Gasket help for Efel Arden Giant

The top of that looks just like my Saey 92 - although I haven’t been burning mine for 30 years! I was having leaking issues with the top of mine as well and it was because I installed the gasket wrong.

I reinstalled the gasket and when I put mine in I placed two 40# dumb bells on top of it for two hours while it dried and I haven’t had issues since. Not using any meters or anything I performed the dollar bill test and it was failing on the entire left side prior to replacing.

I was told though for hopper lids to perform the dollar bill test by just resting the weight of your hand on top of the hopper lid when doing it. If it fails with just the weight of your hand the gasket isn’t seated correctly. Once I got the gasket in correct it passed all the way around.

Also you may have to make sure the lid is centered. I use the tool that came with it to “center” the lid when I close it by making sure I have even space on both side.

Like you said - this may not have been an issue with an older draftier house.

Sorry for the long post!

I would move that damper higher, you're giving up a lot of hot air to it.

Hi JM. Naw, don't apologize for a long post. I appreciate folks trying to help. My problem was definitely the stove cement I sealed the coal vase with (bottom removable cast iron pieces in front, back, and sides). When I removed the stove cement the CO leakage went away. Removing the cement allowed more over coal air to flush the inside. The extra air also increased the draft slightly so that also helped. I added some stove cement back in to a couple of places and could immediately sense the leakage. (I effectively reduced the over coal air) Took the cement out and all was well again. Amazing how these stoves are engineered to work well as long as you leave them alone.