Hearthstone Green Mountain 60 - ISSUES

[Drylightning]

How will you clean a gallon of creosote out of the bottom leg of the tee with the foot of liner and cap on it every time you sweep?

If you resolve that (perhaps by dropping liner all the way down and capping it in the basement), you still have a short flue with an uninsulated liner.

Gonna have to agree with bholler.... you're best off with a do-over if you can get your money back.

I think we'll need to vacuum it out, though I agree it'd be better if it went down further.

I would love to go back in time and do it right, but we made a bad decision. I don't see us getting our money back. We paid $1800, and the liner itself was about $700. Really think we're going to have to find a way to cap the liner...

 

[Drylightning]

Just shove your shop vac tube in from the thimble. I’ve cleaned out catch basins with a similar method. Doesn’t need to be perfect.

I wonder if there’s some sort of plug you can insert from the thimble.

In the meantime. Like for today. If you do a bang up job of sealing the clean out door then your chimney is once again sealed. It’s cold down at the clean out so even silicone might work.

I'm hoping there's some easy way to insert too.

Regarding the door in the basement, I'm considering just sealing it off with several trash bags and duct tape. Once we see how much that helps, we'll look at a more permanent fix for the door. Of course, if we can get a cap in, I don't think the door will have much effect on the draft.

 

[bholler]

Wouldn't capping the bottom of the liner solve this? If no air flows to or from the basement portion of the chimney, then does it matter if the basement is sealed?

Yes but the you don't have the use of your clean out. And you still have an uninsulated liner

 

[Drylightning]

If we have a cap on the bottom, we can clean the creosote by reaching into the T, right? There won't be any in the basement.

Regarding the liner, it makes sense to me that since the chimney is in the middle of the house it doesn't necessarily need insulation.

 

[Highbeam]

Chimney gas temperatures are between 400 and 900. Whether your masonry is 70 or 0 is not much difference. The liner insulation is keeping really high temperatures high.

 

[bholler]

If we have a cap on the bottom, we can clean the creosote by reaching into the T, right? There won't be any in the basement.

Regarding the liner, it makes sense to me that since the chimney is in the middle of the house it doesn't necessarily need insulation.

The insulation is there to protect your house more than anything else. It is more important on internal chimneys. Code requires 2" clearance to combustibles from the outside of the masonry structure for internal chimneys and 1" for external. Insulation reduces that to zero. Yes you get performance gains as well but the safety aspect is more important.

 

[Drylightning]

I really should have checked here first...

 

[Woody Stover]

I really should have checked here first...

Years ago, I kept running across this "hearth.com thing" in searches, but I landed at the old, somewhat murky home page and never made it to the forums. I finally got here about a decade ago, thankfully before I burned my house down by burning wet wood through a poor venting system and only cleaning my farm store snap-together connector-pipe "liner" when the draft would slow down from flaky creo that had fallen to the elbow and closed it half way off.

 

[Drylightning]

Do the forums offer financing?

 

[cabinwarmer]

Drylightning, I am late to this post but would like to provide you with some thoughts.. I can assure you the GM 60 runs like a tank once you get this straightened out. I will comment on the stove only as you have received A+ info from the gentlemen on here. The stove will kick back some smoke into your room if you do not 1) open up the main inlet all the way, 2) engage the CAT bypass, handle down 3) crack the door for a few seconds before opening. Not sure about how your fan unit also may be effecting this. The flue also needs to be up to temp. I run mine between 450-550F flue temp. Get a digital flue probe if you do not have one. Do those three things once you have the flue straight and you will be fine. If you clogged the CATs you may want to clean them. It does not take long for me if I burn a few burns of moist wood, fly ash gets in them quickly. Also anything from the flue will fall back down on top of them. Take out the baffles, (read the installation manual) very easy but follow the procedure and take a look. They are slightly fragile to go slow. A simple brush off of the CATs will go a long way. When mine get dirty, I too snuffed at the fire when activated. Be careful not to let the soapstones fall in on you inside the firebox. I made two piece of wood to create an "X" across the back of the firebox holding each side stone up, which in turn holds the back ones in place. Also, go to the back of the stove and (per manual) take the heat shield and CAT cover off. It is VERY easy to do. You will see the two CATS, vacuum them off. I know you think you couldn't have clogged them with just a few months burning, but I bet you did. I have cleaned mine twice since October. It is well worth the tiny effort. You will begone in 30 minutes. Lastly, look under the stove and be sure the metal plate/tag that comes on the stove did not get pushed over the main intake. Mine was 25% blocked after the install. It was never checked until I looked at it. It is a good stove. I also had an older 70's unit and this is a completely different beast. I also was frustrated but now love it. Dry wood is essential. My draft is enormous. I run the stove at 10% open most the time (450-550F). Learn to build a top down start. It is far superior for this stove. If you have not done one, Hearthstone has a video on the web site. You will not have to open the stove door until the flue is completely hot.

Dave

 

[Drylightning]

Do a test with aluminum tape, tape off the base of the liner with that stuff, if performance improves then you know what you have to work on to fix.

A couple weeks ago I did tape off the base of the liner with aluminum tape, and the stove is running much, much better. Hardly any smoke, and good fires. Thanks for this advice.

No, we need to figure out how to put a real cap on there. It's a very tight fit, so I'm not sure removing the T and lifting up is the best way to do this. This'll be tricky. The installers have offered to help, but they won't give us our money back and re-do it with insulation. Small-claims court? Oh, god no.

I appreciate all the assistance here!
Dan

 

[Drylightning]

Drylightning, I am late to this post but would like to provide you with some thoughts.. I can assure you the GM 60 runs like a tank once you get this straightened out. I will comment on the stove only as you have received A+ info from the gentlemen on here. The stove will kick back some smoke into your room if you do not 1) open up the main inlet all the way, 2) engage the CAT bypass, handle down 3) crack the door for a few seconds before opening. Not sure about how your fan unit also may be effecting this. The flue also needs to be up to temp. I run mine between 450-550F flue temp. Get a digital flue probe if you do not have one. Do those three things once you have the flue straight and you will be fine. If you clogged the CATs you may want to clean them. It does not take long for me if I burn a few burns of moist wood, fly ash gets in them quickly. Also anything from the flue will fall back down on top of them. Take out the baffles, (read the installation manual) very easy but follow the procedure and take a look. They are slightly fragile to go slow. A simple brush off of the CATs will go a long way. When mine get dirty, I too snuffed at the fire when activated. Be careful not to let the soapstones fall in on you inside the firebox. I made two piece of wood to create an "X" across the back of the firebox holding each side stone up, which in turn holds the back ones in place. Also, go to the back of the stove and (per manual) take the heat shield and CAT cover off. It is VERY easy to do. You will see the two CATS, vacuum them off. I know you think you couldn't have clogged them with just a few months burning, but I bet you did. I have cleaned mine twice since October. It is well worth the tiny effort. You will begone in 30 minutes. Lastly, look under the stove and be sure the metal plate/tag that comes on the stove did not get pushed over the main intake. Mine was 25% blocked after the install. It was never checked until I looked at it. It is a good stove. I also had an older 70's unit and this is a completely different beast. I also was frustrated but now love it. Dry wood is essential. My draft is enormous. I run the stove at 10% open most the time (450-550F). Learn to build a top down start. It is far superior for this stove. If you have not done one, Hearthstone has a video on the web site. You will not have to open the stove door until the flue is completely hot.

Dave

My wife's been starting the fire using top-down starting method. It works great! Thanks.

 

[Rob_Red]

As a Green Mountain 40 owner I echo cabinwarmer 100% these are great stoves. Take the small amount of effort to keep the CATs clear and it will run great. I do this about every month.

 

[bholler]

A couple weeks ago I did tape off the base of the liner with aluminum tape, and the stove is running much, much better. Hardly any smoke, and good fires. Thanks for this advice.

No, we need to figure out how to put a real cap on there. It's a very tight fit, so I'm not sure removing the T and lifting up is the best way to do this. This'll be tricky. The installers have offered to help, but they won't give us our money back and re-do it with insulation. Small-claims court? Oh, god no.

I appreciate all the assistance here!
Dan

How did you pay for it?

 

[Olypantr]

Hi all,

We bought a Green Mountain 60 back in September. It was the first *new* woodstove we'd ever purchased, so pretty exciting. Not for long....

Background: since 2000, when we moved into this house, we've been burning 2-3 cords per winter. We don't cut our own wood, but have it delivered seasoned and then we stack it and use it. It's always been a piece of cake, and a great way to keep our house warm. (We used to have an oil burner, now we have electric mini-splits to augment the woodstove.) Our first stove looked just like an old 70s Jotul, and our second stove was a 70s (maybe early 80s) Jotul and we burned and rarely had an issue. The Jotul had a crack on one side, so we needed a new stove. Enter the Hearthstone Green Mountain 60.

It's a pretty basic stove, which is what we wanted. Soapstone on the inside - nothing too fancy looking. But, ever since we started using it in November or so, it burns like crap. Hell to start a fire, particularly since any opening of the door while starting it releases a cloud of smoke. Once it's going it's okay, but it has been rare that we can get a fire going strong. As long as we place the wood in perfectly, with just the right amount of kindling, and start it with the door cracked and a fan blowing on the stove, we were able to get a fire going. Eventually, we could even close the door. Wow! Every time we've tried to use the catalytic converter, the fire has gone out. Sometimes just closing the door makes the fire go out. Our control of air flow on the stove is limited to a hole smaller than a dime at the bottom of the door, for which there's a latch. That thing is always open. (After the older stoves with the three air flow knobs on the front, this is quite a lack of control.)

So, we didn't blame the stove right away. We figured new stoves are more fussy, maybe our draft isn't as good as we thought. So we had a chimney liner installed. No insulation since the chimney is in the middle of the house, but a huge improvement for safety (the clay tiles were maybe 30 years old) and we hoped it would improve the draft. Nope. It's not worse, it's just not any better. Also, the chimney guys who installed the liner said the draw is fine, but said it would be better after getting the liner. Maybe it is.

The stove sits right in front of the chimney and the stovepipe goes straight up to a 90 degree angle, then directly into our newly lined chimney. The draft should be excellent. The chimney is kind of short at 17 feet, and the liner is open at the bottom so creosote can fall down into the cellar, where we'll clean it out of the chimney each year. (Just trying to provide as much information as possible.)

We've resorted to using bio bricks. Maybe the wood we bought this year is too wet. (And maybe the Jotul was more forgiving of wet wood. Chimney never had much, if any, creosote build-up over the years, by the way.) The bio bricks are better than wood for this stove - they are easier to start (not easy, but easier) and will burn well for hours. But we still can't open the stove door without getting smoked out of our house, nor can we adjust the bricks or add kindling. (I am aware that using bio bricks can void our warranty and considered not mentioning that we are using them. But at least they'll burn.)

I've read about other people having issues with this stove. Did we make a $3000 mistake? This stove is terrible. I can't believe how little control we have of airflow. It used to be fun to start a fire. Now we need gas masks. We do have the dealer coming out to look at the stove (for $289) in about a week to see if there's anything wrong with how it is set up. I'm concerned they won't find anything wrong (we didn't pay for installation when we bought the stove) and will say it's our problem, not theirs.

I'm very curious what opinions are from the experts. I think my ideal result would be that the dealer let's us trade this stove in and gives us an older used stove, not sure what kind. But I think that hope is probably naive. My wife has emailed Hearthstone and they put it all on the dealer.

Thanks for the thoughts!
Dan

I started out thinking I made a big mistake as well, but I am now friends with the Green Mountain. I use wood and Homefire Logs (WA State). I place 2 Homefire Logs on the bottom, then 2 large split logs perpendicular then add some paper and kindling, then 2 more small spit logs, then paper, kindling and a couple of sticks of Fat Wood. I light the top shut the door and leave until it's almost burn down with just the Homefire Logs remaining. The I build it again off of the reduced Homefire Logs. The key is having a burning method where you don't need to continuously feed it.

 

[begreen]

Home Fire's Prest-Logs are da bomb. How long is the average burntime using this method?

 

[Olypantr]

Home Fire's Prest-Logs are da bomb. How long is the average burntime using this method?

The Homefire Logs I don't use again until late evening to hold the heat until morning. I add logs after around 4 hours this time of year (October/November).

 

[Strickly Anonomous]

Hi all,

We bought a Green Mountain 60 back in September. It was the first *new* woodstove we'd ever purchased, so pretty exciting. Not for long....

Background: since 2000, when we moved into this house, we've been burning 2-3 cords per winter. We don't cut our own wood, but have it delivered seasoned and then we stack it and use it. It's always been a piece of cake, and a great way to keep our house warm. (We used to have an oil burner, now we have electric mini-splits to augment the woodstove.) Our first stove looked just like an old 70s Jotul, and our second stove was a 70s (maybe early 80s) Jotul and we burned and rarely had an issue. The Jotul had a crack on one side, so we needed a new stove. Enter the Hearthstone Green Mountain 60.

It's a pretty basic stove, which is what we wanted. Soapstone on the inside - nothing too fancy looking. But, ever since we started using it in November or so, it burns like crap. Hell to start a fire, particularly since any opening of the door while starting it releases a cloud of smoke. Once it's going it's okay, but it has been rare that we can get a fire going strong. As long as we place the wood in perfectly, with just the right amount of kindling, and start it with the door cracked and a fan blowing on the stove, we were able to get a fire going. Eventually, we could even close the door. Wow! Every time we've tried to use the catalytic converter, the fire has gone out. Sometimes just closing the door makes the fire go out. Our control of air flow on the stove is limited to a hole smaller than a dime at the bottom of the door, for which there's a latch. That thing is always open. (After the older stoves with the three air flow knobs on the front, this is quite a lack of control.)

So, we didn't blame the stove right away. We figured new stoves are more fussy, maybe our draft isn't as good as we thought. So we had a chimney liner installed. No insulation since the chimney is in the middle of the house, but a huge improvement for safety (the clay tiles were maybe 30 years old) and we hoped it would improve the draft. Nope. It's not worse, it's just not any better. Also, the chimney guys who installed the liner said the draw is fine, but said it would be better after getting the liner. Maybe it is.

The stove sits right in front of the chimney and the stovepipe goes straight up to a 90 degree angle, then directly into our newly lined chimney. The draft should be excellent. The chimney is kind of short at 17 feet, and the liner is open at the bottom so creosote can fall down into the cellar, where we'll clean it out of the chimney each year. (Just trying to provide as much information as possible.)

We've resorted to using bio bricks. Maybe the wood we bought this year is too wet. (And maybe the Jotul was more forgiving of wet wood. Chimney never had much, if any, creosote build-up over the years, by the way.) The bio bricks are better than wood for this stove - they are easier to start (not easy, but easier) and will burn well for hours. But we still can't open the stove door without getting smoked out of our house, nor can we adjust the bricks or add kindling. (I am aware that using bio bricks can void our warranty and considered not mentioning that we are using them. But at least they'll burn.)

I've read about other people having issues with this stove. Did we make a $3000 mistake? This stove is terrible. I can't believe how little control we have of airflow. It used to be fun to start a fire. Now we need gas masks. We do have the dealer coming out to look at the stove (for $289) in about a week to see if there's anything wrong with how it is set up. I'm concerned they won't find anything wrong (we didn't pay for installation when we bought the stove) and will say it's our problem, not theirs.

I'm very curious what opinions are from the experts. I think my ideal result would be that the dealer let's us trade this stove in and gives us an older used stove, not sure what kind. But I think that hope is probably naive. My wife has emailed Hearthstone and they put it all on the dealer.

Thanks for the thoughts!
Dan

We have the same issue. Use to have an old earth stove. It was fantastic but it did not have a viewing door. We had it replaced with a new 2020 compliant stove with a beautiful viewing window. Hence the GM 60. It is a problem to keep it lit. We have excellent wood, a newer improved lined and insulated chimney that was installed by a hearthstone dealer. It's a chore to use compared to the older stove and I swear the house is always full of smoke. It burns my eyes at times.
Like yourself mine is due for an inspection in one week. If they find nothing wrong I'm gonna be upset 😡. There has got to be an explanation for this other than its s bad product. I want them to find something wrong. My older stove you just lit it and fed it wood every 4 to 5 hours.
This stove like I mentioned is a chore to use.
I have talked to the dealer about possible recalls and they are unaware of any. If I'm not satisfied I want it replaced. I paid a good dollar (s) for this unit. Another thing. The airflow can't be correct because the glass does not stay clear.
I will keep you in the loop

 

[tabner]

We have the same issue. Use to have an old earth stove. It was fantastic but it did not have a viewing door. We had it replaced with a new 2020 compliant stove with a beautiful viewing window. Hence the GM 60. It is a problem to keep it lit. We have excellent wood, a newer improved lined and insulated chimney that was installed by a hearthstone dealer. It's a chore to use compared to the older stove and I swear the house is always full of smoke. It burns my eyes at times.
Like yourself mine is due for an inspection in one week. If they find nothing wrong I'm gonna be upset 😡. There has got to be an explanation for this other than its s bad product. I want them to find something wrong. My older stove you just lit it and fed it wood every 4 to 5 hours.
This stove like I mentioned is a chore to use.
I have talked to the dealer about possible recalls and they are unaware of any. If I'm not satisfied I want it replaced. I paid a good dollar (s) for this unit. Another thing. The airflow can't be correct because the glass does not stay clear.
I will keep you in the loop

if the glass does not stay clear, your wood is wet.

 

[cabinwarmer]

Here is a possible issue - Please find attached a tech sheet from Hearthstone. It was sent out along with a free part. I believe there was a batch of stoves that may have been manufactured with the gasket installed incorrectly. Maybe not your stove, but just a thought.