wood burner not kicking out much heat?? please help!

[cory]

first off id like to say im new here, i have been lurking around for a while as a non-member for saw mods and what not.

anyways

my wood burner isnt kicking out as much heat as it use to. i think its a char master embers,

ive owned it for seven years and this thing use to be able to heat the house up to 90 if i wanted it to. now it hardly even gets up to 66. it just started doing this this winter. some night my house gets down to 53 even with the burner crankin some serious flame.

no matter how hot i get the fire going it just doesnt blow hot are, it blows warm air at best. from what i can tell there are no leaks or anything, and the fan has normal pressure/air flow.

i really need to figure this out as it is my only source of heat

thanks in advance!!!!!

 

[blackdogon57]

If

 

[Fred Wright]

Not familiar with your make of stove... but I can tell you about a similar experience we had with our US Stove last year.

Toward the end of the season it had started gobbling wood and not heating very well. So I looked up in there and saw the outer baffle was warped. I mean really warped.

Got to searching online and found a stainless aftermarket baffle for it. Supposed to be a permanent fix for this common issue with these stoves. Since replacing the baffle it's been good as new.

 

[cory]

tomorrow im going to pull the side panel off and see if anything is funky inside the heatbox. the dampener is brand new and is a snug fit so i dont this draft is the issue.

 

[aaronmach1]

chimeny plugged?

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

chimeny plugged?

If the chimney were plugged/restricted the fire would die down to nothing when the damper was shut and smoke wood roll out the door. Doesn't seem what the OP has according to the description.

Not familiar with the stove, How is the heat transferred? Air blowing across something? Too much buildup over those surfaces? If it burning like crazy are their seals on the doors? Does the damper shut it down to smolder?

 

[Steve NW WI]

Well, I found his furnace: http://www.charmaster.com/embers.html

It's an outdoor forced air model. I'm guessing air leaks in the hot air system, or a weak blower if the stove still burns normally like he describes.

 

[Whitespider]

The Charmaster Embers is an outdoor, forced air furnace...

As I understand it, all Charmaster furnaces have a "safety heat dump" that should "dump" heat in the event of a power outage... I would check and make sure that ain't stuck open/malfunctioning.

 

[flotek]

Do a dollar bill gasket test be certain your not blowing air in the dump check for excessive buildup blocking things check your ducting to insure its intact

 

[laynes69]

If you haven't cleaned the inside of the unit, I would check it out and remove any buildup inside. Any amount of ash, or creosote can help insulate and slow heat transfer. The safety dump is also a good thing to check.

 

[timbrjackrussel]

If you haven't cleaned the inside of the unit, I would check it out and remove any buildup inside. Any amount of ash, or creosote can help insulate and slow heat transfer. The safety dump is also a good thing to check.

Sounds like you need to get a look inside on the exchanger. I clean out the exchanger of my Surefire hot air furnace every 10 to 14 days.
How is the wood? Dry? What is the stack temp.?