US Stove (US1269E) - any tips?

[H.V. Baxendale]

I'll be making a trip down to the big city tomorrow to buy the supplies I'll need to fix this up.
Thanks, fellas, for all the hints and tips!
- Bax

 

[H.V. Baxendale]

UPDATE: I fixed the stupid US Stove 1269E "EPA-Friendly" stove and actually got it working... working GREAT, as a matter of fact! First off, I took apart all of my stove pipes and gave them a good cleaning. After reading about how the sky is falling in this forum and how I was creating a dangerous stove that was about to kill me and destroy the world, I was terrified! I decided to give it a deep clean. We had a 40-degree (f) day, so that was my chance. I was surprised to find quite an ABSENCE of creosote build-up in any of my stove pipes! Burning those anti-creosote logs sure helped! No more worries there! I guess the world wasn't going to explode after all. Next, I changed out my stove pipe from stove to wall, adding two 45 degree bends and a shorter pipe, in hopes of getting a better draft (pic attached). While I had the stove open, I cut a nice 8" diameter hole in the stupid baffle, so I can look from stove pipe straight into the firebox. EPA-Unfriendly. These two mods REALLY cured the "lack of draft" problem. This baby was sucking wind like an aerodynamic testing wind tunnel! I'd already added a damper, but it didn't cut off the air as much as I'd like, so I added a sliding vent cover (made of thin sheet metal) to the lower air intake (the slot on bottom of the stove, connected to a couple of air channels inside the firebox). It slides beneath the air channel itself; I just loosened a couple of the bolts holding the channel on, so it can slide with a good deal of friction to stay in place (pic attached). I can slide it shut or open, to reduce or increase airflow. I also cut a little "paddle" out of the same sheet metal, and added it to the air intake in the door. Same friction-fit idea (pic attached). My adjustable air intake solutions worked very well! The adjustable air intakes, along with the destruction of the internal EPA baffle and adding that 45 degree stove pipe, my wood stove is now functioning extremely well and is working out great! It may be -8(f) outside, but inside my 1000 sq foot cabin, it's a toasty 72 degrees. I have to feed the fire every 2.5 hours or so (small firebox), but it's working out well. By adjusting my air intake and damper, I can stretch the time between fire-feedings; and it's easy to warm up the place after I've been out a while... just open up the air vents and damper, and I can get a warm fire going in no time flat then adjust my air intake and exhaust to a nice warm, slow burn. This stove was a single-burn-rate EPA stove that's a piece of crap from the factory. But with a few modifications, it can be made to work pretty well as a variable burn-rate wood stove! It's been a roller-coaster getting this wood stove solution in place, but (at last) it seems to be working out well!
Pics attached. Sry if any of 'em are blurry. I'm a deep woods redneck, not a photographer.
- Bax

 

[kborndale]

The stove isn't a piece of crap, the setup is.

 

[H.V. Baxendale]

LOL.
Check out the reviews of the US Stove 1269E.
Had I done so, I'd have picked up an old "antique" instead!
But I'm glad it's doing the job now!

- Bax

 

[kborndale]

Be prepared to replace the stove pipe you have outside when it rusts out in two years.

 

[bholler]

The stove isn't a piece of crap, the setup is.

Actually the stove is

 

[stoveliker]

You have solved the draft problem by not improving the piping where the problem is, but by invalidating the UL listing of the stove. Your insurance will like it when things go wrong; they'll not have to pay out ...

Also you'll be using twice as much wood per BTU out into your home with the hole in the baffle. You call it an EPA baffle but what it does is not only make it cleaner but also keep more heat from the wood in your home rather than pushing it up the pipe heating the great outdoors.

 

[kborndale]

You have solved the draft problem by not improving the piping where the problem is, but by invalidating the UL listing of the stove. Your insurance will like it when things go wrong; they'll not have to pay out ...

Also you'll be using twice as much wood per BTU out into your home with the hole in the baffle. You call it an EPA baffle but what it does is not only make it cleaner but also keep more heat from the wood in your home rather than pushing it up the pipe heating the great outdoors.

Insurance wasn't going to pay out anyways, he has stove pipe as his chimney.

 

[H.V. Baxendale]

This wood stove is coming out in a month anyway. It was a temporary measure to get us through the Jan/Feb cold of winter. The stove pipe only needed to last a few months, tops; this is a VERY temporary living situation. The mods I made resulted in a stove that we could use this winter, and it did the job in the cold weather. One step up from a "tent heater?" Perhaps. But it provided us heat in the -10 and colder weather just fine. It was nothing but a headache until I made the modifications. I expect the damper helped keep some heat in the pipe & stove after I poked a hole in the fiber-board baffle. Controlling the air intake was a *huge* improvement for managing my fuel consumption rate. I haven't noticed increased wood consumption as an issue after modification (probably because we damper it down and choke off the air supply at night). Easy to open the damper and air intakes and get it chugging nice and warm in the morning. This stove was horrible until I made the changes, and now it works really well! I would never buy a "single burn rate" EPA "secondary burn chamber" stove again, that's for sure. Live and learn!
- Bax