Question about Shaver's forced air draft

[Windwalker7]

I know that Shaver recommends and alot of you set the vent cover on the blower between 1/4 and 1/3 of the way open.

When you have yours set there, the fan is blowing and you open the furnace door for a peek, what is the fire doing?

When I set mine there, there is just lots of smoke and some glowing coals. Usually no flame until I stand there staring too long. This is with the fan blowing.

I have to open the side cover at least half way to get the fire roaring.

I haven't had a boil over yet and don't want to. Yet, I hear of a lot of you having that problem.

I run my pump 24/7 and have my thermostat set at 155*. It seems that I am not getting enough air.

I have various wood species, some is well seasoned some isn't.

Any thoughts?

 

[skid row]

Wood might have a bit too much moisture in it. Mine is glowing coals and aggresive fire when the draft fan is on.

 

[fletcher0780]

I know that Shaver recommends and alot of you set the vent cover on the blower between 1/4 and 1/3 of the way open.

When you have yours set there, the fan is blowing and you open the furnace door for a peek, what is the fire doing?

When I set mine there, there is just lots of smoke and some glowing coals. Usually no flame until I stand there staring too long. This is with the fan blowing.

I have to open the side cover at least half way to get the fire roaring.

I haven't had a boil over yet and don't want to. Yet, I hear of a lot of you having that problem.

I run my pump 24/7 and have my thermostat set at 155*. It seems that I am not getting enough air.

I have various wood species, some is well seasoned some isn't.

Any thoughts?

I'm in the same boat as you; half open when cold, quarter open when mild. I just got my solenoid in and will be setting my door to open fully when fan is on and close completely when fan is off. Woodmaster, CB, Hardy, and Natures comfort all do this. I'll let you know this weekend how it works. check the "shaver improvement thread" for more details. http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=81190

 

[projectsho89]

Hey, Fletch!

Make it so you can adjust the amount of opening with your damper flap, otherwise, you'll create a blast furnace. You have to be able to limit the volume of the forced air flowing, that's what the turnbuckle on the NC is for. On my NCB175, an opening of around 3/8" is about right (so far).

Steve

 

[fletcher0780]

Hey, Fletch!

Make it so you can adjust the amount of opening with your damper flap, otherwise, you'll create a blast furnace. You have to be able to limit the volume of the forced air flowing, that's what the turnbuckle on the NC is for. On my NCB175, an opening of around 3/8" is about right (so far).

Steve

So the door flap is 3/8" at the largest gap when open? I know the NC blower is three times the CFM's as the Shaver. I plan to copy the NC design and go from there. You happy with your boiler so far?

 

[projectsho89]

So the door flap is 3/8" at the largest gap when open? I know the NC blower is three times the CFM's as the Shaver. I plan to copy the NC design and go from there. You happy with your boiler so far?

Yep. Still learning some of the tweaks and playing with my controls and sensors. Got my dual channel remote transmitter thermometer (smoker version) today, will attach it to the lines tomorrw. Also need to play with my propane-fallback thermostat and its mounting. Probably will install another lamp on the back of the unit.

Need to insulate my cast and Pex lines inside the back door and cover the unused access hole in the rear floor to keep critters and cold air out.

Yeah! A new Hobby! Taking care of my very own fire-breathing dragon. I've already started telling the wife "I have to go feed Puff".

Also need to put a cupholder somewhere out there, I spilled a whole cup of coffee yesterday morning after putting it on a piece of wood sticking out from the rank....

Need to post some pix this week.

Steve

 

[rx7145]

Hey, Fletch!

Make it so you can adjust the amount of opening with your damper flap, otherwise, you'll create a blast furnace. You have to be able to limit the volume of the forced air flowing, that's what the turnbuckle on the NC is for. On my NCB175, an opening of around 3/8" is about right (so far).

Steve

I run my CB wide open. Seems to work ok.

 

[fletcher0780]

Need to insulate my cast and Pex lines inside the back door and cover the unused access hole in the rear floor to keep critters and cold air out.
Steve

Home Depot has some nice pipe insulation, about 3/4" of fiberglass covered with white paper. They cost like $5 for a 3ft section.

I run my CB wide open. Seems to work ok.

Is your CB natural draft, or do you have the forced draft option?

 

[projectsho89]

I run my CB wide open. Seems to work ok.

Each model has to be adjusted for what works best for it. Just because "wide open" might be appropriate for your CB, it doesn't have any correlation to either of the specific forced draft blowers used on either the Shaver or the NCB.

Home Depot has some nice pipe insulation, about 3/4" of fiberglass covered with white paper. They cost like $5 for a 3ft section.

I've got over 1/2 of a BIG roll of the foil-coated bubble insulation ( I bought a 4' x 125' roll) left over from insulating my PEX for my run. All I need to do is cut into strips, wrap it on the pipes, and either tape or zip-tie it. I'd say I'm in GOOD shape in that department.


Steve

 

[rx7145]

Home Depot has some nice pipe insulation, about 3/4" of fiberglass covered with white paper. They cost like $5 for a 3ft section.



Is your CB natural draft, or do you have the forced draft option?

Its forced draft.

 

[310 german]

projectsho89, Since it appears that you did what I did and insulated your PEX runs yourself, what kind of luck did you have? I wish now that I'd spent the extra money for the pre-insulated stuff. When the weather's close to freezing and we get snow, I have a nice trail of melted snow leading from the house to the OWB:censored:!! If it gets around, say, 20 deg. or less, the air temp is enough to keep the snow intact, but I still know I'm losing heat. Just wondering what kind of luck you had.

 

[projectsho89]

projectsho89, Since it appears that you did what I did and insulated your PEX runs yourself, what kind of luck did you have? I wish now that I'd spent the extra money for the pre-insulated stuff. When the weather's close to freezing and we get snow, I have a nice trail of melted snow leading from the house to the OWB:censored:!! If it gets around, say, 20 deg. or less, the air temp is enough to keep the snow intact, but I still know I'm losing heat. Just wondering what kind of luck you had.

Pretty much the same.....

While I'm not loosing much, I now recognize that I am loosing some. I probably should have wrapped it with more layers. At most, I only did about 3-4 layers of bubble-foil using a 24" wide strip.

It's not bad, but it certainly could have been better with minimal additional expense....then.

Steve

 

[fletcher0780]

I have similar results with 40mm TSP. the snow will start melting over the trench first, but only when it gets over 30*. I'm only getting 1-2* heat loss at 160ft and the supply and return pipes are touching each other. I'm still glad I used this stuff instead of the $18/ft stuff, it saved me almost $2000.

 

[trshmn]

Same here, have two runs of double wrap insulated pipe and the trench will be first to melt if it's above 30.

 

[hypothesis]

Me too.

 

[ngzcaz]

I even went to a 6 inch corrugated drain pipe to wrap it more and what I ended up doing was put some foam insulation ( R 2 or 3 ) then started the solargard in between the 2 pipes to create an insulated gap then continued to wrap solargard another wrap and a half around both pipes. Dont know about you guys but it was a real bear trying to straighten the pex enough to put it inside the pipe. I ended up putting a 1/4 nylon rope thru the drain pipe first then drilling holes thru the 2 pex pipes, tying them together and pulling everything thru the pipe. That was the easy part, tough part was wrapping the pex together with the solargard. I secured the wrap with S.S. tape the full run and every 4 feet where there was a seam.

End result... better than 18 bucks a foot, barley perceptable snow loss but the run is only 30 ft so its within one degree from the OWB to the house. Had I wrapped it 2 more times I think it would have been much better. My run to the garage will be 120 ft and I'll try it again basically the same way only with more wraps. However, I'm tempted to go to 1 1/4 inch pipe for more heat transfer.. If anyone needs 1 inch pex I have 260 ft left of the best oxygen barrier. I bought a 300 ft roll...


:jawdrop: :monkey: