Magic heat recovery addon

Browsing around today and found this interesting gizmo.
Recipe for creosote buildup or good idea?


<img src=http://www.arttec.net/Solar/11-18-05/MagicHeat.jpg>
Northern Tool - Magic Heat Reclaimer for Wood, Oil or Coal Stove - 6 in., Model# MH-6-R customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

probably would give you a bunch more heat, but lowering your stack temps thus leading to 'theoretically' more creosote build up and a lousy draft

might make the stove a ##### to get started....

haveawoody said:

Browsing around today and found this interesting gizmo.
Recipe for creasote buildup

Click to expand...

Cooling the flue gasses can only increase creosote build-up

That was my thought about lowering the stack temp and allowing creosote buildup.
After a very long read at the site i guess it only fires up when the stack is wasting heat, turns off when the stack is to low.

Might be an interesting addon for under $200.
Like a second blower but using only waste heat Hmmm.

That double elbow above the heat exchanger in the picture will do more for creasote build up than the heat exchanger.

Andy

I would never attempt this on an EPA certified stove ( the stove looks like a Vogelzang defender which is EPA certified) which operate on lower flue temperatures. If you need more heat buy a bigger stove.

If you are using an EPA exempt appliance the risks are lower but yes your creosote potential rises.

My father used one of those all through my youth. It was on a Ben Franklin type open fireplace. It worked great! The only drawback was noise, they aren't quiet.
He never had a problem w/ creosote. The pull in the middle scrapes it from the tubes. Every so often you push/pull it a few times.

They are fine on an old inefficient stove with no baffles or any thing in it. I had one installed on one of those old "fire in a metal box" stoves, worked good as long as I was burning dry wood and not trying to burn low and slow. Try any of that, you'll get a face full of smoke every time you go to reload, due to plugged up flue.

I don't remember it being all that loud, course it wasn't in my living room either...

Magic heat = The magic is when the house burns down.

they actualy do work bretty good on something like the old barrel stoves. however on a modern stove unless you clean the chimney allmost weekly ,a chimney fire is in your future.

On a newer EPA stove, not if it was free. Recipe for disaster, I never thought they were well suited to any stove chimney. Stack temp is a key ingredient to keeping the chimney cleaner.

I have one in the house and one in the garage, about 8 years now, must be on borrowed time :frown: Clean the chimneys once a year, only a handful of junk from each. Englander 30 in the house and a Century 300007 in the garage both epa stoves.

Knew a guy that burned a Harmon stove for years with no issues at all, he just had to have one of those and put it in. Bout a month later his chimney caught fire. That was so hot it burst the seams on the inner insulated pipe walls when they took it out to inspect it.

I sure wouldn't want to put a homeowner's policy to the test with one of those added into the installation.

Magic Heat

MGoBlue said:

My father used one of those all through my youth. It was on a Ben Franklin type open fireplace. It worked great! The only drawback was noise, they aren't quiet.
He never had a problem w/ creosote. The pull in the middle scrapes it from the tubes. Every so often you push/pull it a few times.

Click to expand...

My dad & I had one on our stoves in the 80's. Had no problems w/creosote.Was able to keep house 72-75 deg. Our pipe was 8 in dia.

I bought one last yr. Worked awesome. The inner t-stat keeps the flue warm. The fan only blows heat, just like the stove fans. The handle in the front pulls out and scrapes the tubes for better efficiency. I had no creosote at all last yr. I only burnt wood. I paid $179 from northern tool. I got my $$ worth in the extra heat last yr. Blew 130 deg heat. Keep in mind if your thermometer reads 400 deg on the out side of the pipe, the middle will be like 1000 deg. Only problem is if you lose power, you need to take it out.

Friend of mine had been using one for the last 4 years in his shop. He had his insurance man come out in October to do an "insurance tune up". Insurance man said they would drop him as a client if he didn't remove it. It worked great, but I guess there must be a bigger risk for something catastrophic happening with these things than most people think. Or, it's just an insurance company's hang up.

When I had a stove that was not airtight and burned wood like a trashburner, (i.e. very high stack temps unless you closed the damper) it worked well. I would not consider it on an airtight stove.

Mine was thermostatically controlled and shut itself on and off.

Had one back when I was a kid on an Ashley circulator stove, it added heat for sure to the house, just not sure what the effect was on the chimney as I didn't have to clean it.

Devils advocate here: Why would this be worse on an EPA stove, when they have already burned most of the particulates that cause the creosote in the first place vs an old smoker that's sending it up the flue?

Ductape said:

Cooling the flue gasses can only increase creosote build-up

Click to expand...

Agree for the most part, but a secondary combustion chamber on some stoves allows you to burn off the smoke at high heat first, before it reaches the flue.

Better alternative to the Magic Heat is to just place a fan or portable behind the stove if you have room. Not having room, leave the flue gases alone and control most of the fire intensity with the air intake vents.

Magic Heat is a waste of money in my book--a noisey, ugly beast and a bear to keep clean.

Steve NW WI said:

Devils advocate here: Why would this be worse on an EPA stove, when they have already burned most of the particulates that cause the creosote in the first place vs an old smoker that's sending it up the flue?

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing.
At the same time I’m not so sure it would be as effective (for heat extraction) on an EPA certified stove. The flue pipe from the EPA firebox I’m using now runs noticeably cooler than the old smoke dragon did.

I also don’t believe cooling the flue gasses automatically means more creosote deposits… it would depend on the set-up. Creosote forms not because the flue gasses are cool, rather it’s because the chimney walls cool down causing condensation (of sorts) inside. My brick chimney runs up through the center of the house, it’s always warm, always a strong draft, and creosote has never been a problem… even when “smoldering” the fire in the old smoke dragon. The place I lived before this had the brick chimney running up the outside of the house, it was a bear to get drafting at times, it took forever to warm –up on cold days, and it would plug-up where the flue pipe connected to it. So yeah, if you’ve got 15-20 feet of chimney pipe running up the outside of your house, or a masonry chimney on an outside wall, then I’m thinking cooling the flue gasses would be a bad idea. But on the other hand, if your chimney pipe runs up through the house, with only a couple feet sticking out the roof, then cooling the flue gasses wouldn’t be so bad… and may not even be an issue at all.

I dump a ton of (relatively) cool air into my flue without creosote problems. I have 2-feet of six-inch vertical pipe coming off the firebox, which connects to an eight-inch “tee” and 2-feet of eight-inch horizontal pipe to the chimney. Also connected to that eight-inch “tee” is the four-inch pipe from the LP furnace… LP appliances use “hooded” exhaust so it’s continuously dumping cool air into the end of the horizontal section of pipe. And the three-inch exhaust from LP water heater also connects to the brick chimney, continuously dumping more cool air into the chimney. Like I said, running up the center of the house like that it’s always warm and always sucking… sucking hard. Creosote just ain’t an issue. Actually I think dumping that cool (actually room temperature warm) air from the furnace and water heater hoods into the flue allows it to free-flow better creating a higher velocity through the chimney... faster than it would be with just the wood burner connected.