Neophyte wood user question

[SimplerTimez]

Okay, ya'll go easy on me, please.

I bought a house with a 'wood circulator' in the basement. It's about 4.5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, made of cast iron. Inside it has two barrels, one in which the firewood goes, then a hole in the bottom of another barrel up above it. I can find no manufacturer information on it anywhere, and the previous owners had no info, and the only thing they said is you put wood in it and burn it. Ahem.

a) it doesn't draw very well, so I have to leave the door cracked.
b) it is connected to duct work in the house, plus has a stove pipe going into the house chimney
c) normally I run the fan on the system to circulate the heat into the house
d) it has no damper function other than a little sliding bar beneath the door that has five holes. You slide it left or right.
e) yes, I have had the chimney cleaned and checked, no obstructions.

So here are my questions:

a) if I have no power, and continue burning the wood, is there any danger in not having the fan running? I assume that the heat would simply rise and push through the duct work on its own.

b) is it possible that running the fan is what causes it to draw poorly? I ask this because I turned the fan off for a little while to give it a rest, and it appeared that the fire burned just fine with the door shut and sealed. When I turned the fan back on, down went the fire again and I had to crack the door.

I have asked all the people that I know personally that burn wood about this, and none of them can get past the unit description; they've never heard of such a thing. It doesn't look anything like the Ashley wood circulator that I found on the internet. So I am stumped, and would like to make sure I am safe before the storm hits, in case I lose power and can't run the fan.

Thanks for not joking on me too much

~ST

[Bearfootfarm]

is it possible that running the fan is what causes it to draw poorly?

That shouldnt have any effect on how it draws.
The fire box and duct work are supposed to be totally seperate

It should still be safe to operate without the fan, but unless you have a "cold air return" duct back into the basement, I dont think you'll get much circulation

[Cabin Fever]

Does the poor draw happen during the first few hours of starting a new fire only or does it happen all the time....such as after burning for a couple of days straight?

[TnAndy]

Sounds like a homemade barrel stove...they sell a "kit" which is the door, legs, and adapters for barrel to barrel, and barrel to flue pipe. Lot of these were sold with no name on them, and that is why you can't find one.

Does it look something like this ?



Normally, the flue gas goes thru the second barrel just giving more space to radiate heat off, but someone could have run flue pipe thru the second barrel, and then used it as a hot air chamber to tie into the house ductwork.....which sounds like what you have.

It should work without the fan running, although you won't be distributing heat to the whole house.

As to your problem with draw, the fan "could" be robbing so much heat off the flue that not enough is going up the chimney to make a good draw, but my first guess would be the chimney isn't tall enough or big enough ( inside area ) to draw properly for the size stove....OR doesn't clear the roof line enough that wind prevents proper draw.....could even be a combination of these...hard to say from my house....

[uncle Will in In.]

Does the system have a cold air return to the stove housing? Without a return, the fan could be causing a partial vacumn in the basement, robbing air from the firebox barrel.

[SimplerTimez]

Thank you for the replies; I'll try to answer as best as I can:

Cabin: The most I've used it until yesterday was one day so I really can't say. I can probably answer that better by Sunday

Uncle Will: Ummm, I don't know if it has a cold air return. I can tell you that the vacuum in the basement will pull the kitchen door shut with the fan on.

Andy: It looks something like that inside, but with no gap between the barrels. There is no flue pipe between the barrels that I saw, when I had my head in there whilst cleaning it out. When I had the chimney cleaned, they pulled out a 6" pipe from the chimney, saying that it wouldn't draw properly with that small of an opening. It has a liner, and they just left enough pipe at the top to put a cap and screen thing on it in the summer. The house is two-story,and the top of the chimney is about 4-4.5 feet above the roof line, if that helps.

Maybe it is just my poor firemaking skills; I just don't know. I have to put another log on every 2.5 to 3 hours or it goes completely out, even with the door cracked. I don't require much heat, so getting the temp up to 60 is fine for me, and at 70 I can barely breathe...is it possible I'm not getting the whole schbang hot enough? I use tiny kindling, then medium size, a piece of fatwood, and then when all that is ablaze I put 2-3 inch wood, then logs on it, in a staggered configuration to get as much air flow as I can.

My husband could build GREAT fires; I think a widow should get the 'man book' when her husband dies

I really appreciate the feedback; I guess I'll just keep setting the alarm for every three hours and feeding the black beast regularly

~ST

[o&itw]

Your chimney is high enough.... it may be too large in diameter without the pipe. If your furnace is using a 6" flue pipe, you would want your chimenty to be 6 or 8" in diameter, thatis probaly the reason the pipe was put in. In any case, you will need to have a hot fire in it for a number of hours before it will draw correctly. With the door open very much, you basically have a fire place, and you are going to use a lot of wood with most of the heat going up the chimney. After the fire gets to burning well, maybe after a half an hour or so, close the door all the way and let the fire heat the wood to its center. Add logs when the fire is 1/2 to 2/3 burned down, and then it will still have enough heat to keep the chimney warm. After you get everything going it shoudl burn better. Every stove hooked into a chimney has its own little quirks, and you must "learn" it.

It sounds lie you may also be burning wet or green wood. Has the wood you are using been cut for at least a year, and is it dry. If it has been cut that long or longer (2 or 3 years is best), and by saying that, I mean cut into pieces not just a tree cut down and laying in the woods, your fire should be burning better. If you wood is at least a year old, and is just wet, bring a bunch in and stack it about 6' from the stove. In a week or so the heat from the stove will dry it out acceptably.

As far as the duct work is concerned. My former wood funace was connected into my forced-air regular furnace ducts. When the electricity would go off, the air from the wood furnace would flow up, but so slowly that the duct would get excessively ho up where it was attached to the floor joists. When I replaced it, I did not hook it back up to the ducts, but simply placed elbows on the outlets on top so the sir would blow out horizontally.
We leave the door open at the top of the stairs, and the hot air flows naturally upward. It keeps the basement rather warm, about 75 to 80F, but the floors upstairs are toasty and it stays from 66 -73 upstairs acording to where one is.

Try geting the fire going well and fully shuting the door. Make sure the ashes are not clogging the holes of the "draft" adjustment. Sometime it takes a while for the heat to carbonize the wood, but when it does, it will put out a lot more heat than with a larger (door somewhat open) draft. Plus your wood will last much longer, probably 6-8 hours or so.

One other thing, is their anything else hooked into the same chimney? Or a hole for something else to hook in?

[Stephen in SOKY]

It sounds to me as though you need outdoor air for combustion. Is there a window near the stove you can open a bit?

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

Originally Posted by SimplerTimez

Uncle Will: Ummm, I don't know if it has a cold air return. I can tell you that the vacuum in the basement will pull the kitchen door shut with the fan on.


~ST

start by leaving the kitchen door to basment held wide open dose it make much better fire this way

i think this very statement answeres your question your creating a vacume in the basment it may be as simple as cutting a hole in the floor above the stove to serve as a cold air return

or you may need to do that and plumb down to the fan intake with some duct work to let the fan pull patialy warmed air from the house to further warm it and put it back in the house this is actualy ideal and may make the system heat the house much better it will give you better overall flow and reduce the amount that the air need be heated , as it would pull the cooler air from the floor but that floor air is still probably warmer than the outside air it is trying to suck in now

it was also mentioned you may need to do somthing for outside air for the combustion but i would think that if the fan is off and it makes good fire then there is enough for combustion just not enought to do both feed the fire and fill the house with hot air

[Cabin Fever]

Since you haven't burned the heater for very long time periods, I'm agreeing with some of the others that the chimney is not fully warmed up. A cold chimney does not draw well without allowing a lot of air to be drawn into the firebox. We keep our woodburner's door cracked for up to 20 minutes before we get a real good draft.

Burn the heater for half a day or so and see if you have the same problem.

[tamsam]

Think of it as a furnace. You are connected to ducting in the house and have a blower pushing the air into the house above the basement. How does it burn with the kitchen door open? That may be your problem there. Try burning it with the kitchen door open or part way open. My thoughts without seeing your system is you need a cold air return from the upstairs for it to work right. Hope this helps. Sam

[SimplerTimez]

Today while I slept, I turned the fan off and shut the door on the burner. It held to nice coals a little over three hours. So I think you all have a very good point.

I also think that perhaps I am expecting it to *look* like a fireplace fire, when in fact it should burn slow and embery in order for the wood to last longer. I know that after the pipe was removed, I have very little if any smoke coming out of the door when I open it to take a look at things. Before that, it billowed smoke into the basement every time the door was opened.

So right now I'm not running the fan, leaving the kitchen door open at the top of the basement stairs, and closing the door to see how it does. I'll update in the morning.

Thank you again for all of your suggestions! I really appreciate it


~ST

[SimplerTimez]

Just an update to thank everyone for their great suggestions. I managed to keep the fire going long enough to get five hours of sleep and the house still be above 50 degrees...yay!

Cabin: Now that the stove is heated up, it does seem to draw much better even when I am placing new logs on nothing but a few coals. A couple of pieces of cardboard and kindling to heat the chimney and away she goes. I also think the wood that I have isn't really very seasoned. I put in some old, old wood that I found out behind the house and it burned much differently - hotter but slower with far less hissing and initial smoke.

I think the biggest help that ya'll offered was keeping that basement door open a bit. That seems to have made a world of difference.

While the stove isn't the most efficient way to heat, it sure beats the heck out of the 3.00 a gallon propane deal! I consider it pretty darn good when a couple of logs can keep 2,000 plus square feet above freezing with darn little insulation anywhere in a sixty year old house I DO think that insulation will be on the summer 'to-do' list this year though...LOL! Insulating curtains will help too, and sealing the doors to the rooms that I don't really run heat to in order to keep the cold air from coming out from under those doors.

Thank you again for all of your suggestions, and your patience with my ignorance!

~ST

[fantasymaker]

I think what you have is the double barrel stove system pictured, enclosed in a homemade jacket.
Try to get everything good and hot then KEEP the firebox loaded and regulate the heat output with the draft damper in the door (the little 5 hole thingy) keep the circulation fan on.
Try to use dry wood ,it wont hiss and pop as much but if you need to use wet wood it wont mess things up as bad if you add it one stick at a time to a otherwise full and hot barrel,
Personally If I couldn't get dry wood I wouldn't burn at all wet green wood leads to a bigger chance of chimney fires so watch out for creosote accumulation.

[cfabe]

You're right about the wood not being seasoned. If it's hissing, that's water in the wood being boiled off.