Fire Chief FC1500 install

[Case1030]

Yup... good old blue painters tape. This allowed the fire to take off, didn’t want to touch it once it got going as I wanted to get a baseline. Will close off ½ of the opening in a couple hours.

View attachment 238189

Maybe in the end I could install some controller to control the opening?

Yeah honestly I think you would be better off with a motor damper.

If you could unbolt that motor and install a flap door you might get somewhere. The power for that induction fan should be able to power the damper door. You could also put stove pipe manual damper in to fine tune your draft aswell.

 

[brenndatomu]

Flue temps reached 1,000 degrees and the draft measured 0.2” WC

That's just nuts.
Oh, and I meant to reply to your post about the temp and WC measurement being predictable...yes, it is all tied together.
Once you know what draft your chimney pulls at a given temp...you can know what one or the other will be by having either one of the measurements.
This is assuming that there is no other factors involved....a baro, stove door or damper open vs closed, etc.
Its kinda like driving a stick shift car...once you know the RPM that you are turning in 5th gear at a given MPH...you can figure out one with just having the other...

 

[JRHAWK9]

Southern section of Manitoba, about 20 mins north of Winnipeg. How about yourself?

Looks like we are getting some nice weather starting Thursday. View attachment 238179

That's in fahrenheit ^

Now that's cold!

We will be getting cold (well, a bit chilly to you guys up there ) next weekend.

I think the coldest it's ever been here in the past 4-5 years was -21°. We normally are good for one or two cold snaps a winter. Have not had one yet this winter though. I'm in the Wisconsin Dells, area of WI....kinda south-central WI.

Not to stir crap up here...

Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers! You could be right, but I do remember reading about someone's meter going off and it being traced to that ashpan thing and after it was fixed the meter stopped going off. I have a couple CO meters and I can tell you if they go off there's too much CO in the house for my taste. Even if the alarm doesn't go off, doesn't mean there isn't CO being sent into the house by that design. The alarm being triggered solely by that ashpan design is not cool, IMO anyway. Heck, it's not safe to store ashes inside the house either because of that CO danger.

When it's cold out and I load on a nice healthy bed o' coals, I can get some smoke spillage, as I removed the smoke baffle. One of my meters is right near one of our heat registers, on purpose. This one will record the max ppm of CO it senses and displays it. The most I've seen is 11ppm. I check it quite frequently during winter and reset it when it does register something. I've even checked it before loading, saw it was '0', loaded the furnace where I did have some smoke spillage and then came back to check it a bit later to find it reading something. Looking at my manual, the alarm goes off when it reaches a level of 70ppm.

Anyway, didn't mean stir things up.....the issue may have been blown out of proportion, however, it was still an "issue", IMO, should have been taken care of sooner than what it was.

Speaking of CO and this Hy-C....Mrpelletburner, do you have a CO meter??? I probably would.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

Think I have 4 or 5 CO detectors installed.

 

[brenndatomu]

Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers!

Feathers are preened and proper...its all good!

Think I have 4 or 5 CO detectors installed.

Good man!

 

[maple1]

Ok today I removed the smoke shield as I wanted to test really loading the stove.

Loaded at 12:50 and it took about an hour or so, but the house reached 75 degrees with an outside temp of 18.

View attachment 238184

At 6 pm the stove started to cycle and the house temp started to drop. So I decided to open her up, snap a photo and reload.

View attachment 238185

Flue temps reached 1,000 degrees and the draft measured 0.2” WC.

I am no expert, but it still feels as if the fuel doesn’t really last.

1000 - yikes. Your wood is being freight trained right up your chimney. I would consider unplugging your draft fan for a load.

 

[Case1030]

1000 - yikes. Your wood is being freight trained right up your chimney. I would consider unplugging your draft fan for a load.

I'm pretty sure that's without his draft fan kicking in, also with half the primary taped off.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

I'm pretty sure that's without his draft fan kicking in.

Yup... had the draft blower on for the first 15 mins to help the load catch.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

1000 - yikes. Your wood is being freight trained right up your chimney. I would consider unplugging your draft fan for a load.

This and the draft is what I am waiting for HY-C to solve. They also have stated I should not have 1,000 flue temps, not even close, more 400-500. So if they can figure out why all my heat is going up the flue, perhaps they can solve the short burn times. I think by cutting off primary air and seeing an impact, we can rule out air entering from another inlet. Also the front to back triangle burn should tell us the stove is burning the fuel correctly.

Since I am still newer and never owning a correctly functioning stove, I am not sure how a stove should burn. For you 12+ hour guys, do you ever have to engage the draft blower? Do you use the thermostat to let the stove idle until it calls for heat? From the start I have let the stove catch and go until there is nothing left.

 

[woodey]

[QUOTE="JRHAWK9, post: 2326791






I have a Home Depot storage bin sitting on a platform scale right in between my wood rack and furnace. I throw the pieces from the wood rack into the bin until I see the weight I want to load for for the time period and outside temp and then slide it off the scale next to the door of the Kuuma.

I have a spreadsheet I use to keep records of wood/LP usage. I have a minute timer on my LP furnace.

See, OCD tenancies can be a benefit if you can harness them




Good to see that you have the OCD issues harnessed in.

 

[Case1030]

This and the draft is what I am waiting for HY-C to solve. They also have stated I should not have 1,000 flue temps, not even close, more 400-500. So if they can figure out why all my heat is going up the flue, perhaps they can solve the short burn times. I think by cutting off primary air and seeing an impact, we can rule out air entering from another inlet. Also the front to back triangle burn should tell us the stove is burning the fuel correctly.

Since I am still newer and never owning a correctly functioning stove, I am not sure how a stove should burn. For you 12+ hour guys, do you ever have to engage the draft blower? Do you use the thermostat to let the stove idle until it calls for heat? From the start I have let the stove catch and go until there is nothing left.

Most of the high efficiency stoves don't use blowers. For instance the Kumma and Tundra don't use a blower.

Whenever I think of blowers on a stove or furnace. I think of a coal unit or the guy trying to burn green wood. It's not really practical when burning proper seasoned wood.

Especially with the amount of chimney draft you have, it's comparable to having a blower on 24/7 or power exhaust.

 

[Case1030]

This and the draft is what I am waiting for HY-C to solve. They also have stated I should not have 1,000 flue temps, not even close, more 400-500. So if they can figure out why all my heat is going up the flue, perhaps they can solve the short burn times. I think by cutting off primary air and seeing an impact, we can rule out air entering from another inlet. Also the front to back triangle burn should tell us the stove is burning the fuel correctly.

Since I am still newer and never owning a correctly functioning stove, I am not sure how a stove should burn. For you 12+ hour guys, do you ever have to engage the draft blower? Do you use the thermostat to let the stove idle until it calls for heat? From the start I have let the stove catch and go until there is nothing left.

You will be hard pressed to find an indoor induction blower furnace capable of burn times in the 12 hour range. The OWB guys with blowers can get 24 hours but they are loading 4ft logs in there units.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Good to see that you have the OCD issues harnessed in.

Never said harnessed in....just that I'm using them to my benefit. Without them, I wouldn't have things working as well as they are.

 

[brenndatomu]

Most of the high efficiency stoves don't use blowers.

NONE of the high efficiency stoves use forced draft...that I know of. None available in this country anyways.
As I have stated here before...I HATE a forced draft stove...based on past experience.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

NONE of the high efficiency stoves use forced draft...that I know of. None available in this country anyways.
As I have stated here before...I HATE a forced draft stove...based on past experience.

Believe the goal is to run the stove without needed the draft blower kicking in?

BTW what happens when the thermostat calls for heat on one of these other stoves? Does a flap open to allow more primary air?

 

[Case1030]

Believe the goal is to run the stove without needed the draft blower kicking in?

BTW what happens when the thermostat calls for heat on one of these other stoves? Does a flap open to allow more primary air?

Yeah that's the idea. Also with your draft being so high I'd try to figure out a way to cut your secondary air at least in half to compensate for the high draft or put a flue damper in.

 

[brenndatomu]

Does a flap open to allow more primary air?

Exactly...that's why its so important to have the chimney draft tightly controlled...its makes a big difference on how much air I being pulled through the firebox! It does the same on forced draft units too...whether or not HY-C realizes it, or wants to admit it...
Most company's want the chimney draft to be between -0.04" and -0.06" WC...definitely no more than that. Yukon specs 0.03"...period.

 

[maple1]

This and the draft is what I am waiting for HY-C to solve. They also have stated I should not have 1,000 flue temps, not even close, more 400-500. So if they can figure out why all my heat is going up the flue, perhaps they can solve the short burn times. I think by cutting off primary air and seeing an impact, we can rule out air entering from another inlet. Also the front to back triangle burn should tell us the stove is burning the fuel correctly.

Since I am still newer and never owning a correctly functioning stove, I am not sure how a stove should burn. For you 12+ hour guys, do you ever have to engage the draft blower? Do you use the thermostat to let the stove idle until it calls for heat? From the start I have let the stove catch and go until there is nothing left.

I find it pretty mind boggling they can't connect overdraft to high flue temps & short burn times.

 

[JRHAWK9]

I find it pretty mind boggling they can't connect overdraft to high flue temps & short burn times.

I'm guessing they do know this, however seeing the furnace is not designed properly they are simply flying by the seat of their pants trying to come up with the perfect combination of bull$hit in order to try to make the owner happy.

 

[brenndatomu]

I'm guessing they do know this, however seeing the furnace is not designed properly they are simply flying by the seat of their pants trying to come up with the perfect combination of bull$hit in order to try to make the owner happy.

That and they know that they don't burn clean enough to use a baro and not make creosote.

 

[maple1]

Yup... good old blue painters tape. This allowed the fire to take off, didn’t want to touch it once it got going as I wanted to get a baseline. Will close off ½ of the opening in a couple hours.

View attachment 238189

Maybe in the end I could install some controller to control the opening?

If you haven't yet - I think I would go right to the end of the spectrum, tape that hole completely over, and try that.

If you still have all your heat going up the flue and short burn times - then there are even deeper problems (hard to believe) with air getting in somewhere else it shouldn't be.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

If you haven't yet - I think I would go right to the end of the spectrum, tape that hole completely over, and try that.

If you still have all your heat going up the flue and short burn times - then there are even deeper problems (hard to believe) with air getting in somewhere else it shouldn't be.

I did tape off the opening and the stove temp dropped, couldn’t even heat the plenum. told HY-C suggested closing off the air 1/16th at a time. Would be helpful if the stove had a glass door.

 

[maple1]

OK. Maybe you posted earlier & I missed it.

1/16 at a time, eh? That is evidence right there how touchy having too much draft is. Then with changing draft conditions (like, say if the wind blows), you'd need to be changing the air opening all the time.

They are completely & cluelessly off the mark and chasing wild gooses, taking you along for the ride while at it - man, you have more patience that I ever would have with this. So kudos for that - if it helps.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

Didn’t hear from HY-C today, however they are probably still digging out from the snow.

Anyways, not necessarily a breakthrough but small progress.

Loaded at 4:20 on a nice 3” bed of hot embers.

It’s 9:30 and the stove is still providing some great heat and will probably go for at least an hour more, at least.

Is that good or am I now just making myself crazy?

Now and a big now... it’s not 10 degrees outside. It’s 20 and the house has been able to maintain 73 degrees (first floor).

Last detail... flue temp is a steady 550 degrees.

 

[brenndatomu]

Is that good or am I now just making myself crazy?

Well if that don't make ya crazy, this should!
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/firechief-1700.164366/page-2#post-2327605