I think it sounds like you have anolder unit with no glass on its doors. to start the fireopen the air vents or knobs so they are fully open. Take a flash light and look inside the unit and open handles next to vent, so you can see if the damper is opening and closing. make sure it is open. start the fire small letting the flu heat up as the draft gets stronger add more wood. Sometimes leaving the doors crack opened a little bit will help also. as for the ash drop you can clean it out if you would like. after the fire is roring and you want to slow the burn down, close the vent knobs half way and it will slow it down. good luck

The square door on outside is the clean out. Are there any other fireplaces on floors above?? If not, it sounds like the fireplace insert was installed after the previous owners used actual fireplace and just swept the ashes to the clean out. As far as using it, I would have a chimney sweep check out the chimney, make sure there are no faulty areas, or that no critters have built a nest in it.

First, DEFINITELY get the chimney cleaned and inspected!

Then have the sweep show you how to operate the stove. You have an OLD pre EPA certified stove. The manufacturer is no longer around because when the EPA stepped in to regulate the stoves, 90% of the manufacturers went out of business. It was made before 1990. When you screw in the knobs you are indeed "smothering" the fire, which causes smoke to go up the chimney. We call these units "Smoke Dragons". Smoke is unburned gas and useful heat. The new units burn this smoke before it exits the stove.

If I may make a serious suggestion: Go to a stove shop and look at a new insert. They are MUCH more efficient and you can actually see the fire through glass doors. Many states are offering cash incentives for homeowners to replace the Dragons. The new inserts are an asset to the home and they will burn longer on less wood.

The previous owners told us when they moved in that they used it all the time and got it swept once a year, so I know it's safe enough, although it does need to be swept again.

As far as heating the house, this one definitely does. We started a fire a few afternoons ago and the temp throughout the house went up 8 degrees in about 3 hours. So it is much better than the plain old fireplace at my old house. That one seemed to just cool off the outer rooms of the house and not heat up anything. However, not being able to see the fire is a bummer. Plus, I like the idea of an insert that burns the smoke too, better for the environment. How much do the new ones cost? I have an inkling that they are about a few thousand dollars. If so I think I'll have to stick with this one a few years, the house was built in 1914 and has a few other things that need updating first.

Thanks for your responses.

I am brand new to forums in general, but after hours of research on the internet and visiting countless stove dealers, I will now resort to real people. People who aren't trying to sell me one thing over the other.

First of all we want to heat a very small home not even 1800 sq.feet, even though its small our heating bill is about 400-500 dollars a month for gas, BUT my house is still very cold. So we are tired of paying so much for heating such a small house and still be cold. We had decided on a wood stove but then a dealer said, that its too much work, get a pellet. He said its more efficient and less work. Then another said its the same amount of cleaning but mechanically more can break from a pellet stove. Also, they said I could fit an 75,000 btu wood instead of just a 40,000 pellet. Then I told them that after 2 years we have never been able to start a fire in our fireplace no matter what we do, then the dealer said then YOU shouldn't get a wood stove.

So can somebody please tell me, is a wood stove really more work? Is more btu's better, will wood heat my house more? For pellet stoves should I just get a Harmon and for wood stoves should I get a Regency or Hampton? Should I really stay away from the Napoleon brand? Will wood bring in termites?

Somebody pleas help!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much.

OK, I have been neating my homes with a woodstove for over 18 years. First in PA and now in VT.
Wood IS work. You must cut or have it cut to length, stacked, aged, and then you must bring in the wood regularly to burn.

I can heat my home up here with 3 cords that will cost about $135 per cord. About $400 for the entire season! I do have oil as backup and I used 250 gallons last year. That's for hot water and backup heat when we were away.

I happen to LIKE wood stoves! I like the fire you see when relaxing in front of the stove. The lazy flames that can lower your blood pressure. A pellet stove has a much too "busy" fire for me. It's like watching an oil burner in action. I like the fact that when the power goes out we will have heat AND hot water as we just put a kettle on top of the stove. I don't have to worry either about pellet prices or if the local stores will run out in February as they have done in the past.

My home is 1,200 sq ft. I purchased the smallest unit Regency makes and it does the job quite nicely during a Vermont winter when it goes to minus 20 at night. But a 75,000 BTU stove will be WAY too big! You'll either have the windows open all winter or you'll always have a "cold" fire which causes creosote. My stove is rated for 800 to 1,000 sq ft. We don't heat the bedrooms directly as the heat will find it's way there. We want to heat the living areas. So the small unit does the job nicely. So you may want to look at a stove that heats up to 2,000 sq ft. That's a medium sized stove.

And in all my years of using a woodstove, we've never seen a termite.

I just bought a Regency and have a smaller house. It says it takes a while for the bricks to be right for the fire. But the window turned black the first day. And there is a lot of smoke. The wood I'm using is older but maybe not old enough. I feel like a failure at this insert although I used a wood stove in my old house for years. I can't keep a fire going, can't stop the smoke, and it's not adding as much heat as it said.Can you please offer me some advice?

I'd look for the brand and model, and look up an owner's maual- I'd be very sprised if you can't find it online.

There is no guide for trouble-shooting. All my other things have that.

My Regency also smokes up the window, always has, I clean it with easy-off after each use, then coat the clean glass with dilute dawn. Chimney smokes, too. Heats well, though, 1400 sf. Fill the box and it lasts about 1-2hours, dampered down.

Easy Off oven cleaner is a lye based product and should never be used on the glass - it's actually ceramic - employed in wood burning appliances. Easy Off will etch the surface and make everything worse, especially used daily. Don't coat the glass with dilute Dawn, either. There are stove glass cleaners that leave a thin residue of silicon, but no dish washing detergent belongs in a stove.

Smoked up class and smoke pouring out the chimney or into the room result from simple causes: 1) wood that is not sufficiently seasoned. Ideally it it should contain less than 20% water. 2) not enough oxygen for the fire. This happens when the fire is damped down too soon. The fire only smolders and coats your chimney interior with creosote. THIS IS DANGEROUS.

Regretfully, I must say that Mr.Charneski has packed a large amount of very bad and dangerous advice in a single post.

Thank you akamainegrower! After months browsing the Interweb looking for operating tips for my Regency insert, you have provided me the ONLY advice on how to operate this device. Negative advice, but useful advice nonetheless! The Regency manual (and Hampton as well) only says to not run your fire too hot or you could warp/damage the stove. So I ran it with a minimal fire--WRONG! I experimented with hotter fires. Wood is 1-2 years dry. Now I have almost no chimney smoke and it takes many hours to smoke up the glass. I put in several chunks of wood, leaving the door ajar for several minutes to get a good fire going. Then I close the door and leave the damper full open until fire is well established, then close the damper down about halfway. There should be almost no visible smoke out the flue. Adjust damper as you go for minimal flue smoke and lots of flames. That's it! Now the wife is happy! Thanks for that!

Yes Larry, your most recent post sounds just right to me. I am surprised that Regency didn't have instructions on line. I am too lazy to check and haven't built fires for so many years now that I have forgotten appropriate flue value ranges, but if one is worried about too hot fires, they can get a flue thermometer that attaches to the flue. Actually, I never used one since I thought I already knew enough about fires from experience, but I think one would be useful for a novice.

I had plenty of pine or fir as well as good hard woods so I usually had hotter fires and almost NEVER had any creosote build up in 25 years. If I wasn't paying attention, or was getting a poor start, I could blacken a glass door in a few minutes, or it could be days, but I could clean or rub it off with some newspaper or similar.

And yes, if you have an EPA approved stove, once a fire has been established, certainly after half an hour, it should be hard to determine if you even have a fire going by viewing the chimney for smoke.