I wanted to post an update here,since I've been running the Ranco aquastat and blower mod over a week now.I highly recommend both of them together.My Shaver is like a different beast with these 2 mods.It holds temperature perfectly,I have the temp set at 179,and a 5 degree differential.I can go slightly lower,but my hot water recovery is affected at certain times.It does burn a little less wood at 175 on 170 off,thats the lowest it performs well at.I haven't had a minutes problems since the mods,and the nice thing is that with the blower running and the damper door fully open now,it easily burns the wood right down without falling behind with the last few logs.Also recovery is very fast now,where as before it could have taken hours to recover if all the zones were calling.
A big thank you to Fletcher and Dlav for them both taking the time to help by showing there mods,posting pics,and offering help.
This summer I am going to strip the OWB and get it spray foam insulated,top to bottom,and possibly build a better fully insulated door for it.I think those 2 changes will save me a lot of wood,and make the OWB perform better.I am burning a lot of seasoned Locust,and I gotta say this OWB burns cleaner than my neighbors indoor stoves if the wood is totally dry. The first pic is with blower on today,modded blower door ,2nd with it idling with modded damper closed. You can see my makeshift temporary wood shed i built for $40.I got what i think is about 3+ cord of wood in there.Its 24ft long,6 ft wide,and has 2 rows of 30-36" long logs about 5-6ft high.I'm not good at estimating wood volume,but its 3 cord minimum,could be over 4.