me. Most the time I have the two upstairs bedrooms closed off making it closer to a 1,000 sqft ranch.
If I don't get it started by 4-5pm on a cold day {below 45, little/if any sun}, I have a hard time keeping the house above 68.

If your home is real drafty having an open window (cracked) nearby or an outdoor air kit, will help the 'feeling' cold.