Charmaster installed - pics

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DeanBrown3D

DeanBrown3D

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Oct 16, 2006
193
Princeton, NJ
Hello all,

After 1 year, and cutting it up and welding it back together again to fit it in the basement, I finally have installed my Charmaster Wood Controls furnace. I have blanked off my expen$ive electric heat furnace, and its not coming back on again until I run out of wood (hopefully never).

I've got 20" round duct for the supply, and the return is not finished yet, but its firing away and my house is finally nice and toasty. I'll let you all know how it is when it gets really cold (December 2, according to yahoo weather).

Here are some pics:
 

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DeanB, that is one nice looking stove ! Looks to be a great job on installation, though I know nothing about these types, it sure looks good to me.

Keep us posted on how it works, also, great pics. :-)


Robbie
 
Looks good have a nice warm winter.
 
Dean looks great. But I have some recomendations for further energy savings One the sill around your foundation should be sealed, The space between the rim and floor joist above the sill should be insulated. Also noticed in your pictures .,is exposed pipes and duct work also in need of insulation. Doing this will save energy and transmit more heat to the living space plus save you wood. I forgot to include sealing the duct joints with duct mastic.

Another note concerning your winter warm insert, and you issues with the cat combustor. I think I noticed the air inlet deflector plate missing in front of the cat area.
this plate is needed to direct thand channell the draft /smoke to properly enter the Cat combustor chamber. It might just be your combustor is ok but without proper drart deflection it overheats and glows red the delfector plate has a lot to do in how secondary exhaust is feed to the cat combustor,

savinmg heating cost money is a two fold soultion , wood heat and keeping the heat in that is produced


Keep up the good work
 
********************* !WARNING!*********************

!! Radioactive burning in progress. Please stand back !!

************************************************************

Good looking install , she looks hot and ready for winter. Awesome job DeanB
:bug: Whats with the radioactive looking coal!?!? :bug:
 

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Big Eric said:
Sure looks nice. As I told you before, I have been interested in getting one of those furnaces for myself. I see that you said that you had to tear it down and rebuild it in your basement. I too would have to do that and am wondering how that went. I thought about asking the company to ship it in pieces with instructions for reassembly into the basement. I think that is one thing these furnace manufacturers are overlooking when they build and ship furnaces. Not everyone can shove a behemoth down their stairs. The Charmaster certainly looks to be a behemoth. When I bought my crappy Vofelzang, I went with the smaller 1500 because of my restrictive entry to my basement. I didn't think the 2500 would fit without tearing it down and I really didn't want to do that too bad. The Charmaster claims to burn different from any other furnace and to use far less wood. I will be curious to see if it lives up to their claims for you.
Click to expand...

Eric - Charmaster does make that furnace in a bolt-together version for tighter spaces (unfortunately they forgot to mention this to me when I ordered it. So you won't have to cut it to pieces like I did. However, having done that, I am now quite well aquainted with the insides of mine!

Its quite warm these days in NJ, but last night and tonight I threw in a whole firebox full of wood and burned it up with the thermostat set on high (75), and now its keeping the house warm on gravity heat. There is a door on the left side of the furnace that opens when the fan is not running, so that you get a nice amount of gravity (free) heat even when the blower is not running. That kept the house warm last night (33 outside) until this morning.

Thanks to everyone else here for all their comments.

DeanB
 
Roospike said:
Radioactive burning Avatar ?
Click to expand...

Radioactive wood or nice piece of Stihl calendar ass? Let the others vote!

I think I set the camera set wrong, and the color got a little mangled!
 
I like em hot 'n glowin.
 

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Actually (and I used to work with radioactive materials), the radiation sign has a slightly larger gap between the central circle and the three fan blades. (Not that I'm picky or anything:))
 
Big Eric said:
Sure looks nice. As I told you before, I have been interested in getting one of those furnaces for myself.
Click to expand...

Eric - Get the delux version for sure. I really like the automatic gravity feed feature - a flap that opens up whenever the fan is not running. I use it now to keep the house hot and toasty all night on just charcoals (I burn a hot fire for a few hours to heat up the house when I come home from work, and after maybe 3 hours I shut the thing off with the thermostat, and the furnace is just hot coals and hot glowing logs (not much smoke), and that lasts all night. If you don't have the gravity feed, the fan would only come on very occasionally and you would waste a load of heat.)

Dean
 
Hi, I am looking into a charmaster furnace myself Wood/gas). but I was concerned on how much wood the unit would consume. I am also in Jersey also. How much wood do you use a month?

Marc
 
You will find more info over in the Boiler room forum. Man, I've missed Dean's avatar. ;-P
 
I've moved this over to the boiler room. Hopefully there will be some current feedback for you here.
 
Todd said:
You will find more info over in the Boiler room forum. Man, I've missed Dean's avatar. ;-P
Click to expand...

LMFAO I was just thinking the same damn thing when this thread bumped up and I opened it.
 
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