Been a while but here is the update after meeting with the Jotul area rep this afternoon. I am losing too much heat up my chimney, even though at the top where the cap is, it is sealed off by a flat plate the last inches of the stove pipe run through and cap sits on. Plus, being an old outside chimney, the old ash clean out door needs to be sealed up, even though the ash dump door in the firebox has been sealed for years. When I started converting over to solely wood heat about 6 years ago, I had to cut out the damper/flue in the chimney to get the stove pipe through. With this unit, I have to shut all that excess space off so that the heat from this unit is not mixing so much with the cold air in the chimney and I am not wasting so much heat up the column of the chimney and more will be kept where it is supposed to be...heating my house. Sealing this opening off with Rock Wool or Stone Wool insulation should do the trick, and is what the Jotul rep recommended. Once I take care of those two items, all should be good to go since the unit itself is firing just fine and everything on it is working just fine. The wood I am using is more than seasoned, and moisture meter testing indicates 15% or less, and probably on average 9% of what we checked today. Why this couldn't have been solved earlier in the burn season, misunderstanding and miscommunication happen on the other end. The confidence is high that taking care of and making these adjustments will produce the expected results and all the issues will be gone. Why the meaurer/installer guy never caught any of this is beyond all three of our comprehension, but at least I know where to start from to get this thing right from now on.
Thanks again everyone!...
Stay tuned til next burning season, unless I can get things sealed up in the next week or so and do some decent burning. Winter is hanging on tough this month and maybe into the first week of April.