Looking to get more out of my stove

[trappingfanatic]

Anybody here have any suggestions on how I can gain a little more efficiency out of my stove. I have an older (i'm guessing) Johnson Energy J-9000 wood furnace in my basement. It came with the house when I bought it.

I replaced the door seal before this burning season, but it seems like I'm getting shorter burn times then what I got last year. All wood is seasoned ash with a little bit of cherry and black walnut thrown in.

The stove has an automatic damper in the door. I'm not really a big fan of it. Would like to just have a damper I can control myself on the ash drawer like my parents stove has.

Dad is telling me to add another damper in the smoke pipe coming out the back of the stove. Not sure if I can even find one if I do decide to do it. The pipe is 7", not a very common size today.

I open to any suggestions you folks might have to make this a more efficient system for me.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[pook]

added damper will result in more coals for reloading. how tall & what is the chimni?
dunno how much the thermo air intake control shuts down the fire but smoldering wood is iinefficient & bad creosote for chimni

 

[mga]

not sure if i would add a damper. seems it would be a moot point if it has one on the door.

can't you change the automatic one to a manual?

are you looking to gain more heat efficiency or more wood burning time? the wood you're burning may be good, but it does burn a bit more quickly than the hard woods.

are you looking to get more heat around the house with it?

 

[trappingfanatic]

I have a block chimney that is probably 16 feet tall (ranch house with a 4/12 pitch roof). The door damper is rigged with that coil steel. When the stove heats up it expands and lowers the damper door. Can't really control it manually. I can turn it all the way off, but thats about it.

Would like to get a better burn time. I'm not circulating heat like I should, but I know what I need to do in that department.

Maybe we should just make a new show called "Pimp my wood stove" and air it on the discovery channel!!!!

 

[mga]

I have a block chimney that is probably 16 feet tall (ranch house with a 4/12 pitch roof). The door damper is rigged with that coil steel. When the stove heats up it expands and lowers the damper door. Can't really control it manually. I can turn it all the way off, but thats about it.

Would like to get a better burn time. I'm not circulating heat like I should, but I know what I need to do in that department.

Maybe we should just make a new show called "Pimp my wood stove" and air it on the discovery channel!!!!

sounds like a good set up. why do you want to change it?

 

[pook]

thermo coil control is bad= stove heats up, wood is firing & the coil shuts off the combustion air= unburnt creosote & CO up the chimni. intake damper has adjustable opening on door which allows air when coil damper is closed maybe?
For easy to clean chimni, I'd get a flue gas heat reclaimer though your chimni might be too short.
indoor chimni? or outdoor

 

[CrappieKeith]

Getting better wood would give much longer burn times without any mods.

 

[mga]

Getting better wood would give much longer burn times without any mods.

true...ash is good, but not the best to burn. i burn it because i get tons of it.

black walnut is OK, but not the best to burn. it does make some nice smelling aromas outside.

i do all my damping in the front of the fire...not behind it...just a personal thing...i don't like flue dampers.

 

[pook]

Getting better wood would give much longer burn times without any mods.

what do u mean by "better wood"?

 

[IndyIan]

I have a block chimney that is probably 16 feet tall (ranch house with a 4/12 pitch roof). The door damper is rigged with that coil steel. When the stove heats up it expands and lowers the damper door. Can't really control it manually. I can turn it all the way off, but thats about it.

Would like to get a better burn time. I'm not circulating heat like I should, but I know what I need to do in that department.

Maybe we should just make a new show called "Pimp my wood stove" and air it on the discovery channel!!!!

Do you close the damper off at the end of a burn? Otherwise it will be WO with no fire and pulling cold air into your house from somewhere. I notice this with our woodstove in our house atleast.
Also I think longer burns and more heat output are kind of mutually exclusive. Hotter fire box temperatures burn more of your wood instead of turning it into smoke and gives more heat output per pound of wood.
Longer burn times means lower temperatures and more wood out the chimney instead of being turned into heat.
Does your furnance have a secondary burn air system? I find with our stove, the best heat output is loading it full with smaller chopped pieces, let it get roaring away and then damp it down and let the secondary air burn take over. This gives a decent burn time and decent set of coals for the next load while having most of the wood burned at a high temperature.

 

[myzamboni]

What size splits/rounds are you putting in? Large pieces will extend your burn.

 

[Wife'nHubby]

what do u mean by "better wood"?

Wood that has a diploma. :jester:

Shari

 

[Wife'nHubby]

I have a block chimney that is probably 16 feet tall (ranch house with a 4/12 pitch roof). The door damper is rigged with that coil steel. When the stove heats up it expands and lowers the damper door. Can't really control it manually. I can turn it all the way off, but thats about it.

Is it possible your coil spring lost its temper due to heating/cooling over the years? This could cause your damper to close prematurely/partially or not at all.

Shari

 

[alleyyooper]

Since the burn time gets shorter and shorter I'd bet the auto draft control spring is getting bad. When it is cold it opens and it takes heat over a longer time to close it up.
I'd just remove it and do it manual along with a damper in the chimeny.

And any one who thinks Ash isn't good fire wood never burned sany good seasoned stuff. Around here if they found out you were burning walnut bigger than 4 inches in dia you would get shot by a bunch of wood workers.

My add on furnace burning ash with manual controlls uses 5 rounds 18 inches long and 8 inches in dia for 12 hours. If it get above 30F I have to put less wood in or we have to run around the house naked with the windows open. I also get my heat from the coals not the fire it's self.

It also has a thermastat control that will run with the draqft shut since it has a built in blower moter to provide air for the burn. I don't hardly use it because it will many times get to hot in the house.

Al

 

[CTYank]

Since the burn time gets shorter and shorter I'd bet the auto draft control spring is getting bad. When it is cold it opens and it takes heat over a longer time to close it up.
I'd just remove it and do it manual along with a damper in the chimeny.

And any one who thinks Ash isn't good fire wood never burned sany good seasoned stuff. Around here if they found out you were burning walnut bigger than 4 inches in dia you would get shot by a bunch of wood workers.

My add on furnace burning ash with manual controlls uses 5 rounds 18 inches long and 8 inches in dia for 12 hours. If it get above 30F I have to put less wood in or we have to run around the house naked with the windows open. I also get my heat from the coals not the fire it's self.

It also has a thermastat control that will run with the draqft shut since it has a built in blower moter to provide air for the burn. I don't hardly use it because it will many times get to hot in the house.

Al

:agree2: And would mention that the low density (heat value/cord) of black walnut makes burning it a real waste. If it's in straight pieces, you could say the same about black cherry.

I'd also suggest that you get a couple of stove thermometers and take notes on the temps of the firebox/heat exchanger (as possible) and the smokepipe connection area. Why? Because you want to heat the former to the max and the latter to the min safely possible.

You may well find that a 6" damper in a 7" pipe gives you sufficient damping. At the worst, you'd have two easy-to-plug 1/4" holes, if you didn't like the results.

 

[mga]

Since the burn time gets shorter and shorter I'd bet the auto draft control spring is getting bad. When it is cold it opens and it takes heat over a longer time to close it up.
I'd just remove it and do it manual along with a damper in the chimeny.

And any one who thinks Ash isn't good fire wood never burned sany good seasoned stuff. Around here if they found out you were burning walnut bigger than 4 inches in dia you would get shot by a bunch of wood workers.

My add on furnace burning ash with manual controlls uses 5 rounds 18 inches long and 8 inches in dia for 12 hours. If it get above 30F I have to put less wood in or we have to run around the house naked with the windows open. I also get my heat from the coals not the fire it's self.

It also has a thermastat control that will run with the draqft shut since it has a built in blower moter to provide air for the burn. I don't hardly use it because it will many times get to hot in the house.

Al

lol....then they must be hatin me. i cut down 3 huge black walnut trees and it's all fire wood.

 

[fubar2]

Stick your head in there and look around for cracks and splits in the walls. A steel walled one will stretch and split when its red hot and somebody chucks a piece of wood into the back wall. Iron ones will crack if hit hard enough in the same manner when they are cold.

 

[trappingfanatic]

Thanks for the info everyone. I have a lot to digest right now. I may be back to ask for some clarification on some things though. I'm not up on all the technical terms used by some of you.

 

[Whitespider]

Call me old-fashioned, but I can't get the idea behind a wood stove without a flue damper.
The flue damper is what keeps the heat from flowing out the chimney! I rarely touch the (manual) draft damper on my stove, I control the stove with the (manual) flue damper... it don't take long to just get a "gut" feeling for where to set it, depending atmospheric conditions and wood type. Most of the time, after the stove gets going, I just close it all the way. Get yourself a 7x8 expander, a 8x7 reducer and a short piece of 8-inch flue pipe... install a common 8-inch flue damper (I use a 8-inch damper with a 6-inch flue the same way, less soot build-up around the damper). I place my damper about 2-feet above the stove, any closer and the rod gets weak real fast from the heat.

 

[alleyyooper]

I totally agree on the damper in the out pipe, makes a fella wonder about things.

Al