Expert: James Ball - 10/14/2010

Question
Mr. Ball,
you were very helpful with a previous question I had about going through the wall thimble, so I thought I would try you again for this one.  I have many years experience using a wood burner at my camp, that only has dampers on the doors of the wood burner.  This one we are putting in the house, has those on the door, and also one in the colar, where the stove pipe hooks into.  I'm not quite sure how to use both together to achieve the best effeciency.  Can you give me some instructions on how to use them together, to make sure I'm not making them work against each other.

Answer
welcome back Jason, it sounds like the one on the door lets air into the stove and the one in the collar lets smoke out, most stoves have a range that they should be burned at with out the manual you will have to do trial and error. Start with both open full to start the stove then the one on the collar open 1/2 and the door 1/4 and adjust from there. try to find any back up info on this stove as I do not recommend using a stove with out the owners manual and following it for use and installation.
James