Fire Chief or Shelter EPA stoves feedback

[Mrpelletburner]

Not sure I'm grasping what the 2 hour gap is either. Did it smoulder for 2 hours before it really took off?

Yup... happened to wake up around 5:15am, remember I loaded at 3:30, and the fire box was only 250degs. Opened the load door for about 1 min and 15mins later the stove just took off like a rocket.

 

[maple1]

That's not right. Erratic operation - another item for the list. Sounds again like a secondary deficiency.

I don't think I could sleep at night after seeing that glowing metal....

 

[Medic21]

That's not right. Erratic operation - another item for the list. Sounds again like a secondary deficiency.

I don't think I could sleep at night after seeing that glowing metal....

I get that in mine occasionally. Not something I'm too concerned with and it doesn't last very long.

 

[laynes69]

That's crazy! That would be it for me. It takes no time to fatigue metal cycling heat like that. If an outage occurred and the furnace didn't have a fan to cool it, I would worry about a house fire. I've never seen a woodfurnace glow like that! Nope, I would demand my money back.

 

[maple1]

There is no way I would keep burning this thing. Looking again I think I see over 300° in your plenum? I'm not a furnace guy, but I think that is well into house fire danger territory. Laynes is right - if your blower stops, what will happen to all that heat? Seems out of control before it even gets to that.

 

[Boilers]

Yup... happened to wake up around 5:15am, remember I loaded at 3:30, and the fire box was only 250degs. Opened the load door for about 1 min and 15mins later the stove just took off like a rocket.

Was the thermostat calling for heat but the furnace not putting any out?

Why wouldnt you just rely on the fan to turn on and blow in some fresh oxygen to get the fire going instead of opening the door?

 

[brenndatomu]

There is no way I would keep burning this thing. Looking again I think I see over 300° in your plenum? I'm not a furnace guy, but I think that is well into house fire danger territory.

X1000!
317* is CRAAAAZY high plenum temps! I get nervous if I ever see over 200*...wood (house framing) has been proven to spontaneously combust under 200* (after years of pyrolysis, but still, it can/does happen)
DO NOT KEEP BURNING THIS PILE OF SCRAP! YOU ARE WELL INTO FIRE HAZARD TERRITORY HERE! (caps for emphasis...not yelling)
And having to open the door to "get it to take off"...yet more proof it is being starved for air...but then after it takes off, crazy high temps...this equals uncontrollable and unsafe!
They are lucky you have this thing and not me...I am normally pretty laid back, but after all this, I'd be loading this thing in my truck and personally delivering it back to St Louis, or wherever they are made...and not to save them the shipping cost either...
My 2 cents...

 

[Mrpelletburner]

Moved the plenum thermocouple, as it was sitting to close to the area above the fire box (not sure what you would call this area). Located it to where the Honeywell high limit switch temp prob is. So far the temperature appears to be much cooler and not so scary.

Was the thermostat calling for heat but the furnace not putting any out?

Yes, thermostat was at 68 degrees and was set for 74 degrees. Was not enough heat from the fire box to kick on the blower. The only thing I can think of is I did not let the load char enough before closing the load door.

Why wouldn't you just rely on the fan to turn on and blow in some fresh oxygen to get the fire going instead of opening the door?

Draft blower was working the whole time, just was not supplying enough fresh air IMO. Opening the door was like instant fire.

I think what they need to do is extend the upside down "L" channel and make it an upside down "U". The draft blower supplied just the draft for the draft blower and the other side supplies the secondary burn air.

So far today, with the stove loaded, properly chared, the stove has been running at 800 degrees, flue temps of ~350-400 and no orange glow.

 

[maple1]

This 'charring' phase should also not be required IMO. I have a boiler, not a furnace - but I can reload full on some coals and be gassing (secondary burning ) as soon as I close the door & bypass. It is pretty well instant - actually usually as soon as I get the wood in, before I get a chance to close it back up. As far as I know most furnaces are that way also, more or less - maybe not instant but I don't think requiring a babysitting charring phase. I also get secondary burning going very quick after a cold start doing nothing special - usually 5 minutes or less after lighting the fire, I close the bypass and away it goes. It starts out kind of slow, but is a very well controlled build up. Without any controls - just well designed air intake & routing, and natural draft.

 

[brenndatomu]

Draft blower was working the whole time, just was not supplying enough fresh air IMO. Opening the door was like instant fire.

Exactly...not enough air. So this was another one of those situations where sooner or later there would have been a big POOF...and away she goes. But you intervened before that happened...I'm surprised you didn't get a big POOF when you opened the door.

Yes, thermostat was at 68 degrees and was set for 74 degrees. Was not enough heat from the fire box to kick on the blower

Surprised that wasn't hot enough to kick the fan on...what temp does that usually happen at?

Moved the plenum thermocouple, as it was sitting to close to the area above the fire box (not sure what you would call this area). Located it to where the Honeywell high limit switch temp prob is. So far the temperature appears to be much cooler and not so scary.

I'd call it the heat exchanger (HE or HX) for lack of a better term.
That's good that moving it dropped the temp...if those were the for real plenum air temps...that's just NUTS!

I think what they need to do is extend the upside down "L" channel and make it an upside down "U". The draft blower supplied just the draft for the draft blower and the other side supplies the secondary burn air.

Yes, 100% completely agree, the secondary air needs to be on its own (natural draft) source...draft blower for primary air only.
Ever suggested this to them?
Talked to anybody at FC/HY-C today, or lately?
EDIT: Thinking a bit more about this...I think somebody brought up earlier about never seeing an EPA firebox with a draft blower before...and I was thinking about how the secondary air source needs to be separate...I wonder if they are both from the same source because if they weren't, the draft blower could possibly (under the right circumstances) "pressurize" the firebox and blow smoke (CO) out the secondary intake if it was natural draft?

 

[Mrpelletburner]

And I thought I was done with the back flashing.

Loaded some small splits (fire starter splits) at 8:13pm and at 8:46pm had several back puffing. Flue temps were between 200-300 degrees, draft 0.08” W.C.

Yes I really pained the wall black so I could better see the smoke

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[brenndatomu]

Dang it all!

 

[Boilers]

Yes, thermostat was at 68 degrees and was set for 74 degrees. Was not enough heat from the fire box to kick on the blower. The only thing I can think of is I did not let the load char enough before closing the load door.

Draft blower was working the whole time, just was not supplying enough fresh air IMO. Opening the door was like instant fire.

I think what they need to do is extend the upside down "L" channel and make it an upside down "U". The draft blower supplied just the draft for the draft blower and the other side supplies the secondary burn air.

So far today, with the stove loaded, properly chared, the stove has been running at 800 degrees, flue temps of ~350-400 and no orange glow.

this may seem like a dumb question, but is your draft blower working properly? Air passages clear? Motor wired correctly and spinning the right direction? Can you pull the motor/fan off the furnace and run it to verify that its pushing air? Maybe hotwire the it and with the stove off, verify that air is coming out of both the primary and secondary passages...

Something definitely seems off with the air delivery. with the draft blower running, the fire wont build up, but open the door for a minute and the fire takes off...

 

[Mrpelletburner]

Not a dumb question at all. I did double check and you can feel the air being pushed out of the draft blower and into the stove.

Something that I have found and doesn't follow the manual is to pull the hot coals towards the front right side of the stove (air inlet) and reload towards the back of the stove. This allows the draft blower to supply air directly to the hot coals, allowing the stove to recover faster.

I believe the manual incorrect and written for the older non EPA version of the stove. As the manual states to "spread embers evenly over the grate". The problem is the ash grate is small and in the middle of the fire box, where the older non EPA version had a grate front to back with the draft blower supplying air front to back.

Perhaps they should redesign the draft blower supply to air under the hot coals or across the front lip of the stove, rather than just the right side.


Something else I have noticed is the rear of the stove always builds up cold coals, which IMO is wasted potential heat.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Not a dumb question at all. I did double check and you can feel the air being pushed out of the draft blower and into the stove.

Something that I have found and doesn't follow the manual is to pull the hot coals towards the front right side of the stove (air inlet) and reload towards the back of the stove. This allows the draft blower to supply air directly to the hot coals, allowing the stove to recover faster.

I believe the manual incorrect and written for the older non EPA version of the stove. As the manual states to "spread embers evenly over the grate". The problem is the ash grate is small and in the middle of the fire box, where the older non EPA version had a grate front to back with the draft blower supplying air front to back.

Perhaps they should redesign the draft blower supply to air under the hot coals or across the front lip of the stove, rather than just the right side.


Something else I have noticed is the rear of the stove always builds up cold coals, which IMO is wasted potential heat.

I am going to try this in mine tonight (raking to the front) and follow up with my results.

 

[maple1]

Something definitely seems off with the air delivery. with the draft blower running, the fire wont build up, but open the door for a minute and the fire takes off...

I think it's more like, with the draft blower running it doesn't put enough secondary air where it needs to go so it is burning dirty and incompletely. Then with a fresh dose of air from the door opening the dirties that should have been burning off but instead were partly building up (what wasn't going up the stove pipe) took off.

 

[brenndatomu]

I believe the manual incorrect and written for the older non EPA version of the stove. As the manual states to "spread embers evenly over the grate".

I agree, that sounds wrong.

Perhaps they should redesign the draft blower supply to air under the hot coals or across the front lip of the stove, rather than just the right side.

No EPA fireboxes have "air under fire". They won't pass the emissions test due to the air coming up through the coals/ash causes more fly ash to end up in the flue gasses...

 

[Medic21]

It won't let me post the two minute video.

I just lit mine again and with it burning good I shut it up and the fire died off till I opened the door again. This was with the blower slide opened all the way and enough heat to cycle the fan. This is the problem and I know a couple guys from HY-C are looking at this thread.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

Load it to YouTube?

 

[Medic21]

Load it to YouTube?

I'm not as smart as you kids. I use computers to chart EMS runs, make power points, and look up porn.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

LOL.... I use my iPhone to send videos to YouTube and my Nest camera has a YouTube upload feature.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

It won't let me post the two minute video.

I just lit mine again and with it burning good I shut it up and the fire died off till I opened the door again. This was with the blower slide opened all the way and enough heat to cycle the fan. This is the problem and I know a couple guys from HY-C are looking at this thread.

I'm having the same exact identical issue with mine. Unfortunately I had to cover our fire station last night so I didn't get a chance to run it like I wanted to. I'll be able to do it today though.

 

[Mrpelletburner]

From all the 24/7 video captured for my setup, loading it typically takes a minimum of 40 minutes for the splits to produce heat, depending on how many splits were added and size of splits. Keeping the load door or clean out has not seemed to speed up this process as when you close the door the smoke from the burn puts the fire out.

From my understanding, with this stove, when loading, the primary air does not "ignite" the wood, rather causes it to become charred and smolder. The amount of splits I have been adding all depends on the size of the bed of hot coals (this has been a learning process).

For overnight loads, I load half the fire box, then 40 minutes later I fill to the top. Following this method, I have been able to keep the house at 72 till ~5:30 - 6 am (outside temps 15 - 25 degrees). At this time, the bed of coals is not enough to reload and keep the house above 70 degrees. So the house temperature tends to drop to 68 degrees and recovers back to 71 around 8 am.

I think our pain is the 40-60+ minute recovery time.

Of course the above is just speculation based on my case.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

From all the 24/7 video captured for my setup, loading it typically takes a minimum of 40 minutes for the splits to produce heat, depending on how many splits were added and size of splits. Keeping the load door or clean out has not seemed to speed up this process as when you close the door the smoke from the burn puts the fire out.

From my understanding, with this stove, when loading, the primary air does not "ignite" the wood, rather causes it to become charred and smolder. The amount of splits I have been adding all depends on the size of the bed of hot coals (this has been a learning process).

For overnight loads, I load half the fire box, then 40 minutes later I fill to the top. Following this method, I have been able to keep the house at 72 till ~5:30 - 6 am (outside temps 15 - 25 degrees). At this time, the bed of coals is not enough to reload and keep the house above 70 degrees. So the house temperature tends to drop to 68 degrees and recovers back to 71 around 8 am.

I think our pain is the 40-60+ minute recovery time.

Of course the above is just speculation based on my case.

I have seen this exact behavior. When you reload, do you adjust the door at all? I have struggled to maintain firebox temperatures even doing one layer of splits at a time.

And I already know what the factory is going to say- "Your wood is too wet"

 

[Mrpelletburner]

I have seen this exact behavior. When you reload, do you adjust the door at all? I have struggled to maintain firebox temperatures even doing one layer of splits at a time.

And I already know what the factory is going to say- "Your wood is too wet"

The slider is opened between 3/8-1/2" and pinched with a clamp. I do not adjust the opening as I am trying to eliminate variables.

Since we are towards the end of the season, I have been bringing in wood as needed. Which means the wood is cold and, IMO, burns best at room temperature. Therefore cold wood I split into smaller splits before loading, which seems to help. I also split ahead, so the wood has time to sit and reach room temperature faster. In your case, this would help dry out the wood faster.

Draft setting



Really nice seasoned wood... perhaps to dry



Just brought in from the outside and split. Notice the wood is a different color?



Using the cheap meter.. don't believe the reading