# indoor wood furnace with good burn times???



## bigoak9745 (Mar 12, 2009)

I had a blazer wood furnace, forced air by Detecton iron Works.. 24 years , great furnace with long burn times. I had to replace it a year and a half ago. New unit saves on wood, is effecient, love it, but has 4-6 hour burn times...usually around 5 hours with dry hardwood no matter how I orientate the wood. I am getting tired of going to bed at 10:30 to have to set an alarm in cold weather to wake up before 3 am to be sure furnace is not out Plus if gone to work for 9 hours unit has ben out for a long time. Any one know of a indoor wood forced air furnace that has fairly long burn times?? 10 hours would be awesome!

Great site....hope you can help!

Dave


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## CrappieKeith (Mar 12, 2009)

Yukon makes some very efficient furnaces that give super long burn times.
How many square feet are you heating?


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## bigoak9745 (Mar 13, 2009)

Keith,

I heat about 2100 sq ft.  and my unit does it just fine, except for too short burn times.  Example - i went to work this morning, loaded stove got home 9 hours later completely out. Started new fire. got it going for about 45 minutes, then had to go pick up wife, loaded stove first , shut draft down. She wanted to go to neighboring town and eat, then get groceries. got home 5 hours and 20 mins later and stove completely out. House was warm. But then had to just now start another fire. SOunds like a long story but maybe others can see my point... My house has good quality windows and is well insulated.


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## CrappieKeith (Mar 13, 2009)

If you had a SJ125 heating your home you'd load it in the A.M. and in the P.M. before you went to bed.
It would always have a bed of coals in it when you went to reload.
Assuming of coarse that you are using dry hardwood.


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## mike1234 (Mar 13, 2009)

Need to know a little more about your set up.  For example, the stovepipe / chimney, how tall, do you have a baro damper in it, does the manual call for a baro?  How about a damper, I just quickly looked at the manual, but is there a damper in the stove? Or have you installed one in the stovepipe?  How do you run it, the air intake is set at?  Your thermometer is set at?     

From what I have learned, and not knowing enough yet to be too helpful, I'm guessing too much draft.  You have to slow the draft down by, cutting back the air intake to the furnace, or possibly a barometric damper, or stovepipe damper to fix it.  Again, without a little more info (and pics would be really helpful) this is only a guess, and mostly based on my experience and set up.

I did notice that even in the manual it says it is made for 6-8 hour burn times.




			
				bigoak9745 said:
			
		

> I had a blazer wood furnace, forced air by Detecton iron Works.. 24 years , great furnace with long burn times. I had to replace it a year and a half ago. New unit saves on wood, is effecient, love it, but has 4-6 hour burn times...usually around 5 hours with dry hardwood no matter how I orientate the wood. I am getting tired of going to bed at 10:30 to have to set an alarm in cold weather to wake up before 3 am to be sure furnace is not out Plus if gone to work for 9 hours unit has ben out for a long time. Any one know of a indoor wood forced air furnace that has fairly long burn times?? 10 hours would be awesome!
> 
> Great site....hope you can help!
> 
> Dave


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## CrappieKeith (Mar 13, 2009)

Good points Mike.You know plenty!


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## bigoak9745 (Mar 13, 2009)

Mike,

I do not have a damper on stovepipe of the 28-3500. The stovepipe is single wall going up 24 inces then a 90, going 24 inchest to block and flue chimney going from baseement thru house and attic 20ft. the thru roof another 4t. above peak in dead center of roof. I get stove going with good coals, fill it with dry oak/ashshut draft closed and slide damper all the way closed....still get only 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours.  THis Englander stove gives off great heat and was a good price, but burn times are not great. I have heard others say they also get about 6 hours. What burn times do you guys get with the Yukon Supr jacks? Do they have dealers in Michigan? How is the Price? I really love my set up with an inside furnace.. If the Yukon has a good burn time I might consider as I need to find a unit that will give at least 9 hours burn and 10 to 12 would really be great!

Thanks for any info...


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## mike1234 (Mar 13, 2009)

I think you need to figure out a way to slow down your draft, but you need to talk to someone who is more knowledgeable than I am to get that done.  

As far as the Yukon Superjack, Keith sells them, I just bought one last year and have 1 season of experience.   No showrooms, just yukon-eagle.com.  I have some pics of my setup on this forum someplace, just search for yukon or superjack on here.

Just a little info on my set up:  the furnace is in a drafty garage, hooked to the forced air system, and it is not the best set up in the world - the furnace is in the garage at one end of the house and has to push air all the way to the other end, instead of being in the middle.  I loose a lot of heat to the uninsulated garage.  I spent about 5000 to get all set up and going, that included about 1000 for stovepipe, and 1000 for HVAC install.  I heat a 4800 sq ft house to 74 or so.  I burned 5 or maybe 6 cords this season, but I could of burnt way less if I knew what I was doing.

I do get 8 hour burns in almost any weather, but I was getting 5, then 6, then 7 & 8 as the season wore on and as I learned what I was doing.  If the furnace was in the basement I could see 10 hours easy, but 12 seems like it would be exceptional (I expect 10 hours after I insulate and drywall the garage this summer).       

The big question I think:  Would I do it again, or knowing what I know now, and spending countless hours on this site, would I choose to something different?  My payback is about 2 years, maybe 2.5 depends on the price of propane.  I really, really enjoy the work of cutting firewood (I have 7 cords cut and stacked for next season, 2 cords still to me moved to the house and split if the mud will dry up).  Not to upset boiler people, but I am not a plumber, and it seems to me that the 10,000 or so for a boiler, with storage plus the constant pressure monitoring, and pump issues, and ... well I am glad I did not go that way.  So yes, I would do the exact same thing with the exact same furnace if I was to do it again.  The one exception, I'd run my cold air return a little differently, which I can still change, but that is not my favorite thing in the world to do.

The drawbacks:  
A.  It has been a challenge to burn clean.  I produce more creosote and soot than I think I should.  This has a few causes.  1.  Not all of this years wood has been the best, some of it was dead and standing only a week or so before it went in the stove.  2.  I tend to overload the stove.  3. It's difficult to balance the heat in the stovepipe and still have the barometric damper set at .03 (this is just my experience).   The good news for me on this, it takes 20 minutes to clean my stovepipe, so I do it monthly. 
B.  I burned more wood (5 or 6 cords) than I thought I would.  I do think I will cut that down to under 4 next year by insulating the garage, stop overloading the furnace, and I think I finally have the barometric damper set correctly.  

That is a lot of info, but if you are about to spend a few thousand $, I though you'd like as much info as possible.




			
				bigoak9745 said:
			
		

> Mike,
> 
> I do not have a damper on stovepipe of the 28-3500. The stovepipe is single wall going up 24 inces then a 90, going 24 inchest to block and flue chimney going from baseement thru house and attic 20ft. the thru roof another 4t. above peak in dead center of roof. I get stove going with good coals, fill it with dry oak/ashshut draft closed and slide damper all the way closed....still get only 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours.  THis Englander stove gives off great heat and was a good price, but burn times are not great. I have heard others say they also get about 6 hours. What burn times do you guys get with the Yukon Supr jacks? Do they have dealers in Michigan? How is the Price? I really love my set up with an inside furnace.. If the Yukon has a good burn time I might consider as I need to find a unit that will give at least 9 hours burn and 10 to 12 would really be great!
> 
> Thanks for any info...


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## bobfeather (Mar 14, 2009)

dave:  i have had a duo-matic wood furnace for 25 years ( grate-less )   fire is built on a bed of sand & fire literally does not go out during heating season   just get up in the morning , rake up the coals & toss in more wood   course wood is all dry & seasoned    even gotten lazy the last few years & when i clean out ashes every couple weeks i put hot coals in pail, shovel out ashes & put coals back in so i don't have to build another fire
am shopping for a new furnace for this coming season & the yukons look like a pretty good replacement
bob






			
				bigoak9745 said:
			
		

> I had a blazer wood furnace, forced air by Detecton iron Works.. 24 years , great furnace with long burn times. I had to replace it a year and a half ago. New unit saves on wood, is effecient, love it, but has 4-6 hour burn times...usually around 5 hours with dry hardwood no matter how I orientate the wood. I am getting tired of going to bed at 10:30 to have to set an alarm in cold weather to wake up before 3 am to be sure furnace is not out Plus if gone to work for 9 hours unit has ben out for a long time. Any one know of a indoor wood forced air furnace that has fairly long burn times?? 10 hours would be awesome!
> 
> Great site....hope you can help!
> 
> Dave


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## bigoak9745 (Mar 14, 2009)

Bob,

I was in kinda the same boat..I had a Blaze King furnace by detecton ironworks for 23 yrs. then the one wall warped and cracked. So I needed a replacement. Without much lead time.  My Blaze King would hold fire for 10 -12 hours with dry seasoned hardwood. New unit does great , but even with alot of trial cannot exceed 6 hours.  I sent to the company for some Yukon information. Might be just the ticket.


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## Gooserider (Mar 15, 2009)

BigOak - have you tried talking at all with Englander?  I know they seem to do a really good job on support for their regular and pellet stoves, it seems quite possible that they might be able to spot why you are having issues - possibly a setup problem, or some other thing that you can easily fix....  Might also be something that is inherent in the design, like a limit on how much wood you can stuff in the firebox, but it can't hurt to ask...

Gooserider


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## JustWood (Mar 15, 2009)

bigoak9745 said:
			
		

> Mike,
> 
> I do not have a damper on stovepipe of the 28-3500. The stovepipe is single wall going up 24 inces then a 90, going 24 inchest to block and flue chimney going from baseement thru house and attic 20ft. the thru roof another 4t. above peak in dead center of roof. I get stove going with good coals, fill it with dry oak/ashshut draft closed and slide damper all the way closed....still get only 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours.  THis Englander stove gives off great heat and was a good price, but burn times are not great. I have heard others say they also get about 6 hours. What burn times do you guys get with the Yukon Supr jacks? Do they have dealers in Michigan? How is the Price? I really love my set up with an inside furnace.. If the Yukon has a good burn time I might consider as I need to find a unit that will give at least 9 hours burn and 10 to 12 would really be great!
> 
> Thanks for any info...



This could be the problem wih short burn times.
 Chimney going up through center of house makes for a really good draft . Try putting a manual damper in your stovepipe. They are only $6.


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## CrappieKeith (Mar 16, 2009)

Your right about burn times Mike as too insulating that. Heating 4800 s/f is a big job for a furnace.
I'm happy to see your getting that done.

As to the rest of you folks. I have been using a Yukon for over a decade.I have talked to many that have had 1 for better then 3 decades.
We all share the same love for our furnce.


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## M1sterM (Mar 16, 2009)

Blah Ho Vick said:
			
		

> bigoak9745 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have a 28-3500...and in my opinion adding a chimney damper isn't needed, even with really strong draft.  There are two air controls on the front, and you can practically shut all the air down with those, as they are designed for exactly that purpose.  I generally leave the spinning air control on the ash-door open just a hair to prevent a build-up of coals (the upper slider is a little over 1/2 closed).  Even with that slight gap providing air from below, I have plenty of coals for a restart 8,9,10+ hours later.  I just throw the wood in, open the ash door for 5 minutes to get a nice flow through the coals and char the wood, and it's ready to go again.  It produces great heat for 5 hours, or so, and will cycle on-off for a couple more, and then lets the house cool back down to a comfortable temp for the next couple hours. Plenty of overnight heat for me.

Just my 2 cents.


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## bigoak9745 (Mar 17, 2009)

I sent a note to Englander support with details to see if they can help. I will await there reply. I will also consider the damper idea as my chimney set-up draws really good draft.

As always, thanks for the input!

Dave


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## bigoak9745 (Mar 24, 2009)

I know the Englander guys are sometimes on this forum...any idea how long to get a reply from Englander Tch Support normally? I sent them an e-mail with a picture attached a week ago and have not gotten a reply yet.  I know everybody is busy, so was just wondering.


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## Gooserider (Mar 24, 2009)

Usually they are pretty fast...  May help to give them a phone call, IIRC it's an 800 number, so that may be your best bet.  You might also see if you can flag Mike down with a PM, I suspect he probably spends more time over in the Pellet or Hearth rooms than he does here in Boiler Central.

Gooserider


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