Vogelzang 2500 wood furnace (junk)

[cgaboury]

About four years ago I bought a Vogelzang brand model 2500 wood furnace to heat my 2500 sq ft house. I wish I did my research before hand because its junk. I was just wondering if anyone else bought one of these. It wont hold a fire all night, with no coals in the morning and thats after loading it to the top with oak.

I seen a post on here but I can not find it again about someone adding burn tubes over the fire to produce longer burn times. If anyone has a solution to the same problem please let me know or suggeestions on how to modifie it.

 

[Painter D]

Yes you can add a secondary burn chamber and heat tubes (using black wall pipe) if your handy at fabricting stuff. I'm going to do it on mine this next spring (mines a different brand)
My son-in-law has that same stove and you have and he said it's just a wood hog and although it throws some serious heat, it's not at all efficient. You should have alot of room to add a baffle plate and air tubes on your stove without much problem and still have a large enough fire box.

I'm laying some plans for my project using 1/4" plate steel for a baffle plate, 2-1/2" from the top of the firebox (sealed from side to side) with fire brick on top of it. The heat tubes (3 of them accross the under side of the baffleplate. I also want to make a small slide door in the rear of the baffle to be able to open/close for starting the fire (lets the smoke escape till fire gets going) I will attach the slide to a rod coming out the front of the stove to open/close it.

I've done alot of research for the air tube design and looked at alot of EPA rated stoves they sell and I have a good idea how the air tubes are to be added. This site has been some help also.

 

[laynes69]

We had the exact same furnace heating this house for almost 25 years. I took it out about 2 years ago and replaced it for the same reasons you talk about. While it heated the house great, if I didn't stuff it full, I would wake to little or no coals. We used alot more wood than needed and cleaning buckets of creosote from the chimney wasnt fun. We now burn less wood get more heat and have a much cleaner chimney as well as longer burns. Before modifying consider your homeowners insurance. If something happens you could be denied. I know around here those furnaces sell pretty high used. Also there still are tax credits for a more efficient furnace. If your good at fabrication and don't care about insurance mod away. I will say this, if your going to fab a secondary system on the furnace, use stainless steel and line that firebox with firebrick. Good luck!

 

[carl childers]

Ive had one for 6 years I did a few things to help the burn time first I closed the auto damper door vent with foil tape my stove gets plenty of air only from the ash door at the bottom. I also placed a peice of folded over aluminum foil the size of a match book at the top of the ash damper with it screwed all the way in. It is located outside my house in a small shed and piped in with a extra blower installed on the unit. My house is 1500 sqft and not insulated very well. I can burn 10 hours and still have good coals in the morning. Fill it up in the morning open the ash door wait 10 minutes or so close the door. Before I done this it was a wood hog now its ok. Only on zero or windy days do have to open it up and feed it I burn locust,hedge,ash,hickory,red elm and oak. Most of this wood is dead standing timber cut split and burned a month later I have insulated stainless pipe from the stove to cap and have hardly any build up in the pipe just some on the cap. Im sure there are much better stoves out there but I bought on sale for $649 and after these mods and the results my buddies have had with different stoves im happy with it. I will research the other mods mentioned.

 

[FanOFatherNash]

About four years ago I bought a Vogelzang brand model 2500 wood furnace to heat my 2500 sq ft house. I wish I did my research before hand because its junk. I was just wondering if anyone else bought one of these. It wont hold a fire all night, with no coals in the morning and thats after loading it to the top with oak.

I seen a post on here but I can not find it again about someone adding burn tubes over the fire to produce longer burn times. If anyone has a solution to the same problem please let me know or suggeestions on how to modifie it.

How do you buy the cheapest thing on the market, then complain like they duped you into buying the cheapest option available