Appalachian 52 BAY Wood Stove Insert

[Woody Stover]

I have mine connected to an APC 1500 UPS backup battery,

So if the power goes out you can still run the fan? Do you have any idea how long you could run it off the battery?

 

[mellow]

With the fan on low I can eek out about 2 hours before it dies. I am looking into having a deep cycle battery with a converter hooked up in future, but really if the power is going to be out for a while I just hook up the generator to power the house.

 

[coltfever]

mellow what size is your liner 8 or 6 inch ? I have 8 on mine.

 

[mellow]

6 inch.

 

[wood4free]

Mellow and Coltfever I will soon be joining you. Service Sales offered a deal on the Appalachian 52 Bay I could not refuse and I will be picking it up next Tuesday at the freight terminal. I plan on using the Drolet insert for the remainder of the winter and installing the 52 Bay sometime this spring or summer when I have more time. Thanks again Mellow for answering my questions.

 

[coltfever]

Ok wood4free thats great. This is my first year winter with my 52 Bay. I enjoy it. I'm heating about 1800 sq ft with mine. I close off my upstairs because the way my house layout is just doesn't move heat upstairs. My longest burn time on a load has been 9 hrs of usable heat. Most of the time I run the fan on low and medium at bedtime. Whenever our temps drop into the teens will turn fan on high. Most of my wood is shagbark hickory with mix of cherry, walnut and hackberry. Anyway glad to hear you have a new stove on the way and looking forward to swaping notes.

 

[AppalachianStan]

Mellow and Coltfever I would like to know how your Stove run with 6" or 8" Pipe? I am running 8" I see Mellow get a 12 hour burn and Coltfever a 9 hour burn. I wonder if the pipe size makes any difference?
Like to swap notes on the 52 you all are the only ones I know that has this stove.

 

[mellow]

Mellow and Coltfever I would like to know how your Stove run with 6" or 8" Pipe? I am running 8" I see Mellow get a 12 hour burn and Coltfever a 9 hour burn. I wonder if the pipe size makes any difference?
Like to swap notes on the 52 you all are the only ones I know that has this stove.

Look up 3 posts for your answer about the pipe size. The 52 bay works on either 6" or 8", you might be able to get away with a shorter 8" liner, still would need at least 15 ft of pipe. Not really sure what "notes" you want to swap, you need to get cats put in yours for it to work as it was designed.

Wood will also make a difference in burn times, I burn hardwoods, (Maple,oak,gum)

Colt bought his used so his cats might be a little bit weaker than mine, that would affect burn times.

 

[AppalachianStan]

Will you all are the only 2 I know that has this stove, but yours is the newer ones and my stove is from 1979. I have 8" X 15' of pipe. Is there a big difference in burn time for the size of pipe? My glass blacken too, What dose your air wash look like? I see you have a metal cap over your bypass rod I don,t have that. My cats are smaller then yours. my ash pan sound difference then yours. and so on. and it will cost me $200 for the cats. How much wood do you put in your stove?

 

[mellow]

Air wash on front window is not that great and it will darken up easily, the glass on the side windows has no air wash system. I fit in about 6 medium sized 18-22" splits going E/W into mine for an overnight burn, the longer splits go in towards the front. Mine has a 2.8 cubic ft firebox.

 

[AppalachianStan]

I burn N/S it burns better for me. 16" long 2" to 3" size split for me. 6 split will get my stove to about 650" for about a 4 hour burn with out cats. not sure of size of firebox I have.

 

[coltfever]

Stan my insert is connected on a 8 inch insulated liner. The reason for 8 inch is because my other stove required that so it worked out good. The max burn time on my stove might be alittle less is because I have to use a little more primary air on my setup. My wood stove loading size are about the same as mellow. I have very little oak hardwood. Most of mine are hickory and I have plenty of it. I sure do enjoy my 52 Bay. Big improvement over my older stove. I don't always go for the 9 hour burn time but its there if needed. As far as the air wash design. Forget it. I just try to keep my glass clean like most do and thats doing it myself. If you use yours as a catalytic stove as it supposed to be put the probe on there as mellow suggested it should be a very good working stove for you.

 

[AppalachianStan]

Coltfever what is the height of your chimney?

 

[coltfever]

Stan my house is 2 story and if I remember right when I put the liner in it was 23 feet. So the chimney is about 25 feet tall.

 

[mellow]

While the stove was cold I finally got a pic of the furnace cement over my ash dump, it is holding up very well.

 

[JMartin]

Stan, I have an Appalachian 32 insert made in the early 80's I believe. I'll bet our stoves have a lot in common. Thinking about putting in new combustors in the off season, maybe drilling a hole for a cat probe. Were you able to find a manual for yours? I contacted Appalachian and all they had was one for the newer 32BW stove.

 

[AppalachianStan]

Were you able to find a manual for yours?

No I can not find a manual for the 52

 

[Pelfrey]

if they take too much longer give me a ring
we stock them but i doubt they are on our website...

I have a 52 BW. Can you give me any advice on a Blower problem? My blower will kick on at the right time when in auto mode (or manual/test) then once the stove continues to heat up after about 20 minutes it will turn off and wont work in auto or manual. Then once the fire begins to die down and cool, the blower will kick back on and shut off at the correct time (auto mode)

 

[Heatsource]

^ sounds like a bad snap disc
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/anyone-know-how-to-test-a-snap-disc.86248/

 

[mellow]

Yep, bad snap disc, heck mine stays on for what I feel is to long after the fire has died down, starts blowing out semi hot air. Have to shut it off manually.

 

[mellow]

Finally got around to cleaning my chimney last weekend, very pleased with the buildup, the cap had a small amount of buildup on it, no where near getting clogged and the last few feet had some buildup due to not being insulated, you can tell in the picture where the insulation blanket starts and the buildup goes to nothing, guess I will have to stuff some Roxul down there. Total clean out was maybe half a cup of fine dusty creosote mostly from the top shown in the pic, very happy with that seeing since I ran 2 cords though the insert this year.

 

[mellow]

Looking to see if anyone has a Bay 52 made BEFORE 2007, what I am looking for is on top (not the one above the door) of the insert will be a port/hole to put in a temperature probe behind the cat, I could really use the dimensions on where that port is located on the top. Thanks.

 

[mellow]

Ok guys, I think my hunch was right. The Cat on these stoves is rear facing, so I wondered if a lot of the heat was shooting to the back of the stove and transferred to the brick on the back of the fireplace instead of going out via the fan to the front.

I can say for sure that since I have installed Durock + Roxul on the back and top and Durock on the sides of my fireplace the Appalachian is a different animal, I now get longer hotter burns, I had issues with getting the insert to get up higher in temp when I needed more BTU's in the room on cold windy days, now I am able to get the top right hand side to 400-450 with ease with the cat purring at 1500, couldn't get the top that warm before.

If you are thinking about doing this I would recommend getting Micore 300 as that has a higher R value, that will be my next upgrade now that I know this helps.

In case you haven't seen it this is my thread on the insulation: Finally got around to insulating my fireplace

 

[mellow]

Have any of you guys had to adjust the door latch? Mine is getting wobbly and not latching good, I have about destroyed my door gasket with having to get it tight. Thinking as soon as this season is done I will take the door off and take it apart to see if I can re-engineer this thing, it is piss poor done.

 

[Woody Stover]

Is it like the Buck 91, two set screws? One set screw was missing on mine when I got it. Once I saw that and got it replaced, it's been fine.

You can't see the cam in this pic but you can just see the edge of the hole where the other set screw was supposed to be....
(broken image removed)