HearthStone morgan insert question

[buckeye]

I had a Hearthstone morgan insert installed to help offset some of the cost of natural gas. This was the biggest insert that would fit into my existing fireplace. I have a mcclain hot water boiler and live in a 2500 sq ft. brick house with no insulation in the walls. The walls are plaster right against the brick, so there really is no way to insulate. I have blown insulation into the attic floor and plan to do the rafters before next winter. All new insulated windows.

OK, I was using the woodburner last week and had a good fire going, it was about 45 to 50 degrees out side. In my house in the 6 to 8 hours the fire was burning the temp. only went from 61 to 69 degrees. The room the wood insert is in was only about 69. The woodburner has a stainless steal liner to the top of the chimney (about 38') and has a blower on it. It only has a single air control on the front. The wood burner is rated to heat up to 1200 sq ft. and I was closing rooms to get the living room that warm. I know the wood was seasoned well and dry as it was cut 2 years ago and stored the last year in a pole building.

So, I called the company that did the install and they say that I will have to have a hot fire burning for a long time because brick absorbs alot of heat in the begining and will actually hold that heat longer once it warms up. Anyone ever hear of this or is this guy just yanking my chain?

The thermostat on the top of the insert was reading about 360, should have been plenty to at least warm several of the rooms downstairs right?

I have never burned wood as a heat source and I am trying to get a handle on the ins and outs.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Common brick only has a r-value of .8 for every 4". That is going to kill you trying to keep that room warm.
The morgan does have a soapstone liner that will take time to heat up, but once its warm it should stay warm for some time.

 

[elkimmeg]

have blown insulation into the attic floor and plan to do the rafters before next winter

If the ceiling is insulated then doing the rafter above that will create an insulation vapor lock You will trap in more moisture and do mor damage than just insulating the ceiling

every rafter bay would require sofit and ridge ventilation then one would also have to insulate the gable end walls Finally tell me what good does it do to heat the attic area?

What I'm telling you this is not a good idea put more insulation on your ceiling area then paint all ceilings with vapor barrier paint

As for heat production from your wood stove, the area or sq footage is calculated ina moderately insulated home, something in the lines of R11 side walls, not less the R1 that you have

I would take quite a stove to overcome the side walls heat losses. That's not saying the stove is not helping it is. You are saving some relief of your main heating dependency.

Every solution I can recomend, would require extensive costly renovations to your existing exterior walls One you could attach 1" furring strips and use High r 7.2 styrofoam and need to sheet rock over the walls all window and door openings would require furing them out all electrical pluges moved out. A very costly solution Unfortunately you are probably stuck with what you have possibly insulating the celler or first follr and draft sealing your foundation sill area will improve it and adding more insulation to your ceiling

 

[velvetfoot]

Would there typically be a cavity in those brick walls?

 

[BrotherBart]

Fact of life is that if that is the actual stove top temp that sucker needs to be kicked up to north of five hundred or so to feel some heat.

360 degrees ain't getting it done. And won't.

 

[buckeye]

ok, as far as the attic goes, there will be plenty of airflow from the soffet to the roof vents by way of vent flow foam under the insulation. This is going to be a finished attic for normal everyday use. So that is not an issue. Heating it really is not an issue. I know that the r-value of brick is low as well. I was giving some general information on my house before I asked the question. All I wanted to know is A) is alot of the heat actually absorbed by the brick as the installer says? B) Shouldnt the room the insert is in be about 75-80 with a 350 degree fire burning for 6-8 hours reguardless of the insulation? Or is the heat escaping right up the chimney instead of coming out into that room?

 

[Highbeam]

Not much of anything will happen with a 360 degree stove in that house. I can get my much smaller 1700 SF and better insulated (though poorly by today's standards) house into the 75-80 degree range from 60 with a 600 degree insert after about 4-6 hours in outside temps around 40. The house quickly warms to 68 and stalls, climbs to 74 and then stalls, and then jumps to 78 where I start thinking about letting the stove idle down.

The brick will warm up and lose heat to the outside. It is not a good insulator but better than an open window. It's not a beneficial thermal mass as it would be if the outside of the brick were insulated.

The heat isn't being lost to the chimney so much as the heat is never really being produced to begin with.

One of my first woodburning lessons was learning that to make heat, the insert needs to be hot. Pour the coals to it and run up near the max temp that hearthstone allows to see what happens.

 

[jjbaer]

I had a Hearthstone morgan insert installed to help offset some of the cost of natural gas. This was the biggest insert that would fit into my existing fireplace. I have a mcclain hot water boiler and live in a 2500 sq ft. brick house with no insulation in the walls. The walls are plaster right against the brick, so there really is no way to insulate. I have blown insulation into the attic floor and plan to do the rafters before next winter. All new insulated windows.

OK, I was using the woodburner last week and had a good fire going, it was about 45 to 50 degrees out side. In my house in the 6 to 8 hours the fire was burning the temp. only went from 61 to 69 degrees. The room the wood insert is in was only about 69. The woodburner has a stainless steal liner to the top of the chimney (about 38') and has a blower on it. It only has a single air control on the front. The wood burner is rated to heat up to 1200 sq ft. and I was closing rooms to get the living room that warm. I know the wood was seasoned well and dry as it was cut 2 years ago and stored the last year in a pole building.

So, I called the company that did the install and they say that I will have to have a hot fire burning for a long time because brick absorbs alot of heat in the begining and will actually hold that heat longer once it warms up. Anyone ever hear of this or is this guy just yanking my chain?

The thermostat on the top of the insert was reading about 360, should have been plenty to at least warm several of the rooms downstairs right?

I have never burned wood as a heat source and I am trying to get a handle on the ins and outs.

Since I don't want to get off-thread (until I helped answer your questions) here goes. The others are correct....360 is too low. Also, the bricks have low R-value, thus making it hard to heat and while they will "buffer" the temp a bit, your problem is that you're lacking insulation. That said, how can plaster be laid against brick??? Is there a 2x4 or other wood separating the plaster from the brick? If there is, contractors can drill through the brick and inject foam....

 

[buckeye]

there are no 2x4's studs on the exterior walls, the house was built in about 1904, maybe that has something to do with it. there are no switches or outlets on exterior walls either. the plaster is laid on lath and a mesh type wire. I have drilled several times to hang pictures or what ever and it gets alot tougher drilling after about 3/4". You hit brick.

I know this is why the house is so hard to heat. Thats why I bought the insert, gas bills were $500 a month this winter. I was just hoping to get more output from the insert.

I will try and get the fire hotter and see how much that helps.

 

[Todd]

Lots of trial and error for first time burners. 360 doesn't sound hot enough. Try another fire starting out with smaller splits criss crossed to allow more air flow between them. After you establish a good coal bed you can add bigger splits, but try to leave some space between for air flow. It may take some time and patients to learn the best way to build and maintain fires in your stove.

 

[Rhone]

I have the Clydesdale, the big brother of the Morgan. It takes a while to warm up, takes me 1 - 2 hours before I start feeling heat and it does buffer the heat well. I find it strange watching the fire inside roaring and not feel any of it for an hour. But, when I see just a few embers it is still throwing out a lot of heat for a couple hours, occasionally reloading it's like "Poof" instantaneous combustion and secondary burn happening before I even shut the door. I agree with him it stores and takes time to heat/cool if yours is anything like mine. The first year before I knew what I was doing it took me over 2 hours before I started feeling any heat. Takes time to learn it.

I think there are several things happening. It takes a season to figure out how to do things. The first season I had my Clydesdale I went through probably an extra cord of wood and I had trouble figuring out how it likes things done. I recall someone else on here after getting a new unit mentioning they're working on figuring out how it likes things done to put out more heat. There's a balance you have to learn with the air setting that takes a while to learn, too much air and you send heat out the flue. To little, and you can smother the fire and send unburned fuel out the flue. You then have to learn when you can turn it down, and how to position the wood so it burns most efficient. All these things take time, some units easier than others I think the Clydesdale and Morgan more on the harder end being side/side units.

Can the Morgan be pushed in/out several inches? The Clydesdale can, and the manual doesn't tell you this but if you have the Clydesdale pushed in all the way the channels where the heat comes out will end 5" behind the surround. Not a lot of good there. The morgan may be similar, try to have it out as far as you can.

Make sure you have a lower block-off plate to get any heat rising off the insert into the living area, and it's safer.

If your chimney is on the outside of your house, put some mineral wool or slag wool insulation around the walls of the fireplace (I'm not a fan of using fiberglass). You won't lose much heat to the masonry that way. An inside chimney I don't think it matters. Again, putting it against the walls of the fireplace leaving a little space between it and the Morgan is okay, do not insulate the Morgan itself else during an overfire you'll probably damage it.

Take the surround off, and with the blowers running feel around the Morgan. It has cast iron channels, cast iron joints are not particularly tight. I plugged the gaps of the air channels of my Clydesdale with Rutland furnace cement for like $3.99 at my local hardware store.

Your 360F surface temp may be good, your "cooking" surface may be insulated. I know my Clydesdales is, the Morgan may be as well. If mine reaches 500F+ I'd definetely be overfiring it. If the Morgan's cooking surface isn't insulated 360F is low.

Inserts don't heat "rooms", they heat the house. Stoves and inserts heat differently. Stoves put out radiant energy (which is a form of light) and convective (hot air). That radiant energy from a stove can only be used in the room with the stove, so it heats the room, objects in said room much better than an insert. An insert, has a shroud that converts the radiant energy into convection. The amount of radiant energy reduced in an insert is directly proportional to the amount of extra convective heat gained. So, an insert puts out more hot air than a stove and hot air doesn't stick around in the room it goes all over your house and puts out little radiant energy which is the kind that can only be used in the room. For me to get the room with my insert to 75F I have to get my house to 75F. It sounds like you're used to a stove and that feeling you get walking into a room with one, inserts don't usually do that. I believe inserts to be better house heaters, the extra heated air moves to the extremeties of your house and their blowers cycle the houses air through the insert, stoves better room heaters. No winners/loses depends on what your goals (and house configuration) is for which may be a better choice.

Like Elk said, your walls are losing an astronomical amount of heat, I can't think of any easy way to fix them besides cover them with 2x4's and spray cellulose or put fiberglass between the studs or cover the walls with foam board insulation, and then drywall. Either way, that's a lot of work and you'll have to get creative with how you handle adding extra wall thickness with your windows.

 

[Turner-n-Burner]

Like Rhone, I have a Clydesdale too. What he says about the warming shelf is true. There is an air gap between the actual stove bits and the enameled surround, so it doesn't get nearly as hot as a traditional stove.

Those blowers will move a lot of air over and through the insert, so 360 or so degrees sounds about right . On the Clydesdale anyway, pretty much no matter what you are burning, how full the stove is, or what air setting you use - you will NOT see the warming shelf go over 400 degrees if the blowers are running. without them running, 400 is easy, and I've forayed into the low 500's once - with no apparent ill effects.

All I can suggest is burn keep the stove loaded as much as possible, and keep the secondary burn going - that insert is too small for a house that size with little/no insulation. But it will still save you money on your heating bill.

-Dan