The old smoke dragon is finally installed.
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I went back and read the post over again. Absolutely Beautiful!
!I went back and read the post over again. Absolutely Beautiful
!
Good evening Scott,
Beautiful stove. I just started a thread on an old stove we purchased at auction and are hoping to refurbish. Any pointers you have as you break in and burn would be appreiciated. We won't burn until next season as the refurbish will likely be a winter project for the boys and I. We're just trying to heat a 600 SF room and I am figuring on placing the stove 3' from the exterior wall. Floor is already ceramic tile on concrete. Seems to me a striait pipe (double wall, etc.) through the vaulted ceiling would be best, but my better half wants it installed through the wall, not ceiling. At any rate, I wanted to say hi as your posts have been helpful already and we seem to have some things in common.
I am a civil engineer who also grew up cutting and splitting wood, with my dad and brother. We actually heat our house with a long wood stove that fuctions on gas or wood. We'll burn 6-8 truckloads in the winter and maybe $750 of propane. I'm not worried about efficiencies per se and theres no code to speak of here in the sticks. Heck, even my insurance agent said he didn't have a problem with it and trusted I would set it up right, though I was looking at new stove then. I work for a home builder, developer, septic installer, commericial const. contractor. It has turned into a neat little niche and I enjoy putting it on paper and then getting to help build it as well. Our old stove will be more basic than the beauty you have, but I think it will look nice when we're finished. Hopefully all goes well and it will be functional also.
Chris
Beautiful stove. I just started a thread on an old stove we purchased at auction and are hoping to refurbish. Any pointers you have as you break in and burn would be appreiciated. We won't burn until next season as the refurbish will likely be a winter project for the boys and I. We're just trying to heat a 600 SF room and I am figuring on placing the stove 3' from the exterior wall. Floor is already ceramic tile on concrete. Seems to me a striait pipe (double wall, etc.) through the vaulted ceiling would be best, but my better half wants it installed through the wall, not ceiling. At any rate, I wanted to say hi as your posts have been helpful already and we seem to have some things in common.
I am a civil engineer who also grew up cutting and splitting wood, with my dad and brother. We actually heat our house with a long wood stove that fuctions on gas or wood. We'll burn 6-8 truckloads in the winter and maybe $750 of propane. I'm not worried about efficiencies per se and theres no code to speak of here in the sticks. Heck, even my insurance agent said he didn't have a problem with it and trusted I would set it up right, though I was looking at new stove then. I work for a home builder, developer, septic installer, commericial const. contractor. It has turned into a neat little niche and I enjoy putting it on paper and then getting to help build it as well. Our old stove will be more basic than the beauty you have, but I think it will look nice when we're finished. Hopefully all goes well and it will be functional also.
Chris
I agree with you Karl,
Can't wait to hear how nice it is to sit next to and enjoy that nice heat on a cool morning. Ahhhhh
Chris
Can't wait to hear how nice it is to sit next to and enjoy that nice heat on a cool morning. Ahhhhh
Chris
Thanks again for all the nice compliments and kind words. I will definately keep everyone informed on how the first fire and the break in goes. I just finished the damper and the connect last night and I have a little paint touch up on the pipe tonight so probably Thursday will be the first break in fire. I only had 3 inches of stove pipe and had to fit a damper in that.
Yes this is the same stove that I had posted on a previous post.
Thanks again
Yes this is the same stove that I had posted on a previous post.
Thanks again
I'm a simple guy with simple tastes and I don't tend to like the ornate and fancy . . . that said, wow . . . really nice job. The stove, the hearth, the furniture . . . not that I'm a Martha Stewart or anything like that . . . but the whole thing works and fits together well. Great job on everything. Looking forward to hearing how well it heats.
Very nice work. If you post more pictures, it would be interesting to see some through-the-door shots of the inside of the stove... I'm not familiar with the setup inside those old parlor stoves.
Eddy
Eddy
Ill try to do that but its a pretty simple setup. Round sheetmetal cylinder with a hole at the top / back for the smoke to go out. Set of coal grates on the bottom that you can shake to get the coal ashes into the pan below. can put a piece of solid metal over the coal grates to burn wood Thats it. Nothing sophisticated at all. No cats, no burn tubes, just a round barrel with a hole in it.
Man, that looks really sweet! Is that real panelling on the lower half of the walls? We'd like to do something like that in one of our rooms - probably build frames with trim boards and paint it all white, as the solid paneling would be too much $$. I love that look, combined with the crown moulding. Very nice.
Thanks , Yes it is all solid wood raised paneling, I am lucky enough to have a full woodworking shop including a shaper, as one of my hobbys is building period furniture reproductions. So I made it all myself. Would be too expensive if you had to hire it. We have it throughout the house. Took me years of free time to build the house.
tonight will be the first break in fire. I will let you know if it works ok
OK Here are the results for the first burns in the new/ 120 year old smoke dragon.
Performance: The stove drafted very nicely and very strongly with only a 12 ft interior masonry chimney. I started with just kindling on the first break in fire that raised the temp to about 200 degrees. On the second burn I used white birch logs that were very dry. The stove produced tons of heat. If you opened the bottom draft controls it ran like a blast furnace. You have to run it with all of the damper controls completely shut. There is one at the firebox and two at the bottom ash cleanout door. Even with all of the dampers completely closed the fire burns hot enough to make the stove pipe glowing red. There is only one way to control the burn rate of the fire and that is to completely close the damper on the flue. That will cut the burn rate in half but not enough to make the stove smolder. There is always a decent flame present. With the flue damper completely closed it ran about 500 to 500 degrees measured on the top edge of the stove. This did not cause the flue pipe to get red. We are thinking with hardwood maybe it will even burn a little slower. The mica windows did not get dirty at all after 4 hours of burning. Overall we knew it would go through wood faster than a modern stove but that is OK with us and a sacrafice we are willing to make for the looks of the stove. We have 16 cords already to go and extremely dry. I can cut as much as I want if I need more. It seems to perform great for what it is.
Here was the problem: Once the stove hit about 200 degrees is started to smoke from the paint seasoning. I mean smoke big time to the point is just billowed off of the stove. We have a whole house fan so we were able pull it all out of the house. This went on for about 20 minutes. At the third fire that we let it rip it continued to smoke all the way to 550 degrees. the smoke would go strong and then slow but then come back. It never did after 4 hours of burning stop stinking out the house but at that time there was no real visible smoke. This was NOT smoke from the wood burning but just from the paint . It had a real chemical smell and made us all feel sick even with the windows open and house fan on. After 4 hours I let the fire die and the house did not smell too bad in the morning. I did put 2 coats of High heat stove paint on the stove. My question is will this happen again and for how many firings is it going to happen?. Its the only real problem we have with the stove.
Performance: The stove drafted very nicely and very strongly with only a 12 ft interior masonry chimney. I started with just kindling on the first break in fire that raised the temp to about 200 degrees. On the second burn I used white birch logs that were very dry. The stove produced tons of heat. If you opened the bottom draft controls it ran like a blast furnace. You have to run it with all of the damper controls completely shut. There is one at the firebox and two at the bottom ash cleanout door. Even with all of the dampers completely closed the fire burns hot enough to make the stove pipe glowing red. There is only one way to control the burn rate of the fire and that is to completely close the damper on the flue. That will cut the burn rate in half but not enough to make the stove smolder. There is always a decent flame present. With the flue damper completely closed it ran about 500 to 500 degrees measured on the top edge of the stove. This did not cause the flue pipe to get red. We are thinking with hardwood maybe it will even burn a little slower. The mica windows did not get dirty at all after 4 hours of burning. Overall we knew it would go through wood faster than a modern stove but that is OK with us and a sacrafice we are willing to make for the looks of the stove. We have 16 cords already to go and extremely dry. I can cut as much as I want if I need more. It seems to perform great for what it is.
Here was the problem: Once the stove hit about 200 degrees is started to smoke from the paint seasoning. I mean smoke big time to the point is just billowed off of the stove. We have a whole house fan so we were able pull it all out of the house. This went on for about 20 minutes. At the third fire that we let it rip it continued to smoke all the way to 550 degrees. the smoke would go strong and then slow but then come back. It never did after 4 hours of burning stop stinking out the house but at that time there was no real visible smoke. This was NOT smoke from the wood burning but just from the paint . It had a real chemical smell and made us all feel sick even with the windows open and house fan on. After 4 hours I let the fire die and the house did not smell too bad in the morning. I did put 2 coats of High heat stove paint on the stove. My question is will this happen again and for how many firings is it going to happen?. Its the only real problem we have with the stove.
Scott,
Great job on your beautiful setup.
I've repainted two old stoves in the past and both times it took several fires before the smell totally went away. One was a shop stove so it just got a quick spray with two coats and I could tell that the places where the paint was thicker were taking a longer time to cure.
The one I did that was in my house did the same as yours and I'm not exactly sure how long it took but it was less than a week of evening fires.
I suspect that the worst is over and it will slowly diminish as you use the stove.
TG
Great job on your beautiful setup.
I've repainted two old stoves in the past and both times it took several fires before the smell totally went away. One was a shop stove so it just got a quick spray with two coats and I could tell that the places where the paint was thicker were taking a longer time to cure.
The one I did that was in my house did the same as yours and I'm not exactly sure how long it took but it was less than a week of evening fires.
I suspect that the worst is over and it will slowly diminish as you use the stove.
TG
Thanks TG, Makes me feel better. Did yours just bellow huge clouds of smoke for a while? How about the control of the fire. Were you able to control it other that the flue damper?
ya it was pretty nasty for a few minutes... it was VERY clear that it was not smoke from inside the stove as you could see it whisping off the paint.
One of them had a huge flapper damper at the outlet and those spinner air intakes in the front doors. 'Twas no problem to choke the fire out using both. The spinners alone worked well but for an overnight burn I'd damper.
The other had the round in-the-pipe damper like you probably have and that was the shop stove. Never had total control over that beast but I was only burning wood scraps and twigs from the yard for the most part just to take the chill off so it wasn't a big deal.
TG
One of them had a huge flapper damper at the outlet and those spinner air intakes in the front doors. 'Twas no problem to choke the fire out using both. The spinners alone worked well but for an overnight burn I'd damper.
The other had the round in-the-pipe damper like you probably have and that was the shop stove. Never had total control over that beast but I was only burning wood scraps and twigs from the yard for the most part just to take the chill off so it wasn't a big deal.
TG
No lie-- I registered tonight specifically so I could comment about how incredible this setup is. Congrats on the results of your hard work!
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