How I heat my entire home...

[phantomblack]

Whitespider, I feel your pain with this. You have a system that works great for you, and your happy with it. I totally agree with you on your "simpler is better" theory. Also, no matter what at the end of the day it has to keep you and your family warm. Your system does that for you, at a fair price.

I hang out from time to time on another forum where there are a bunch of snobby folks telling me that my "smoke dragon" boiler is a POS and I need a gasser with 1500 gallons of storage heat and that I'm going to kill the world, andante it tropical with old technology boiler system due to emissions and heat loss. Oh yeah, they also tell me over there that they heat their whole house on 4 cord of wood a year, and I used to burn 900 gallons of oil. Math don't work out to me, just a bunch of BS'ers.

The old tech stuff will burn wood nice and clean if you know how to run it. Mostly just use dry wood. You know how I tell if my boiler is running good, I look at the stack. Guess what, rarely is there smoke except for startup. My EPA wood stove in the shop makes more smoke than the old smoke dragon sitting outside.

 

[stihly dan]

Spidey, most of us already knew you heated your house with hot air, that you produced yourself. So why the pics?

What happened to the yellow round guy poking a stick in the eye? I miss that one.

 

[centennial60]

Looks good Spidey, glad it's keepin ya warm this winter.

 

[UpOnTheHill]

Nice setup and good work! I can see you have more time on your hands than I do...lol.

 

[UpOnTheHill]

Nice setup and good work! I can see you have more spare time on your hands than I do...lol

 

[UpOnTheHill]

That first post wasn't supposed to save...wooops.

 

[Whitespider]

That first post wasn't supposed to save...wooops.

L-O-L
Yeah... maybe not... but you increased your post number by three
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[Bushmans]

I like it Spidey!
Making heat no matter what the stove, is really the important thing here. The fact that we can use the older stoves in the most efficient manor possible says more about our character than simply opening up our wallet to appease the masses.
I get a thrill out using older things in a new way! Plus I'm a tightwad so I get a great satisfaction out of stretching every dollar as far as possible!

p.s. Should've made a video. LOL

 

[513yj]

C'mon fj40, at least tell me what it is ya' "dislike".

He shoulda had a jeep instead of a toyota then maybe it woulda been a like lol.

 

[Whitespider]

Should've made a video. LOL

I found those pictures while cleaning out the computer today.
They were all originally posted in the "DAKA Install" thread (plus several more) with my comments and descriptions... but sadly they were lost in the "hack attack" a few weeks ago.
I was cleaning out the computer and spending the day on AS 'cause it's damn friggin' cold outside... and my neck and back are killin' me after the weekend.

By-the-way, it's been a steady 71-72° in here all day despite the sub-zero temps and 30 MPH winds outside... been sittin' here barefoot and shirtless.
Gotta' love it, I even turned the gas valve off to the propane furnace last week (never have turned the power on this year)... don't see me having need for it.
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[flotek]

Spidey i don't need to know how you burn your appliance to make a statement concerning efficiency like I did . It's a fact of the design If doesn't burn off the smoke by secondary combustion so I think it's fair to say your not getting the most out of your wood that doesn't mean you can't heat your home or that I'm a government EPA loving liberal which is opposite of what I am. . I'm not finding fault with you I'm trying to help you realize that you could be doing better . If you love to cut wood have at it . Most all codes require one flue for each appliance and you can tell by the notorious white round dis coloring they your unit has been overfired before .. Just sayin

 

[centennial60]

you can tell by the notorious white round dis coloring they your unit has been overfired before .. Just sayin

That white spot where the paint turned white is from me I'm the person that sold spidey the daka. I had to push it pretty hard a few times trying to heat my old drafty house.

 

[UpOnTheHill]

He

Spidey i don't need to know how you burn your appliance to make a statement concerning efficiency like I did . It's a fact of the design If doesn't burn off the smoke by secondary combustion so I think it's fair to say your not getting the most out of your wood that doesn't mean you can't heat your home or that I'm a government EPA loving liberal which is opposite of what I am. . I'm not finding fault with you I'm trying to help you realize that you could be doing better . If you love to cut wood have at it . Most all codes require one flue for each appliance and you can tell by the notorious white round dis coloring they your unit has been overfired before .. Just sayin

He's right about the flues. And I just got another post...wahoooo!

 

[UpOnTheHill]

Better than a piece of pipe going out the wall...or even worse... Out a window. Ahhh... The good old days

 

[ajr]

Spidey I to have a earth killing Inefficient Daka (smoke dragon). Heating my entire 2400 sq ft 100 year old farm house. I never see smoke from my chimney unless its right after I throw a few pieces in.

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[Whitespider]

Spidey i don't need to know how you burn your appliance to make a statement concerning efficiency like I did...

Yes you do‼ Why don't you tell me than... at what efficiency rate is my furnace running now?? How about an hour ago?? Yesterday?? How the hell can you possibly know my furnace ain't running 70, 75 even 80% efficient the way I run it?? You don't know... just as you don't know how poorly I'd run some wiz-bang new-fangled furnace. I could have the newest wiz-bang new-fangled furnace on the planet and I could easily run it at a worst efficiency level that the one I have now. The new-fangled stuff ain't fool proof... it just less likely that a fool can screw it up. Just as ajr just posted... I don't see smoke roll out'a my "earth killing Inefficient Daka (smoke dragon)" either. It's flat silly to claim it's not possible to burn the smoke in a non-EPA certified box... actually it's flat ignorance of the truth.

Yeah, some of the metal got hotter than the paint was rated... so?? That's why they sell stove paint.
Nothing warped, cracked, split, bent or otherwise damaged... the manual says, "To cover discoloration, obtain a high-temperature flat black spray paint from hardware or fireplace shop." Ok... that's what I did. Now if that paint was burned off the furnace, rather than just discolored... well. But tell me flotek, what does the paint discoloration have to do with anything in my post?? I mean seriously, why bring it up, and why bring it up twice?? I know why it was white, so do you, so does anyone else... and no one made an attempt to hide it. It sure seems as though you're just looking for something to criticize... heaven friggin' forbid you you say something like, "nice work on adapting that blower Spidy." Heck, I ain't thin skinned, but the "holier than thou" crap is starting to get damn old. Christ man, the white paint thing ain't even of my doing... what's the friggin point of bring it up, and than again a second time??

Same thing with the flue... twice now... we friggin' heard ya' the first time ya' know?? What does that have to do with this post?? My post wasn't about the damn flue... it was about the furnace. I already told you there ain't any local code requiring me to have separate flues for each appliance. But that ain't enough for ya', is it?? This house has had multiple appliances connected to a single flue for over 100 years... the damn chimney was designed for multiple connections on multiple floor levels of the house. I don't give a flying crap what "most all codes require"... the only codes that matters are the ones applying to me... correct?? Well code says as each connecting pipe enters the common pipe or flue area must be a certain size, 100% of the first plus 50% of each subsequent... I'm many times over that. It exceeds code... get over it. And like I said, less than a generation ago my flue setup would've passed or exceeded "most codes" wherever they were. Just because it's "code" now don't mean anything and everything else is "wrong"... it simply means it don't pass code today... it simply means someone is trying to protect you from yourself. I know the possible issues from running multiple appliances in a single flue, but if done correctly there ain't any issues. That's a fact that most people understood at one time... but some people are idiots. That's why we have codes... to protect the idiot from himself.

I'm not finding fault with you I'm trying to help you realize that you could be doing better.

Better?? By who's standard??

So... How do ya' like the mods I did on the furnace?? See anything about those mods I could have done a little differently to make it work better??
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[AIM]

Most all codes require one flue for each appliance and you can tell by the notorious white round dis coloring they your unit has been overfired before .. Just sayin

Funny how some people think that "CODES" are the only way to do things correctly... Half the codes are due to one moron out of ten thousand that screwed up and sued the hell out of somebody else and the only way to avoid another frivolous lawsuit was to write a CODE.

Here's an idea.... Convince judges to tell the morons to get a brain and fine them for wasting the courts time.

Sorry.. I'm in a mood tonight.

 

[ajr]

On top of your air jacket is that just a plenum. Also on top of your return air box?

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[Whitespider]

On top of your air jacket is that just a plenum. Also on top of your return air box?

Yes, just a plenum on top of the air jacket.
I built the box around the blower and mounted the DAKA dual blower/filter box on top of it. I did it that way because it was the simplest solution to the filter placement... and it gave me plenty of room for the blower relays, connections and such.
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[ajr]

That plenum on top is a good idea that way you don't have to rework the top piece of sheet metal. Is it just screwd down.

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