englander 28-3500 newbie mods

[Junebug90]

Hello everyone. I thought since I have read a lot on here I can share some as well. I have an englander 28-3500 wood add on. So here is the story. My wife and I moved from Colorado back to Michigan last October to help take care of my father who was ill. After Michigan's super cold winter and the large 2500sqft old farm house my dad owned we spend way to muchon propane. So my dad payed for a mmasonry chimney on the outside of the home and I payed for the furnace. I bout the 28-3500 after lots of research and bought it because it is like an old ford truck. Doesn't look pretty doesn't have bells and whistles doesn't get good gas mileage but doest cost a lot lasts forever if kept up and always gets the job done. So I didn't have time to cut wood I bought abundle of slab wood that was oak and sseasoned a year. It has been heating the house well since parts of Sept (mainly before bed and relit in morn tokeep the gas from turing on) on cold days. this has worked well for my wifeand dad who like it about 76 haha. So I have improved burn times and kept the air clean. First I added fire brick on the top shelf of the unit and under the baffle plate. Second I cut steel slats and drilled half inch holes in then to cover up the in and a quarter slats on the bottom. Third added a filter box to the back around the blower with the best filter I could get. And fourth stove thermometer on stove pipe 2 ft above the base. The fire brickhas kept the heat in longer alowing combustion to happen easier and retains heat about 1 hour after the coals die. (Forgot changed thermostat to 130 on 90 off) the slats helped keep the coals from falling into the ash pan but still allow ash to fall in. The filter box has helped alot. I noticed when I first started using the furnace everyone has a runny nose and now nothing. The filter has been in a month and looks like it has caught alot. And the thermometer has allowed me to know I could cut the bottom air control off after coals are present and shut slider bout half way. This reduced my exhaust Temps from way to hot to about 400. And if I feel bored can keep playing to get that down to 350 to extend burn times. Also the furnace duct is hooked into the propane plentem some 20 feet away. The blowers are all tied in. As in the wood blower kicks on the whole house blower and upstairs blower kick on as well. But the wood blower doesn't kick on when the propane runs alone. We will see how well it does in the colder months. I will probably get a truck full of logs haven't decided on all oak at 1800 or pine at 900 (all we burnt in co was pine just had to make sure we burned right) but we will be burning some pine regardless as that's what we have near by to cut. But for now the one bundle of slab wood is getting us by on cold days. I'll try and get photos up it doesn't seem to be working.

 

[Junebug90]

Photo one. New filter vs 2 month old filter.

 

[Junebug90]