Maine Wood Heat Company ALBIECORE Owner's Manual

In addition, your heater is equipped with a
sliding shut off damper with a wooden handle,
as well as a by-pass channel with a pivoting
weighted handle.

Finally, if your installation called for it, you may

OWNER MANUAL

ALBIECORE™ HEATER OPERATING AND

MAINTENANCE INSTRUCTIONS

The Maine Wood Heat Company has been
designing and building masonry heaters for
nearly 30 years. We have been an integral part
of the development of masonry heaters in the
United States from the beginning and are very
pleased to still be a part of this very significant
technology today. We welcome you into this
ever-growing family of heater owners. We
are grateful to have played a role in the new
heart of your home and we offer the following
information to help you become familiar with
your heater’s operation and care. Your new
heater should serve and warm you for many
years to come.

have a cast iron pivoting ash dump located on
the floor of the ash box.

CLEANOUTS AND SOOT DOORS:

In the basement, your wood heater flue typically
has an 8” x 8” cast iron soot door at the base of
the chimney. It should be kept tightly closed
except when inspecting or cleaning the chimney.
You also have an 8” x 8” cleanout door mounted
on the second or third course of the heater’s
block foundation. Its purpose is to give you
access for annual or biannual ash removal from
the heater above.

If you have a second flue on the chimney it too is
equipped with an 8” x 8” cast iron clean out and
a 6”or 7” galvanized thimble to service a gas or
oil fired appliance.

Warm Regards,

Albie, Cheryl, and Scott Barden

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR HEATER:

Your heater is equipped with one or two sets of
loading doors each of which have primary draft
slides. You also have an ash box door with a
draft slide and if you chose to have a bake oven,
you will have a bake oven door with a screw out
draft control.

CARE DURING CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSE:

It is very important to understand that your
heater should not be used by anyone but
yourselves. If anyone fills the heater with trash
or kindling or construction scraps, the firebox
could over heat and cause stress cracking.

While the house is being completed the bench
and heater cap should be covered with plywood
and workers should not be allowed to use the
bench as a ladder, storage area or workbench.
The same should apply to the cap area.

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Do not wrap the heater with plastic. This will
hold in moisture, not allow the heater to breath
and cure, and will cause the metal doors to rust.

BREAK IN BURN OR CURING FIRE:

Fly ash building up in the channels can be
vacuumed out once or twice a year with a shop
vacuum inserted into the base of the channels
through the soot doors.

The bake oven can receive bread directly on the

A small fire is about a 10 lb. fire. When I do
“cures” with a new heater, I put in 5-10 lbs.
of dry kindling and start a fire. I keep the fire
going at about that size for a couple or more
hours until I feel some heat coming from various
parts of the heater. This is the curing process.
Others recommend two or three small curing
fires spaced a few hours apart. I prefer the small
continuous fire until warmth is felt. Then I wait
for another 8 to 12 hours to light the first full load
of 40-50 lbs. of dry split wood 3-4” in diameter.
The wood should be 3-5” away from the glass
and screen. In Finland, where the top down burn
does not come from, they typically lean their
wood vertically against one or both corners of the
back wall.

floor tiles to the left and right of the center slot.
For 12” plus pizzas, add a pizza stone available
from gourmet kitchen supply houses and bake
on the stone. Be sure to remove the stone before
lighting the next fire.

The oven is “on” after each burn. Immediate use
of the oven may burn foods, until it cools down
a little. An infrared, hand held heat gun (about
$75) can be purchased from Science catalogs and
plumbing/heating supply houses. They have
a laser beam that is activated by a pistol grip
trigger. Point and shoot at any surface to get a
digital reading of the temperature.

Soft wood well dried is an acceptable fuel.
Most people in New England have hard wood

The firebox is self-cleaning. The glass doors will
start dirty then come relatively clean after a full
burn achieves its highest temperature. Some
build up of fly ash or creosote may occur on the
door. Putting a few fine ashes for the previous
fire on a moist paper towel and rubbing the glass
of the door using the ash as a fine abrasive easily
removes this. Using this technique, Cheryl’s
parents have kept their doors spotless for many
years. A full burn is likely to last 1-2.5 hours. A
very aggressive burn of 40-50 lbs. of wood can
be consumed in an hour, but much of that heat
is then lost up the chimney, since the brick can’t
absorb it as fast as it is being produced.

available, so prefer to use it because of its greater
density as compared to softwood. A moisture
content of 20% or less in the wood is preferred.

The heater will work best if you can cycle it once
or twice daily. If you fire it sporadically, it should
always be brought on line gradually to avoid
shocking the mass.

We hope this information is useful.

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STARTING A NORMAL FIRE:

10) On top of kindling add three or four more

“TOP DOWN BURN”

1) Make sure basement cleanout and thimble is
closed tight.

2) Open slide damper.
(Pull it out approximately 10-11”).

3) Open by-pass weighted handle. In the open
position the handle points towards the chimney.
In the closed position the handle is typically
vertical, in the same position as the damper
within the by pass channel.

4) Open the draft slides in both doors.

5) Leave draft slide in oven door closed.
(Occasionally, there may be a desire to use the
oven when the heater has not recently been
fired. The oven itself can be used as a firebox
and a small fire can be lit in it to bring it to
a baking temperature. In this case, the draft
control can be opened. In no case should the

sheets of crumpled newspaper.

11) Light the top layer of newspaper.

12) Close the large loading doors and stay with
the fire.

13) Once the fire is clearly established and
drafting well (5 minutes approx. on first start---­less once heater is on line during heating season)
you can shut the by-pass channel. If any smoke
enters the room, open the by-pass and wait
another 5 minutes. In no case should the by­pass be left open for an extended period of time
during the burn (with the main doors closed).
A closed door and open by-pass extended burn
can over heat the by-pass and chimney flue at
the by-pass connection. For summer open fire
viewing, the by-pass can be left open as long as
the loading doors (with the spark screens closed)
are left open. The volume of room air entering
the firebox and by-pass will keep the system
sufficiently cool.

oven be fired with the by pass damper left in the
open position as this can put flame directly into
the chimney flue tile.)

6) Open draft slide in ash box door.

7) Stack split, dry (approx. 16”- 18” long)
cordwood in log cabin fashion on base of
firebox.

8) Add three or four crumpled sheets of
newspaper.

9) Add several sticks of kindling on top of split,
dry cordwood.

14) If smoking persists, recheck basement
openings and all soot doors on heater for an open
one. Positive chimney draft on a tight system
always is readily established in five minutes or
less in cool weather. Almost all smoke problems
are a result of a closed damper or an open soot
door.

15) Once a burn is well established and the by­pass is closed, start to adjust the slide damper,
closing it by one third and also close the ash box
door draft slide.

An open ash box door draft slide or a slightly ajar

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