Stove mdifacation

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I read that earlier post about Outdoor Wood Boilers and was interested in the link about a guy who modified hos boiler
to have secondary burn capabilities.
(broken link removed)
Has anyone done this to a wood burning stove.
It would be a fun project to convert an old unused stove
as a test. Not for real use.
I have an old coal Efel stove. I might try it on this summer.

 

[Corey]

I added secondary burn and an insulated firebrick baffle to my insert and also converted it from the old style "stick it in your fireplace and seal the opening to get good draft" to having a standard 6" fully lined flue opening. You will need to have good welding and fabrication skills, and a general understanding of what is going on in the stove and how metals react under high heat / thermal cycling conditions, but it's not really rocket science to go out and look at new stoves on the market then come up with a plan on how to retrofit that technology to your old stove.

My big question is that if you go through all that work and make an old stove more efficient and burn cleaner than it ever has, why would you limit it to "Not for real use" ?

Corey

 

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What are the Burn tubes made of?
What woulod happen to threaded Black Pipe
under those temps?

 

[Corie]

Probably bad things. Not sure though, I'm not a metalurgist. Roo or some others might be able to help.


The burn tubes in my stove are Sched. 40 304 Stainless Steel Seamless Pipe.


Its overkill, but they work.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Probably bad things. Not sure though, I'm not a metalurgist. Roo or some others might be able to help.


The burn tubes in my stove are Sched. 40 304 Stainless Steel Seamless Pipe.


Its overkill, but they work.

yours is the correct material, "black iron " pipe aint gonna do it

 

[BrotherBart]

In my old stove Sierra had implemented a fairly decent secondary burn by just leaving the top of the glass panels in the doors ungasketed. Obviously not sufficient to pass EPA tests, since they went out of business, but at 500 degrees with the primary air shut down to twenty percent or so the blue flames rolled up under the baffle a few inches over the top of the wood for hours. And no smoke.

 

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If my modification's work I would use it for real, but I know it might fail and at some point you but up against the law of diminishing returns, a new stove might be cheaper.
My Efel coal unit is big and cast iron, lots of room to spare inside. It has a small door right above the coal bed for an ash rake, it works great as a primary air intake.
Right now when I am not burning coal but using it for wood, I loosen the door latch so its closed but not sealed tight, and use the ash rake door as a primary supply. I swear I often get the blue floating flames dancing above the fire. Once the stove gets rolling, I shut down my "primary" and with the door just cracked a pinch, she rolls right along.

It would be great to add some real secondary burn tubes and ditch coal all together.