Woodstove Modifications and Install

[chowdozer]

Well, not really. This woodstove has been in for about 10 years, but today I took it out to give it a fresh coat of paint so I took a few pictures. Hopefully, there's info to be gained by what I did right and wrong.


Here's the stove after I got it out. It's an older mid-80's Orley and it works well enough I haven't considered replacing it. It originally had a glass window upfront, but since it didn't draw air near the window, keeping the window clean was more trouble than it was worth. I've never really liked windows in stoves anyway, they seem like an accident waiting to happen. So I welded in a piece of 1/4" plate. If I want a romantic fire, I'll go out back and have a brush fire.

originally it looked similiar to this.

I didn't like all the fancy crap either, so I disposed of it. Less to wipe down when cleaning. The end pic shows the draft control. It had four 1" dia holes on each end with a slider that exposed them. It wasn't even close to airtight that way. They had to go. More on that later.

 

[chowdozer]

So I sanded it down, wiped it off and heated it up to get ready for a quick paint.

One of the features I like about this stove is this swinging plate that keeps smoke out of the house when the door is open.

 

[chowdozer]

After I repainted, I climbed on the roof to clean out the pipe. I used an 18 gauge stainless liner up through the chimney. Makes chimney fires and cleaning a non-issue.

Here's the exit out of the chimney. I made a stainless box and used a rain collar over the top of it. The inside edge of the box has a 45 degree flange on it like the lower edge, to keep puddled rainwater out. Not visible here, but under the box I made a three legged spider that locates the pipe in the chimney liner but offers no resistance to vertical movement. It's important to allow the stainless to expand upward as it heats.

 

[chowdozer]

The chimney cap. My own design, made from a stainless inverted Rambler hubcap. I went this way because I have never seen a chimney cap that wouldn't drip creosote all over the chimney.

The pic is upside down. The cap sits on three legs and has a piece of 1/2" SS tube to drain the center of rainwater.

I stubbled on this idea through trial and error. I like it because I never get any smoke in the house, even in 60mph winds. If anything, a windstorm tends to increase the draft. No complaints.

Here's how I keep the cap on. A piece of SS sheet with two 1/4" bolts welded to it and the threads cut off.

All put back together.

 

[chowdozer]

Back to the stove.

Originally, the stove had 4 metal feet on the bottom and it sat on some thin slate imbedded in mortar. The metal feet cracked and broke the slate apart. I welded to pieces of 1/4"x2" flatbar on the bottom of the stove and added 4 nylon coasters.

Then replaced the slate with a piece of terazzo I found in the local classifieds. I had to cut and polish it.

The stove moves in and out of position easily now.

 

[chowdozer]

Here's the draft control I added to the stove.

It's a piece of 2"x4" rect tube straight out the back turned 90 degrees and pointing right into the fireplace. I did this just in case sparks wanted to find their way out. The piece of 1/4" SS rod with the hoop bent in the end of it moves the plate that controls the draft. See that piece of 1/8"x1" flatbar making the arc? Here's a closeup.

The 1/4" rod the opens and closes the draft "clicks" on the little notch which is warmed up and ready to go operation.
Here's a bottom view.

 

[chowdozer]

Here's the business end. I made a stainless clamp from a section pipe. The bolt is not in it in this picture.

There are two aluminum angle legs in back that you'll see the reason for later.

Next, I pulled the clamp off and ran a piece of .030" stainless wire over the end of the pipe, then twisted it up. This will form a crimp in the pipe when clamped down over the stove outlet, keeping any creosote leaks under control.

A set of expansion pliers puts the clamp in place.

 

[chowdozer]

Looking up into the top of the fireplace firebox.

In this picture, the whole fireplace firebox is closed off from the chimney with a piece of aluminum. I cut a square hole in it for pipe clearance. The aluminum is screwed to the steel support on the front edge of the fireplace and those two legs I mentioned previously support the aluminum in the back. The adjustable stainless elbow has been welded solid.

To make the piece around the stovepipe with less than .020 clearance (cover the square hole I previously cut), I drilled the holes in the aluminum and the covers that go around the pipe, at the same time making these.

Lexan that had about a 1" clearance around the stovepipe. Bolted them in place and used a bunch of 1/4" strips to match the countor. 3M 77 spray glue. After I had a template, I cut them out of aluminum. Perfect.

 

[chowdozer]

A couple of things I will mention that I don't have pics of. The stovepipe is bolted to the steel the fireplace damper handle originally used which is embedded in the brick. The original fireplace damper is gone. It was pretty well rusted gone anyway. From the stove, the pipe is only a couple of inches horizontal before it goes 45 degrees upward heading for the original water shelf in the chimney. I knocked out a few bricks of the water shelf for clearance. The stovepipe has a support bolted to it that rests on the remainder of the watershelf.

That's about it.

 

[Dok]

Nice work CD! Let us know how it compares to an EPA stove?
Dok

 

[chowdozer]

Nice work CD! Let us know how it compares to an EPA stove?
Dok

In the past 10 years I have burned about 1.5 cord a year to heat 1200 sq ft. It does ok. I will probably add a secondary draft next year.