Shaver OWB ..... 4 years and counting

[ngzcaz]

Well.. its been a while since we had a thread going. Maybe there are no more good ideas left ? There was a wealth of info shared about these units.... Just a few thoughts I have.
1. My 165 pd its self off in a little over three years.. :msp_biggrin:
2. Few real problems.. one thermostat & one water pump. :msp_smile:
3. Still tinkering, trying to squeeze a bit more efficiency :confused2:
4. Wood is work :msp_biggrin:
5. Wood also lets you breathe fresh air..
6. Wood can be therapeutic

In reference to number 3, has anyone come to a definite conclusion that what they tried resulted in longer better burns, less smoke etc.. ?? Like many others I modified the stock air intake to a damper style that opens and closes. On one hand it certainly makes a hotter fire ( like maybe too much going out the chimney hotter ) on the other when the damper closes much less oxygen is available for the wood to burn.. On warmer days I've had the fire go out when burning soft seasoned wood. When its cold it keeps going due to heat demand.. So it may be a wash.. I understand they either come standard or have an option for an auto damper of sorts.. there were many changes to these stoves. I'm curious if most stood the test of time..

Anyone give up on wood ? change Stoves ? make more mods ?

 

[jlromine76]

I am glad to see someone else with a Shaver on here that is actually happy with its performance. I have been trying to work on the efficiency part as well and I have upgraded mine to a Ranco digital thermostat mounted in a well and put a nice tall lined stack on it for smoke and draft. I was hoping to get the blower with damper on it this year but I am having a hard time figuring out the best way to do this. Could you send me some pictures of yours or a parts list maybe? I would like to see how this will work over the long haul. I have adjusted the little cover on the fan for 3 years now and while that is fine when I am at home it stinks when I am at work and I just know I am wasting wood when it is getting oxygen that it shouldnt be. I am also considering spray foaming the water tank next year like Central Boiler does to see if that helps a little more during the really cold spells we get from time to time.

thanks for any info you can send my way and I will let you know how my changes go as well.

Jeramy

 

[Canton]

Well, I'm new to this and so is my Shaver. Just got it a couple of months ago and hope to fire it this weekend. I can send you what shaver outfitted my unit with as far as blower and damper, but at this point, I have no comparison. I ordered it with this as well as with the ranco. After thinking this through a little more, the ranco with the dual output would have been a better option. This way if your fire went out and your water temp dropped below "xx.x" degrees, you could shut your fan off and stop blowing cold air into your firebox - just a thought. I'll get the part numbers off the blower and solenoid and send them to you later if you want.

Jeff.

 

[ngzcaz]

:msp_biggrin: Welcome.......... As I alluded to in earlier posts, I always considered my Shaver to be a Ford or Chevy and the CB's and such Cadillac's. Both get you to point A to point B. There are grumblings with Cb's owners as well as Shaver so don't dwell on the negative posts too much. Seems some CBs' welds are springing leaks due to the differences in annealing of the metals if I understand it correctly. Mild steel has no such issues. What's ironic in that is the welds on the Shaver, at least for several years including mine are simply atrocious and the CB's are almost perfect in appearance. Go figure... And any welder worth his salt can repair a mild steel issue on the site. And Cb and others may have changed S.S. or went back to mild steel, not sre what they did to solve that issue.
You have an updated model from what most earlier folks received. I stayed with the stock thermostat and moved it up higher on the bracket. Since heat rises it seemed logical it might do a better job. Since I have a small home the variances aren't a big deal to me and it does seem to hold a more constant temp. I put a small 1 inch heat gauge ( $ 10 from a CB dealer since Shaver apparently never thought of it ) right before the pump that pull/pushes the water in the house. It sits in the water that's being circulated so that way I can check what the actual temp of the water entering the house is at any given time by simply opening the back door and taking a quick peek. I did the blower mod that a lot of folks did. There were many ways to accomplish the same thing, some a lot more expensive than others but in fairness may do a better job. At least one guy put a dryer vent pipe and flap onto the blower. Mine's of similar except it's a butterfly setup ( about $ 20 ) with one flap glued shut and other other free to open and close the flap as needed. I just opened the stock blower flap all the way then hooked this setup onto that flap. In about a minute I can revert back to the stock flap if need be. And the butter fly flap had nice foam gasket to prevent excess from being drawn in and wasting fuel and and the potential for overfiring.

Please refer to the original Shaver Improvement Forum ( three of them ) for so many ideas your head will spin. Unfortunately most pics were moved to photobucket whatever that is. If you can figure out how to access them you have a much better understanding of what went on.. they are quite lengthy so you could probably a couple hours if you' want to read them all.

Shaver had a good basic idea with the draft underneath the fire and very simple electronics. Nothing terribly expensive and most readily available. There have been clones of Shaver, some good other questionable. The Kiss principle is what I strive for. Some have gotten a bit away from it but there were few complaints if any that is wasn't worth doing. That's why I started this again to see they they stood the test of time or whether some went backwards or even further ahead. I'm waiting for someone to fabricate a couple of car cat converters to the unit and see if they would burn off the obvious black soot that would form when the unit shuts off..

 

[ngzcaz]

I just re read your post and if I understand correctly Shaver is still using the slide with holes in it for draft control ? If that's true, that might be the number one mod that would be worth doing. If one burns less than perfectly seasoned wood ( here in NE Pa. and in a wooded area that's hard to have ) it wasn't uncommon for condensation to run out my door when I first opened. If you opened the slide too far the fire got hot as it was supposed to but the residual draft from the fire itself kept pulling air thru the holes resulting in excessive wood usage and at times went past your temperature setting even though the fan never went on. If the slide wasn't opened far enough it took too long for the water temp to recover and resulted in an inefficient burn and way too much creosote. So the trick was to find a happy medium. The blower mod took care of both problems and most guys are happy. A personal observation is that some guys may have gone a bit overboard on the draft motor and opening. If you see flames shooting out the top of your chimney on a regular basis its fair to say that's a lot of heat that isn't being transferred to heat your water.
What wasn't discussed enough if I recall was the color of your door when opened. If its a toasty light brown I'd let well enough alone. If its constantly black and gummy with creosote wood is being wasted by inefficiency of the burn. Its not rocket science.

Here's one thing that happened to me and important. I'm not a whiz with electronics so if anyone has a suggestion please chime in. Last year my thermostat stuck wide open and I didn't know it. Luckily nothing blew apart or leaked but it seemed there should be a safety overload somewhere to prevent that from happening.. Water in the tank went way down due to the steaming out the side vent pipe. How's your water usage by the way ?

:biggrin:

 

[Canton]

Here's the blower setup that was installed on the shaver i just got. As I said, I have not point of reference, but I've been running it for several days now and it seems to be working great. I'm seeing about 10min from when the furnace blower comes on from the thermostat until it's satisfied. I'm running the factory default 5 degree differential. Here's some pics of the setup.View attachment 260995View attachment 260996View attachment 260997View attachment 260998

 

[ngzcaz]

Well... its certainly different than what we got. Much improved electrical setup if that's Shavers. As far as the blower goes you seem to have what a lot of guys went to. I made my own so I can't really tell. Big thing is it shuts off the air when the temp is reached so not much to improve on in that area. It seems way overbuilt the thickness of the mounting plate and damper looks to be 1/8 inch or better kinda like the angles Shaver put for the 1 oz thermostat on my stove. You could hang a 500 lb weight to it and it wouldn't give way.

I put ball valves before and after the pump for ease of a pump change ( one time in 4 years ) and I put in a " T " below the pump and screwed in a 1 in diameter temp gauge I bought at a CB dealer. That way I know exactly what the true water temp is going into the house not what's on a gauge in the water tank. I still plan on an insulated 6 inch chimney pipe that slides over the 5 in Shaver pipe. Some guys have put on extension pipes to get the chimney up higher. Since its a forced draft I don't personally see the need for it. And I like have a short ladder and cleaning the pipe a couple of times during the heating season. Once it clogs its a real mess. Seasoned wood cuts this possibility a lot. I found a kids snow shovel gets the ashes out nicely although I made a " kitsch " which is a simple rod ( I used 5 foot piece of rebar and welded a 2 inch by 5 inch metal plate to pull the ashes forward for easy removal ) Weld a small bolt to the opposite side of the heavy metal rod Shaver gives you ( to pull the wood forward ) and you can open the ash bin, insert the rod sideways then turn it upside down to remove clinkers that may impede the draft flow. If your ash bed didn't do this yet, chances are it will sometime and its nice to immediately take care of it. If the ash bed isn't too deep you can do it from the top as well.. just turn off the blower first.. :msp_wink:

Let us know how you make out, questions or new developments.. :smile2:

 

[jlromine76]

Thanks for the pictures Canton I appreciate it. That looks a lot different than my setup with that damper on there. I think I might buy me another blower and damper online and see if I can make the same type of setup then just bolt it on and see how it works. I guess that way I have a spare fan and if I ever need to I can revert it back to the way mine originally was. I did extend my stack up using the double wall which I dont really think helped with wood consumption but it did get the smoke away from the house much nicer. My unit sits only 17 feet or so away from the house on the south side so from time to time we do get a smoke smell inside when the smoke is close to the ground and it gets sucked up by my furnace in the cellar.

 

[ngzcaz]

Thanks for the pictures Canton I appreciate it. That looks a lot different than my setup with that damper on there. I think I might buy me another blower and damper online and see if I can make the same type of setup then just bolt it on and see how it works. I guess that way I have a spare fan and if I ever need to I can revert it back to the way mine originally was. I did extend my stack up using the double wall which I dont really think helped with wood consumption but it did get the smoke away from the house much nicer. My unit sits only 17 feet or so away from the house on the south side so from time to time we do get a smoke smell inside when the smoke is close to the ground and it gets sucked up by my furnace in the cellar.

The insulated chimney was a good move especially if you extended the height, should help with creosote buildup. I realize its a lot of research but if you haven't gone thru at least the first 2 " Shaver Improvement forums " you've missed a free and really informative accumulation of knowledge and American ingenuity. Some are kinda high tech but a lot of the other mod's are low cost and easy to understand.

Any Shaver clones OWB's with the same type fan forced induction either already included some of members suggestions or could benefit by them. There's no doubt if there were any company's that were monitoring our forum got a lot of free first hand research and saved a lot of money to boot by finding out what was liked, what was disliked, what worked, what didn't work and what the customers thought was important to them.

 

[Canton]

There was no electric supplied with the unit, so no real improvement from shaver there. What you see is what i cobbled together after reading the improvements others have made. Only piece of it I'm missing is a "cold" temp shut off for the blower and a 3 way switch at the front (i put a single) that will force the blower to run if needed.

 

[ngzcaz]

There was no electric supplied with the unit, so no real improvement from shaver there. What you see is what i cobbled together after reading the improvements others have made. Only piece of it I'm missing is a "cold" temp shut off for the blower and a 3 way switch at the front (i put a single) that will force the blower to run if needed.

I ran a switch on the front of the unit as well. Just a simple on and off switch. A must IMHP unless one likes a blast of forced hot flame coming out the door when its time to refill the unit. Speaking of doors did Shaver put any insulation in between the two plates ? Its supposed to be a an air wash system of some sort. Which would be Ok if it was a glass door and you wanted to watch the fire. Other than that I can't quite figure out what its supposed to do. Cheapest to insulate it is with some fiberglass insulation, just stuff it between the two plates. ( minus the paper backing of course ) Keeps the door temp and heat loss down a bit.


I'd be interested in knowing where and what your steam pipe ( left side of the front of the unit when looking at it from outside ) looks like. When we got ours it was a simple iron pipe sticking out of the side a couple of inches right at the top where the water tank would be inside the unit.. Most guys did various fixes, one being adding a piece of pex pipe after curving it up slightly so chemicals could easily be added to the water w/out taking that stupid metal plate off the back of the unit by the stove pipe. Please tell me they changed that ?? And the pex that was added allowed water to flow out the unit so you could tell it was full w/out making it a pressurized unit.

 

[Canton]

Steam pipe (overflow) looks just as you described. I do not seem to have any steam or water loss yet. I did put a PVC elbow on it, as I read others have done. It does appear, looking into the pipe that shaver may have put an internal elbow on the pipe. I'm going to try and investigate this a little further later and I'll let you know. In my mind, that would be the right thing to do. Put an internal elbow and a short nipple on it. Your surface area exposed to atmosphere now is about the size of a quarter vs the size of the entire water box. My biggest concern so far is the creosote leaking out of the main door and the ash door. I'm running the stove pretty cold right now - 140 degrees, but I'm still surprized on the drips. I'm planning on insulating the door soon. Design has not changed - two 1/4" plates separated by an air gap.

 

[ngzcaz]

If you have a little left over pex take a piece about 9 inches long and bend it so it has a bit of an upturn then hose clamp it on your nipple. After that turn on your fill until water comes out. The way I did mine was I then cut the pipe until I could see the water about half way in the pipe. I didn't want to pressurize it so I left it as that. If you don't do this or something similar how are you going to know if your water is low ? When you can't see the water anymore you're low and then can fill it as needed.

*** if you have any chemicals to add you can add them thru the pex when the water is low instead of opening that monster trap door in the back ( assuming they still have that setup.. )

The fiberglass in the door is an almost no cost mod. Right now I'm running at around 150 degrees. I rarely go above 160 no matter what. Since I have a small home and I didn't run lines to the garage 160 is hot enough for hot water heat and endless baths.

For a temp fix on your main door take a small stick and wedge it in the cam when you close the door. It makes the door tighter and lasts for a while. I live in the woods so I just go over to a tree and break one off. Low tech.. Under no circumstances should you be getting creosote out your bottom door. Are you sure its just not dripping from the main door ? If its really bad crank up your temp on the OWB. Your door should be a light to med brown. The fiberglass in the door may help a bit. Other than that sounds like your wood is wet/kinda junky. Which btw is what I burn as long as I can and save the good stuff for winter. One very simple suggestion is not to do what I did for a long time.. put too much wood in the OWB. The less you put in the hotter it has to burn to bring the stove to temperature. I still put too much in occasionally. Of course this works well only if you are able to monitor the unit. If you have to go to work well then you fill it and take your chances..

Sorry to drag this out but its all stuff I experienced. Last one.. make sure your grates are clear and you see red coals when looking underneath. Its the main reason I modified Shavers iron poker to get the clinkers out of the grates to ensure a good burn.
And of course your chimney is clean.. 2 years ago in the middle of winter mine wouldn't get hot enough and I thought the draft blower was either too small or going bad... when one member suggested to check the chimney I thought well, I really doubt it but I'll check. It was the chimney..

Good luck.. these things do work but it does take a while to figure it out..

 

[Canton]

Well I'm doing a lot of what you're saying not to. I'm loading the heck of the stove because i'm not home much right now. Most of the wood I've been burning is junk that I've been picking up around the house. ( I live in the woods also). Also, the creasote is coming from the main door, not the ash door. With the furnace full of wood and only about 10 minute burns with the blower, I'm probably not doing myself any favors. 5 days burning and learning alot so far. Thanks for all the information. I'm going to try reducing the amount of wood i'm loading into the stove - tomorrow. Too late for tonight.

 

[ngzcaz]

Let me know if the color of your door changes..

 

[Canton]

Well, i was wrong. There was a lot of condensate in the ash door opening as well. Nothing but ash in the bottom, but the sill in the opening was saturated, more so than the fire door sill. I turned the temp up 10 degrees to 150 and we'll see tomorrow if cutting back on the wood helps as well. I have been stuffing it pretty full, and it's not really heating anything but my hot water and a small (22K) heater in the basement. That may also be contributing to the condensate. More to come.

 

[wat648]

Installed my 250 in August of 2009. Did the blower mod, Ranco at the time of installation. I've had one solenoid give out that opens the blower door to let in the air. Other than that, throw wood in it when needed, check the water level about once a week or so and enjoy all the hot water you can pull out of a faucet. Not to mention, my wife really appreciates not having to be cold all winter anymore. The colder it is outside, the warmer it gets inside now.

I know there have been multiple complaints about the Shavers, mostly due delivery time, etc. I think they are very well built for the price. I like the idea of the mild steel, versus the stainless, due to the ease of being able to fix it, should the time ever come. Nothing too complicated about the set-up of the stove, it just works.

Hope you enjoy yours as much as we have.

 

[ngzcaz]

If everyone was honest, that's generally been the opinion of most owners. Welds are atrocious, black goop around the piping in the back, less than quality workmanship.. but.. they work. Simple functional design, can be hot rodded to your hearts content and thick steel which gives you less to worry about. Some manufacturers other than CB ran into major problems with leaks due to the S.Steel design of their stove. They absolutely work better the colder it gets. Some of Canton's problems will probably go away with the colder weather. Although a word of warning............... I actually had my stove go out with fresh cut sassafras and white pine I cut that fell during the hurricane. Second time in 4 years it happened. Kind of humorous, I switched it back to oil ( about a 10 second job ) went to work, came home and like a man possessed fired it back up as soon as I got home like I had no other heat source. But you get used to almost free heat ..... :biggrin:

Its really been miserable here in NE PA the past week or so and now a cold wind is blowing along with the present 36 degree temp. Like some, just for the heck of it, I'll turn up the house temp just to spit in the eye of old man winter. And winters not even here yet. Hope I cut enough wood.

 

[Canton]

Well apparently the combination of turning up the temp, actually using the stove to heat something (my small basement heater) and loading less wood took care of the creosote problem. The dry oak I threw in probably didn't hurt either. I finally saw some of that "brown" color you were talking about - like reading a spark plug. This years wood is a mix of whatever I needed to cut down make room for the stove, and whatever was dead around the house. My neighbor was kind enough to drop a couple of truck loads of untreated rail road tie scraps as well. Surprizingly enough, that little heater in the basement raised the temperature of my house today to 71. Next on the list will be to get the door insulated.

 

[Backus]

2nd season on our bone stock 165 and not changing anything. It works real well to heat our 3000 ft home and dhw and uses less wood than my friends outdoor furnaces. 160 seems to be the sweet spot and never had a problem with water loss. Fit and finish only fair but the critical welds look real good. Heavy duty and simple appeals to me it was 3200 dollars well spent. Bought it new from a guy who ordered it and never installed it....he must have read all the negative drivel and got cold feet.