Hi Everyone,
Fantastic site I am overwhelmed by the knowledge on this forum. It seems as though there will never be a shortage of thing to learn here. Finally a place to channel my fascination with fire! We recently bought a house with a Papa Bear VI in the basement. It is a beast of a stove! We spend a day getting all the rust off the top and making it look nice (the top is fairly pitted but looks much nicer now).
I have a few questions for any and all experts here. First will I be OK burning with this stove this year? The bricks and supports aren't in the greatest condition. We had a chimney sweep come through and he said it should be fine for this season but the bricks should be replaced.
I am planning to put a baffle plate in but the small shelf under the rear vent is angled up towards the rear vent there is probably less than 1/4" gap between them. Would it be an issue just to cut a small portion of the center out so the plate will sit right up against the rear vent and is supported on either side on the shelf below. Or should I attempt to bend that little shelf under the vent down to create more space between it and the rear vent
And on the same topic does the plate need to be bent so it will sit across the top row of bricks then angle down to block the rear vent and line up with the shelf? here's a very crude dash drawing ----\__
And last one (I have tons but don't want to be a bother until I read all I can here) Should we have a Damper on the straight pipe after the stove. I have heard both yes and no with seemly valid points to both.
Our pipe goes into the wall then up a lined chimney. I believe the liner is 6" the whole way up. Unfortunately I do not have a ton of info on what is actually in the chimney but the pipe in the basement and the cap on top of the chimney are both 6 inches and looking down the chimney it doesn't seem to flare out or anything.
Side note: It may be common practice but the chimney cap looks sloppy to me. Who ever did it actually took down some broken brick making the square opening larger then covered the whole chimney with a flat plate maybe 16x16" and the 6inch cap comes out of that. It just looks like it will catch rain or snow. Problem for another day i guess.
We have had one day of fire in it so far and it seemed to do well At one point the stove pipe got really hot and the basement was semi smokey but that may have been the stove black buring off. I am super excited for this stove. I just which it had a glass door so i could watch it!
Thank you everyone for the help Look forward to learning a lot from all of you!
![woodstove4.jpg woodstove4.jpg](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/145/145668-9be1d239a2e1126539dfb9f5b1d1f697.jpg)
Fantastic site I am overwhelmed by the knowledge on this forum. It seems as though there will never be a shortage of thing to learn here. Finally a place to channel my fascination with fire! We recently bought a house with a Papa Bear VI in the basement. It is a beast of a stove! We spend a day getting all the rust off the top and making it look nice (the top is fairly pitted but looks much nicer now).
I have a few questions for any and all experts here. First will I be OK burning with this stove this year? The bricks and supports aren't in the greatest condition. We had a chimney sweep come through and he said it should be fine for this season but the bricks should be replaced.
I am planning to put a baffle plate in but the small shelf under the rear vent is angled up towards the rear vent there is probably less than 1/4" gap between them. Would it be an issue just to cut a small portion of the center out so the plate will sit right up against the rear vent and is supported on either side on the shelf below. Or should I attempt to bend that little shelf under the vent down to create more space between it and the rear vent
And on the same topic does the plate need to be bent so it will sit across the top row of bricks then angle down to block the rear vent and line up with the shelf? here's a very crude dash drawing ----\__
And last one (I have tons but don't want to be a bother until I read all I can here) Should we have a Damper on the straight pipe after the stove. I have heard both yes and no with seemly valid points to both.
Our pipe goes into the wall then up a lined chimney. I believe the liner is 6" the whole way up. Unfortunately I do not have a ton of info on what is actually in the chimney but the pipe in the basement and the cap on top of the chimney are both 6 inches and looking down the chimney it doesn't seem to flare out or anything.
Side note: It may be common practice but the chimney cap looks sloppy to me. Who ever did it actually took down some broken brick making the square opening larger then covered the whole chimney with a flat plate maybe 16x16" and the 6inch cap comes out of that. It just looks like it will catch rain or snow. Problem for another day i guess.
We have had one day of fire in it so far and it seemed to do well At one point the stove pipe got really hot and the basement was semi smokey but that may have been the stove black buring off. I am super excited for this stove. I just which it had a glass door so i could watch it!
Thank you everyone for the help Look forward to learning a lot from all of you!
![woodstove1.jpg woodstove1.jpg](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/145/145665-c1ab023ee7e742d4c330d0761c0612fd.jpg)
![woodstove2.jpg woodstove2.jpg](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/145/145666-635a856f9c9c7cee44ba616bfb80a4e5.jpg)
![woodstove3.jpg woodstove3.jpg](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/145/145667-54b2c7a11e6a5fc2d9b64833744b0e08.jpg)
![woodstove4.jpg woodstove4.jpg](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/145/145668-9be1d239a2e1126539dfb9f5b1d1f697.jpg)