new furnace user questions

[tdb]

Thanks

Here is a look at my set up. One shows the furnace and the other show the thermometer on the flue. I picked it (the thermometer) at a local farm store. it's actually fairly accurate, at least as accurate as the IR Thermometer...???

Thanks hoosier daddy ,I think I want one like yours.

TEDMI

 

[tdb]

leave it

so should i take it out or leave it alone?[/QUOTE

 

[laynes69]

If your your happy with the way is burning then leave it in. If you want to experiment with it remove it. If you do you will have to change your normal damper settings for it will allow for more air into the firebox. I found it gave me cleaner burns that way where the ash pan damper could be almost closed. It's been a couple of years now since I have had that furnace. If you don't like it then it takes 2 seconds to put back in. Many have removed it and had success. Others didn't and it was put back in.

 

[NEW BURNER]

laynes69, how does your stove perform? i seen a video on youtube about that furnace looked pretty neat. just wondering how it heated?

 

[laynes69]

It heats well. I no longer have huge temperature swings in the home. I can load the furnace, set the wall thermostat and it will keep the temperature within a degree or two. The old furnace like you have is about a 6-6.5 cu ft firebox. Ours now is a 3.5. I get longer burns with more heat and a much cleaner chimney. Even with the damper on the furnace open for a hour or two in the mornings, I still have a nice coal bed. What I have noticed is by having a secondary heat exchanger, I can heat from just a coal bed for hours. Before we would have to have flames to get heat from the furnace, and load rounds at night to get through the night. It was the best money we have spent, other than the chimney liner.

 

[NEW BURNER]

liner make a difference?

 

[laynes69]

Oh yeah. Our old chimney performed okay with the old furnace. It was a 7x11 chimney and did fine due to more heat up the chimney. When I installed our new furnace 2 years ago, the draft was sluggish and we had bad condensation issues in the chimney. The flue gasses were too low which caused a lower draft than needed and condensation. After the liner, we have awesome draft, no condensation issues and a clean chimney. The new furnace performs better and the heat output increased. We need a good strong draft for our furnace to operate correctly.

 

[NEW BURNER]

oh ok thank you for the advice

 

[ASETECH]

Could someone post a picture of an magnetic thermometer, am thinking of getting one.

Thanks TedMI.

Menards had them at a great price earlier this year. My kids were hard on the last one.... gotta love em.

 

[Labman]

I love the way everybody is pitching in and giving helpful advice to a newbie. Not all the forums hang around are that way. Nobody said ''Read the manual''.

 

[reaperman]

I too had to learn to not "burn you out of house"...as long as it's above 20 at night I will fill the box full...CLEAR FULL with the air full open (Mine has an air inducer too that's about 3/4" open) until the thermometer on the flue reached 300 to 350...then I close the induction off to about 1/8" and the draft shut down completely then open 1 turn (about 1/16"). Within a half hour the flue will be reading 500 and will stay there for about three before it starts to fall off. I can usually get 7 hours of sleep. By morning I will have about 8" of coals to restart the process...The flue will read just above 200 at this point.

When it's really cold (below 10 for daytime high) the air gets opened up and I can get about 5 hours of sleep, any more than that and the house will drop below 68...

Mine is a Fire Chief 700.
QUOTE]

I also have a firechief unit, going on its 4th season. I have the model 500, I've saw the 700 and what a massive firebox. At what blower speed do you run your unit? I always use low. The blower, or plenum fans on these units are larger than most wood furnaces and move a ton of air. Sometimes I think they move too much air which can cause the firebox to cool down, requiring a hotter fire to keep the furnace from cycling. The hotter the fire, the more wood they burn. I've learned to use less wood and seem to get the same result as filling up the firebox full. Your correct in saying they can eat wood, but it seems to me once the house is warmed up, and the furnace is hot, the wood usuage can be streached and still put out the needed heat. I live in minnesota, so this unit sees plenty of cold weather. Right now, its -6F outside, 10pm, this mornings fire died out around 10am, and its still 73 degrees in the house, and I'm just about to lite the furnace for the night. I hardly ever keep a fire going during the daytime, a overnight fire keeps the house warm until the following night, even in these temps.

 

[hoosier daddy]

Reaperman,

Now I feel a little stupid...I have been running my blower on high...I think that I may try the medium setting to see if I am cooling my plenem (SP) too much??? Last night I loaded her full at 10 did my normal thing and this morning at 6 had a wonderful bed of coals (burning all seasoned ash right now) but the house did loose degrees. I went from 72 to 68...the outside temp went from 21 to 16 so it's pretty steady right now...

I'm thinking that if I slow air down I can get the same heat, or more heat, from less wood...??? I will report back. It's suppose to get cold here again through the weekend...

 

[reaperman]

Reaperman,

Now I feel a little stupid...I have been running my blower on high...I think that I may try the medium setting to see if I am cooling my plenem (SP) too much??? Last night I loaded her full at 10 did my normal thing and this morning at 6 had a wonderful bed of coals (burning all seasoned ash right now) but the house did loose degrees. I went from 72 to 68...the outside temp went from 21 to 16 so it's pretty steady right now...

I'm thinking that if I slow air down I can get the same heat, or more heat, from less wood...??? I will report back. It's suppose to get cold here again through the weekend...

I know there are no two installs the same in this game of burning wood. What works for someone, may not work for someone else. I'm in for the coldest temps of the season for the next two or three days. Last night -12F, today around 4F with high winds, and tonight, -20's.

Getting back to the blower speed, its almost impossible to "hear" the difference in blower speeds, when turning the dial up or down. For a long time I wondered if the fan was actually changing speeds or not. And I cant feel the difference at my registers much either. But as far as CFM's are concerned, low is 1150, med 1500, and high is 1800. That's amounts to a lot of difference in the amount of air being moved.

When damping my unit down for normal burning. I only open the wheel on the ash door 1/4 to 1/2 turn. I used to go a full turn but bottom feeding a hungry furnace is hard of the wood pile. A more efficient way of burning is introducing air over the top of a fire. Its not necessairly liked by the furnace as much, but if you open the draft fan slider a bit more you can get a more efficient fire without burning wood as quickly. I know sometimes this doesnt possible as my furnace likes its bottom air, but once its hot and running, I can spin the bottom to a 1/2 or less.

 

[dave_dj1]

One thing I believe happens in the overnight hours is the fact that there is no activity in the house, believe it or not, just moving about and opening doors etc. help creat heat movement.
I also believe that 68 is too warm to sleep ...lol

 

[CrappieKeith]

I don't know if your manual calls for you to do a test but we try to get 80-90 degrees difference across the furnace.

You can set a spike stye thermometer in each trunk..hot/cold.
Then as your furnace is calling for heat and your blower is running you should see 80-90 degrees difference between the hot air going out and the cold air returning.
You can speed up or slow down a blower to achieve the proper spread.