I'll start by saying we have (broken link removed to http://www.ghpgroupinc.com/fireplace/products/wood-stove-medium-legs/detail.asp) in our 900ish sq. ft. bungalow.
With some help from this forum, we've managed to keep our house fairly comfortable, at least the main areas.
Recently we finally purchased a magnetic thermometer, but we have dvl? (double wall) pipe. Granted, the thermometer is by another stove manufacturer (Morso), it says to install it on the pipe, of course this doesn't apply/work for us.
Based on a few quick search's we put it on the lip. This typically gives us a temp a little over 300 when going good. When placed on the "step" of the top of the stove, it's just over 500. I can't seem to figure out if these are good temps at these locations for our setup.
As for the damper... There's a sticker by the right hand side that says only leave it fully open for first 5 minutes. So once we see a nice secondary burn we tend to go ahead and close it all the way down to the second little.. step? (it's like ___------------ so the ___ part) but the right most part of that (does this make sense? I can take a picture if need be.) Then, if we get a really nice hot fire (or what seems like one... which is seldom) we close it down to the left hand side of that. Is this right?
While I feel like it's performing much better than originally, I still feel like we're missing something. Is it just because we got the stupid cheap stove? Or what? Hopefully we can afford to invest in a much nicer one by next winter, but this one has to do the job for now.
With some help from this forum, we've managed to keep our house fairly comfortable, at least the main areas.
Recently we finally purchased a magnetic thermometer, but we have dvl? (double wall) pipe. Granted, the thermometer is by another stove manufacturer (Morso), it says to install it on the pipe, of course this doesn't apply/work for us.
Based on a few quick search's we put it on the lip. This typically gives us a temp a little over 300 when going good. When placed on the "step" of the top of the stove, it's just over 500. I can't seem to figure out if these are good temps at these locations for our setup.
As for the damper... There's a sticker by the right hand side that says only leave it fully open for first 5 minutes. So once we see a nice secondary burn we tend to go ahead and close it all the way down to the second little.. step? (it's like ___------------ so the ___ part) but the right most part of that (does this make sense? I can take a picture if need be.) Then, if we get a really nice hot fire (or what seems like one... which is seldom) we close it down to the left hand side of that. Is this right?
While I feel like it's performing much better than originally, I still feel like we're missing something. Is it just because we got the stupid cheap stove? Or what? Hopefully we can afford to invest in a much nicer one by next winter, but this one has to do the job for now.