Introducing Brand New Wood Furnace to Market - The Drolet Tundra!

[spadjen]

I think you meant [email protected]

just corrected...thanks.

i studder

 

[djkost]

Yes, the rep did give his name. I just fired mine up and am burning the paint off, blower kicked on about 10 times and I don't seem to have air pushing out the ashpan but I have it locked down. Seems to work good. When the gas gets burnt off it just looks great. It was about 10 below and my garage is 72. Stack temp with probe was as high as 450f. My chimney draft was .05 on the manometer. Might have to add a foot of supervent to get it to .06 but it is dead still here very little wind. Happy so far.

 

[laynes69]

Your draft at .05" is fine.

 

[spadjen]

Yes, the rep did give his name. I just fired mine up and am burning the paint off, blower kicked on about 10 times and I don't seem to have air pushing out the ashpan but I have it locked down. Seems to work good. When the gas gets burnt off it just looks great. It was about 10 below and my garage is 72. Stack temp with probe was as high as 450f. My chimney draft was .05 on the manometer. Might have to add a foot of supervent to get it to .06 but it is dead still here very little wind. Happy so far.

.05 is what i have. Air will not come out the ash door unless you open it. Its not an issue if leaking its that the chamber is connected. Rep gave his name? Not much information there but if you are happy with his responce then that works. Just trying to help you get a better reply from the company.

 

[djkost]

I dont have his name handy but the first email came from customer service and he said he would foward my email to the tech service. I will look at the email addrress. I dont open the ashpan when I have a fire going. Right now just tring to run it according to the book and information i get from guys on this site.

 

[djkost]

this is the email I got and it did have the tec at sci international email address. I believe it came from tech service. Guys name was Pierre.
"The furnace is certified and tested without having any problem. You should make sure to close properly the ash drawer when you use it because it can cause leak and that the reason why it is specified."
Thanks

SBI
It seems to work good for me so far.

 

[flotek]

Gillese is the tech who has responded to me .. He says same deal . I guess just run it and not use the ash drawer and a few minor seal issues around outer air jacket and blower ( high temp furnace rtv ) works great still a good deal and worthy of purchase just don't expect sbi to do much for support

 

[djkost]

The book said that even with thermostat hooked up i should be able to over ride it with the switch to shut or open thee draft. I tried an it wont let me. I have a old round thermosat installed. Anyone that can help. Thanks

 

[flotek]

Its a bit deceptive in that it will only over ride one way .. For instance if the air flap is down because the thermo is satisfied . You can hit the open switch and it should come up however if the air flap is already up because the thermostat wants more heat you can't switch it down to close off the flap to drop down

 

[flotek]

Arctic winds are brutal today I got minus 14 out and terrible winds
And the new drolet is treating us right its 76 and toasty inside . ...Can't be too bad a unit if it can do a 90 degree difference in temperature in a 1970"s 2000sq ft house with bad windows. Normally I set it for. 72 but just for fun I decided to ramp it up and see what she's made of

 

[spadjen]

Arctic winds are brutal today I got minus 14 out and terrible winds
And the new drolet is treating us right its 76 and toasty inside . ...Can't be too bad a unit if it can do a 90 degree difference in temperature in a 1970"s 2000sq ft house with bad windows. Normally I set it for. 72 but just for fun I decided to ramp it up and see what she's made of

Arctic winds are brutal today I got minus 14 out and terrible winds
And the new drolet is treating us right its 76 and toasty inside . ...Can't be too bad a unit if it can do a 90 degree difference in temperature in a 1970"s 2000sq ft house with bad windows. Normally I set it for. 72 but just for fun I decided to ramp it up and see what she's made of

Dont know what you meant by that? but no one was claiming that this stove does not heat a house well. But the stove does have other issues that needs to be corrected. has some great potential. We just go over a cold spell too. not as cold as you...lol but around -5. it would keep our house over 70 no problem other then feeding the stove. we would have to feed the stove every 5-6 hours or so if we were just maintaining. just wondering how often you had to fill yours when doing the same. obviously we used quite a bit of wood when we were trying to go from 60 to 72. basically fill it then fill it again in about 2 hours but it would be 75 by then. i do know if your trying to see what it can do and not concerned about throwing wood at it and running the damper wide open then watch out. this thing can put some serious heat out. got the house to 85 and it was over 180 coming out the vents. so yeah....other then the ash draw / co problem this stove is running well.

 

[spadjen]

Gillese is the tech who has responded to me .. He says same deal . I guess just run it and not use the ash drawer and a few minor seal issues around outer air jacket and blower ( high temp furnace rtv ) works great still a good deal and worthy of purchase just don't expect sbi to do much for support

i do agree with what your saying in part. you could just not use the ash pan and seal up the rest and i would prob do the same. guess my biggest problem is the lack of notice to the customer about this. if you were lucky enough to catch this before using the ash pan your better off. once you put ash in the pan and in gets circulated around the air jacket then you will have the ash dust problem. who knows how hard that is to clean out of the air jacket or any ceramic blanket that may be in there. But i hope others are not so quick (including yourself) to dismiss SBI from taking care of this or writing off there support. companies should be held accountable by there customers to stand behind there product.

 

[spadjen]

[quote="djkost, post: 4631066, member: 64076" I dont open the ashpan when I have a fire going. Right now just tring to run it according to the book and information i get from guys on this site.[/quote]

I dont think you quite understand the problem here. no one said to operate it with the draw open. i said as a test open the ash pan draw when the blower is running and see if air comes out. if so the ash pan and the air jacket are CONNECTED . but the email you got from the company confirmed that when they told you there would be a leak. this can case a C/O problem and air quality problem. If your trying to "run it according to the book" then you dont need to empty the ash pan every time. I am here to tell you that you do and why. please dont put ashes in your pan and run it. running the ash pan with the door closed is not going to help you.

 

[spadjen]

The EPA is who really should be embarrassed!! Considering that there is NO EPA certification for furnaces in the US and I have pointed this out to them on multiple occasions and to which they have agreed. However, they still allow them to market the furnace as EPA certified all over the place without any repercussions.

yeah well i could care less about the EPA. but that comes from my overwhelming love and confidence of the government. Who knows why or can trust why they do the things they do. I dont think the the EPA set out to come up with regulations to help me save money burning wood (even though it may be a by product of what they are trying to accomplish ) . Who knows who they have in there pocket or who they are in bed with. As far as accountability...well they decided who they go after and it sometimes makes no sense. but yes....it does hurt there credibility by not going after people like that. I wont go on bashing the government here since this not what the forum is about. Dont want to boar others with my whacked out views on things. I will just email myself about it so that way obama can read it.

 

[flotek]

I'd say Don't use the ash drawer at all just use the long shovel they give you it works great only takes a minute . I totally agree sbi needs to step up and notify the users of this dilemma or better yet alter the design ! As far as loading all I have that's seasoned good enough is hardwood slabs . no thick splits to work with for me at least not this heat season. . Mine is great on wood use way less than i expected. ..I load at 6 in morning and come home at 4 in evening . I get an honest 10 hours in a load if I just set thermostat to. 72 and pack it with slabs *my house is usually within one degree of that when I come home. And I have a nice deep coal bed from there . I imagine I could regularly see easily 12 hrs once I put actual seasoned oak or maple splits loaded in . Man. You must have high heat loss or maybe some flue issue 5 hrs seems really low in your case but there's a lot variables and heat demand insulation in the house ect to consider too and I'd assume Your probably running their patented "bake the paint off the stove " fan switch too

 

[djkost]

Have a question about duct work. I did like the book said and am using 2 holes one on the left and one on the right. Looking from behind the furnace. The right one is 8 inch for 20 ft then reduced to 6 inch for about 1 foot then into a 6x6 rigister. There are 2 elbows on this run. The next run is short, it is about 6 ft of 8 inch round and into the room. The return is just the air filter kit, it draws from the big room that has the short run going to it. I notice that the left run or short run, the vent pipe is a lot hotter.when the fan kicks in it blows threw both ducts. I did turn the fan speed up one. Will to much fan speed hurt the furnace? I would think if it was to fast it would cool the pot off to quickly. I did a stactic test before and at the furnace it was .03. I turned the fan up but didn't take a ttest yet. Any help thanks.

 

[blades]

Your short run is going to have a lot more output than the longer just because of back pressure from the length , reductions, and where terminated. So to balance you would need a damper on the short to equalize. Not any different than any other furnace when equalizing the flow rate between branches.

 

[djkost]

Blades, do you know if running the fan at a higher speed will cause a problem?

 

[Cloud IT]

Its a bit deceptive in that it will only over ride one way .. For instance if the air flap is down because the thermo is satisfied . You can hit the open switch and it should come up however if the air flap is already up because the thermostat wants more heat you can't switch it down to close off the flap to drop down

This is false. It works both ways when properly installed.

 

[Cloud IT]

Blades, do you know if running the fan at a higher speed will cause a problem?

You are not going to be able to get a high static pressure because the blower isn't connected to the back of the furnace. The output from the blower is simply pointing to a hole in the back of the furnace. There is no seal and when you try to blow more air through the furnace it simply escapes out the back.