Fireplace, wood stove or pellet burner

I already cut out both rivets.
The only options with the rivets in place would have been closed or wide open, rendering it effectively non functional.

 

You did it the hard way! Just press the damper rod in against the spring tension, turn it 180 degrees and remove it. Most flue dampers are the same way...

You'll discover that boxwood heaters like that are grossly inefficient and are difficult to modulate. But they do work. Used ours for about five years before we got a real wood stove.

 

The spring was squashed all the way down. Now I can remove it by pushing in on the spring.
They designed everything so you couldn't get it apart.
Oh and there was no handle on the flue damper, had to weld a little one on there.
So much for EPA approved stoves.
Be sure to have a grinder and welder.

 

I got the little wood stove in the fire place.
All I did was shove some stove pipe up the fireplace flue connected it with some rotating elbows to connect the pipe to the stove.
The fireplace flue is still open.
I wanted it that way so the oil I could see seeping out out of the joints could burn off and go up the flue.

I will pack some insulation around the stove pipe. This should suck a lot less air up the chimney and hopefully let less smoke out when I open the door.

So far it's putting off good heat and only burning a tiny fraction of the wood of the fire place.

 

This year went straight into winter.
So far the wood stove is providing most of the heat.
It's been raining almost constantly so a lot of wet wood on the wood pile.
Not something I was planning on.
If this level of precipitation keeps up we are going to have a snowy maine like winter in new Mexico.
So much for global f-ing warming.