Not enough heat from my Drolet 1800

[LieraArie]

Hello! New to burning wood and we are on our second year with the Drolet 1800. Stove is in 900 square foot partially finished basement and we leave the door open to the 900 square feet above for heat to rise. Chimney is block, about 25 feet tall. Stainless steel liner installed in 2023, comes down to a T joint that sits back through the wall. Thimble through the wall with single wall stove pipe sitting against tee, not connected in. Installer said that would be ok, I have questions. The T is not perfectly level and sits at a slight down angle away from the house when looking through the wall (off square, not perpendicular). It’s a tight space and no clean out, he said it was a difficult install. Drolet 1800 is hooked to 3 foot pipe, then 90 elbow, then approx four foot pipe that goes to the T and sits against it, not connected in.

Now, here’s the issue, I can’t get it hot enough. Most people say their Drolet 1800 is burning really hot. I have no problem getting a fire going with the door open, draw in the stove seems to be working as expected, flames get going really good and I’ll let it sit about 5-10 mins with each reload before closing. As soon as we close the door, inconsistent on if we can keep the temperature. I’ve got it loaded up now and the air on the stove itself has been open all the way for hours, stove pipe thermometer barely gets to 350. The room can get to 68 at max. Upstairs is even less. Help! Could this be the stove pipe not inserted into the T? User error?Something else? Do I need to clean the air tubes in the stove? We had a surprising amount of creosote buildup after our first year burn.

We’re burning good seasoned wood reading about 10%. There are flames and good bed of embers. Thank you!

 

[bigealta]

Yeah i bet your wood is not seasoned enough. If it really was 10% (which i'm sure it's not being tested correctly) than there would be an inferno in your stove and your problem would be it get's too hot.

That said you could also have an issue with that pipe connection.

Post some pics for better help.

 

[stoveliker]

First fix the piping. A leaking pipe connection decreases flue temps and increases creosote. It also decreased draft leading to less heat production (more smoldering).
But wood moisture content does the latter too.

Get a big split up to room temp in a day inside. Split it in half and measure on the newly exposed surface, so you measure the inside of the split. Pins as deep into the wood as you can, and parallel to the grain.

 

[EbS-P]

Two 90s, 4 ft horizontal run that’s not connected, fix this first. When fixing that try to minimize the horizontal run. 4 ft is long.

And test the moisture content of your wood.

 

[kborndale]

Besides the issues of your wood moisture and draft, is your basement insulated? Even if your stove is working at its best, it's going to struggle to heat an uninsulated basement. Also is your liner insulated? If not that is hurting your draft (and you increasing creosote production) and also in most cases an uninsulated liner does not meet code.