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fabiodriven
12-07-2014, 11:27 PM
As many know, I heat my home with a wood stove. Always have, always will. I've gone the last 3 winters without using any oil, the tank for the boiler is empty. We have an electric hot water heater and the wood stove for heat, that's it. The house is currently uninsulated, but the walls are getting insulated this month. I'll probably do the ceiling myself in the spring or something. The windows are original and would probably keep more heat in if I opened them. My first winter in this house I ran the stove with no liner, just 4 feet or so of black pipe going into the chimney. The rest of the flu was wide open and thus I lost massive amounts of heat up the flu. Not only that, but with a pipe that short on a wood stove it just won't run right. Take your pipe off your 250R and take it for a rip and you'll understand what I mean. Once I installed the 6" stainless liner the house was heating much, much better. The heat loss up the flu was addressed and the stove was running the way it should be. I went from having to clean that black pipe two or three times per winter to never having to clean the liner and a stove that put out gobs of heat. Still, my roommate is chilly in the converted porch in the back of the house and the cold mornings suck as well. The oil fired boiler was an option to consider, but it was spent. It was probably at 3% efficiency or so, maybe less. It smelled, it looked like holy hell, rust everywhere, leaks... I was just kind of sitting idle for the moment as I don't have the 6k or whatever to go drop on a boiler that I don't "need". Craig is a furnace/boiler guy and he was gonna hook me up really good, but then I found out about indoor wood furnaces.

My coworker was telling me about his and I thought how nifty that sounds. 12 hour burn time, takes big logs, ducted heating... That would solve a lot of my problems. But I don't have the dough for that. Then he told me it was like $1300 brand new, just honk on down to Tractor Supply Company. I went by his house after work to see his in action, went home to shower, then drove over to Tractor Supply. That night I ordered a stainless chimney liner for it (as it will be in a different chimney than the stove so I can keep both) and a pyrometer so I can see what the EGT's are from upstairs as it is in the basement. The furnace was $1220 after taxes, the liner $180 (which somehow showed up at my door in under 24 hours after ordering it on Ebay), $100 for a pyrometer. That's what I've got so far, but the ducting is going to be more dough obviously.

I had the best duct guy I know come over, was it Jesus? No, no it wasn't. Let's just call him "Dirtcrasher", and he "built" the entire system on paper using a CFM calculator as well as some other tools and know how. I initially was just going to fire some holes through the floor and run a couple ducts, done. Well I'm glad I decided not to touch anything until Steve came by. He suggested ripping the entire old heating system out, boiler and all. I balked at the concept but I knew right off he was right. I slept on it and this morning the first thing I did when I got up was go down and rip the boiler out. If I ever need to convert back to oil I'd just install a forced hot air furnace in the ducting we're going to be putting up. Ta-daa! Today I ripped the boiler and much of the plumbing out, but I'm going to rip all of the baseboard system right out of the house as well. I'll keep 'er updated!

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1123_zps851b8426.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1123_zps851b8426.jpg.html)

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1124_zps8ab1bf3e.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1124_zps8ab1bf3e.jpg.html)

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1125_zpsc272fbb1.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1125_zpsc272fbb1.jpg.html)

Ghostv2
12-08-2014, 12:12 AM
We have that same furnace in the shop at work. It works really nice. Has some good blowers on it. It does take some time to heat up though.

Dirtcrasher
12-08-2014, 04:02 AM
Johnny, let me know what day you can get out a bit early and we'll pick up the materials.....

hoosierlogger
12-08-2014, 06:29 AM
Nice. An add on wood furnace such as that will make a world of difference. Don't hold your breath on the 12
Hour burn time if that's what the manufacturer claims.

I have a outdoor wildfired boiler. I like it except for the part about falling asleep on the couch after work then having to get up and go out in the cold to fire it.

briano
12-08-2014, 08:10 AM
I love wood heat, nice warm floors all the time and it's constant heat. The forced air fuel oil furnace we have is pretty much just for back up, I hate the ups and downs with temps from the oil furnace. You set the thermostat to say 70, the furnace comes on and then shuts off at 70 but the blower runs for a couple minutes after that to cool the furnace down so your house gets up to say 74. It don't sound like much difference but as you sit there you can feel the temp dropping before the furnace comes on again. The only thing I don't like about wood is when the outside temps are around 30 or more my stove is too much, it will get the house up to 85 to 90 degrees, I've been working on controlling the stove draft a bit better to help and I'm getting the hang of it, otherwise we just open a window. I actually like the exercise and manual labor involved, I go out and cut all of my own wood, split and pile it.

Good luck with the new stove, I think you will really like it. A friend of mine has the same one and says he gets a little over 8 hours of good heat out of it, my Daka will do maybe 6 hours compared to the advertised 10. When they say 12 hour burn time, it will go for 12 but the last couple hours it's just a few embers left.

just ben
12-08-2014, 09:21 AM
I did some heat source updates myself this year. last year was abnormally cold but when it was all said and done it cost me around 3500.00 to heat my 1200sq ft house to 62 degrees using oil and an electric space heater. I went with a wood pellet insert for my fireplace.So far it may be my best purchase ever, since October 10th I have used 240.00 worth of pellets and the house has been a balmy 67 degrees. Best of all I have used exactly 0.00 dollars worth of heating oil.

coolpool
12-08-2014, 10:56 AM
That looks like it's going to be a nice upgrade. With the nice wood you have out East you should have no problem with 8+ hours on a good chunk of oak. My father in law has a ducted wood furnace and it works awesome.

tri again
12-09-2014, 07:10 PM
I was fascinated by pex tubing so I ran some into my shop
to heat the floor from hot water from the woodstove and it cost almost nothing.
Might just add some around the windows to take advantage of the
cold convection falling off the windows.
Just gotta be super critical about pressures when heating water,
or watch the mythbusters waterheater episode.
Blew a water heater through the roof and about 300 feet into the air.

LOVE the looks of that new stove.
You deserve nice stuff.

jays375
12-09-2014, 08:26 PM
That looks like the boiler I ripped out 20 years ago.Think it was 20 years old then.Man what a chunk!

88 Turbo Coupe
12-10-2014, 10:38 PM
I too heat with wood. You might get a 12hr burn from seasoned wood.

coolpool
12-11-2014, 10:37 AM
I think I read that you and DC are running the ducting yourselves? That's awesome and will save a ton of $. That thought used to scare me but the more I think about it as long as you have a brake I suppose it would be painless. Of course mine would be held together with rivets; no fancy seams here. Back in 1993 I ripped out the electric baseboards in my 1000 sq/ft home and had a gas furnace and ducting installed. The tin work was charged out at $2.00 per sq/ft of house size, ouch!

fabiodriven
12-11-2014, 09:34 PM
Yep, Steve knows what he's doing with the duct work. He was a union sheet metal hanger for quite some time. I'm sure whatever I came up with myself would have worked, kind of, but it wouldn't have been done correctly. Yet another reason to thank Steve for helping me out yet again.

Here's our current heat source. It's at one side of the house so it takes a while to get the other side of the house warm unless the stove is going constantly, which is something I used to be able to do. Over the last couple years I've been burning green wood and I'm not home as much as I used to be, so I haven't been able to keep it going around the clock. It's a Russo WC2 and it can burn coal or wood but I just burn wood. Russo products were founded and manufactured in Holbrook, MA, which is a stone's throw from where I live. This stove drafts like a jet engine when used in conjunction with the stainless steel chimney liner. Sometimes it glows red. Just about everyone that has come over and burns wood is taken aback at how well this stove drafts. You can't get away with burning green, wet pine with most stoves. Once you get this thing hot you can burn ice cubes in it.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1129_zpsac64767b.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1129_zpsac64767b.jpg.html)

It's a great stove and will stay in place and still be 100% functioning. The stove is on a different chimney than the furnace.

coolpool
12-11-2014, 11:53 PM
Wow is that rollin'. I'm sure you've seen those convection fans that sit on top. A bit pricey up this way but you could probably get it cheaper. They work nice. I can almost smell that burning wood fragrance......I miss that in my life.

tripledog
12-12-2014, 12:39 AM
I heat with a 1985 Shenandoah R65 woodstove that I bought from a friend. The best $55 dollars that I ever spent, and I have been heating with it exclusively for 15 years. It drafts very well, but the spark arrestor screen on the stainless triple wall chimney cap seems to plug quickly, even though I burn seasoned hardwood only. If it weren't for the problematic screen, I could clean the chimney from the ground. I am thinking of removing the screen. Being in my mid fifties and walking on a metal roof to remove the chimney cap to clean it is a recipe for a hospital visit. Sorry for the slight thread derailment Fabio, but it IS wood related. I am willing to bet that you are going to enjoy your new wood furnace immensely.

fabiodriven
12-14-2014, 09:42 PM
So I got the chimney liner in and the exhaust pipes all hooked up on the furnace today with the help of DAVE LITTLE! We spent a few hours working on the furnace and eating pizza and then fired it up, sans ducting of course. It works absolutely fantastic even without any ductwork! I've had the stove off for a few hours with just the furnace going and it's really nice in here. It's probably only been going for two hours, so I can imagine how it's going to be when it's all done!

tripledog
12-14-2014, 10:11 PM
If you have a block chimney, make sure you have a cap on it. If not, water can permeate the masonry, freeze, expand, and crack the chimney. I may sound like Captain Obvious, but I am speaking from first hand experience. Sure is nice to have wood heat!

Dave Little
12-15-2014, 12:10 PM
You're always welcome John. If the elbows you got don't take the heat well, I mean they will for a while but that style are definitely the Achilles heal of the exhaust system. The range of movement is nice but I just don't trust them especially the first one leaving the firebox when that thing gets really honking.You may want to consider this style: no seems, less modes of failure and made from thicker material but limited to just 90 degrees. It may look like you can move these, but trust me you can't. The ripples are just there for the bending machine. They are a good compromise from going with the overkill of 1/4" process piping 90's I mentioned.
http://i719.photobucket.com/albums/ww200/QuantumDave/Rides/IMG_2302.jpg (http://s719.photobucket.com/user/QuantumDave/media/Rides/IMG_2302.jpg.html)
http://i719.photobucket.com/albums/ww200/QuantumDave/Rides/IMG_2303.jpg (http://s719.photobucket.com/user/QuantumDave/media/Rides/IMG_2303.jpg.html)

fabiodriven
12-15-2014, 11:38 PM
I will keep those in mind Dave!

It was cold today and I was anxious to get home and burn some wood. I lit the wood stove first and then fired the furnace. Getting the stove warmed up can take some time, however warming the furnace up takes far longer. Obviously the benefits of the furnace far outweigh the fact that it takes longer to get warm, that's just physics. It's bigger. So I had both chimneys smoking away and holy crap did I burn a ton of wood getting both of those hot! I don't mind, I'll just have to make more wood. The stove and the furnace are on opposite sides of the house which I feel is beneficial. I can't really rate the furnace yet on how it heats my home as there is still no ductwork in place. The blower is in place and working. Obviously my floors are warm which is fantastic, but I can't wait to see what it does with the ducting. I had the living room up to almost 80 at one point, which is where I usually keep it with the stove, and by that point the furnace was starting to make some heat so I let the stove go out to see what the furnace would do (sans ducting). The far side of the house from the furnace, where it was 80, went down to 67 almost immediately after the stove went out. It hovered right around there but it did take quite some time to truly get that furnace cranking. All this is fairly irrelevant anyways as there's no ducting. The house is getting insulated next week as well so that's yet another variable to add in.

Tonight is my first test to see if this thing can run overnight and even better, hopefully constantly. I loaded the thing to the tits probably about a half hour ago. One big thing to take into consideration is that my wood is unseasoned at best, green in many cases. A good drafting stove with a stainless liner will draft enough to burn anything after you get the fire hot and it will do it safely, but it won't do it efficiently. It's full bore, all or nothing. You can't always "shut the stove down" and let it burn slow. I'm shutting it down tonight to see what I can do. I stuffed it with four huge logs on top of a red hot coal bed and then filled it in with split oak. It holds a massive amount of wood. I closed the damper on the loading door all the way and shut the damper on the clean out door then backed it off one turn. This will be my first test at what I should have it set at. I've read that guys grind the stops off the clean out damper to seal them off even tighter, so I figure if they're doing that with seasoned wood I'll need a bit more draft. We'll see tonight how one turn out does.

tripledog
12-16-2014, 12:05 AM
It is nice to know that I am not the only one learning the quirks and nuances of newly installed wood fired heating equipment. Even though I am heating with bone dry black walnut, I have to open the upper air intake on my woodstove or I will get back drafts and or creosote buildup. The stainless chimney acts much differently than my old block chimney did, and I am still learning how to use it. In the meantime, my house is so warm that it is uncomfortable.

88 Turbo Coupe
12-16-2014, 07:01 AM
You might want to get a magnetic themometer and place it on the stove pipe. This way you can monitor how hot the stove burns when you shut it down for the night (and during the day). I run about 200 degrees all night and when I wake up there is still enough wood and coals to get a good hot fire going. It's a PIA to always start a fire every time you need heat and saves a lot of wood too. You're going to have to find out where the stove damping is best by trial and error. With the amount of wood you stuffed in there and the right damping you should have not burned all your wood out.

tripledog
12-16-2014, 08:17 AM
My stove runs 24/7. The only time I shut it down is to clean the chimney and that piece of crap cap that I will be replacing SOON. Major design flaw with the Duravent chimney cap. I have to get on the roof today just to clean the cap. The chimney is clean, but the cap is plugged. I just cleaned it 2 weeks ago.

88 Turbo Coupe
12-16-2014, 12:55 PM
Why does the cap clog? Does it have a screen or some thing?

tripledog
12-16-2014, 06:15 PM
Why does the cap clog? Does it have a screen or some thing?

Yes. It has a spark arrestor screen. At the risk of further trampling on Fabio's thread, the details are listed in post #14.

88 Turbo Coupe
12-16-2014, 07:30 PM
Sorry. No trampling intended. At least he knows not to use that cap.

jeffatc250r
12-16-2014, 08:25 PM
Been stuffin 12 cord a yr thru this allnighter for the last 7 yrs. Works great, keeps the place warmer than necessary. Never once had to douche the chimney. Burn clean wood and runnit HOT, no pronlems. The burn time is impressive on this. Keep a 3-4" bed of ash and 24hr burn times are nothing out of the ordinary.

I also go through 3-5 cord in the garage depending how much im out there.

Heres the inhouse setup. The fireplace base is 8foot by 8foot deep and is an impressive pc. The allnighter eats 2' wood, but will handle 28"

http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq350/jeffsatc250r/2E772FC2-1CAA-4A50-AF4D-0BA8ECF64B3D-1380-0000018965E2B9E2_zps410e8971.jpg
http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq350/jeffsatc250r/7750A8E8-D72A-472E-9F29-33F05B3D37C0-1380-000001898710AB3E_zps417b15f6.jpg

fabiodriven
12-16-2014, 10:43 PM
The furnace did end up making through the night with the blower shutting off as I walked to the basement door at about 5:45 this morning. That makes it about a 7.5 hour burn last night. I messed up this morning and should have directed more of my time towards full bore burning to get it hot, so in turn I ended up loading it with split wood rather than logs in an attempt not to snuff the fire out. I had an early day at work today and was home by about 11am after having loaded the furnace at a little after 6am which is about 5 hours. It had blown right through the split wood and would have been completely out within 6 hours. Tonight I loaded it heavy with really big logs and shut all the dampers all the way. I'm confident it will be going in the morning. I can't wait to see what it's like with the duct work in place!

fabiodriven
12-30-2014, 10:48 PM
Yar so the holidays have taken a toll on the time frame of this install, plus we're really not in any hurry. The house has been plenty warm with the furnace running but I've fired the stove as well a few times just to warm the house a bit faster. As of now it's still not ducted upstairs, it just blows up the stairway. I got the walls in the house insulated a week ago, not the ceiling yet, but that has made an enormous difference in the heat as well. An unexpected side effect of having the wood furnace in the basement is instant hot water that lasts a lot longer. I wouldn't doubt the furnace is causing the hot water heater to come on a lot less, although the furnace's blower is probably taking whatever energy would have been saved because of that.

We initially were going to insulate all the ducting but opted out of that idea for two reasons. To save money by not buying insulation, and there is no reason to insulate the ducts from the basement as it's about 95 degrees down there. Actually now that I say that I'll have to get a thermometer and see how hot it is down there. All the floors in the house are nice and toasty!

So we're about halfway done at this point. As usual, the results with Steve involved are impressive. The man knows his ductwork and is going far, far above and beyond what I was going to do. I've pulled the boiler and baseboards right out of the house as well as the plumbing to it all. I will say that I absolutely will not miss the old baseboard heat. It gets kicked, the covers fall off, they get dusty and nasty, the bed pumps into it over and over and over and over and faster and faster... There's probably 20% of the heating system left in the house in a couple of different rooms, but I'll get to them when I do. As I remove the baseboard I have to sand, then joint compound, then sand again, then paint, then put the base trim in, so it does take some time. I just finished my bedroom tonight and I'll be moving into the living room soon. That's going to take longer because I have to paint the whole living room anyways rather than just match the existing paint.

Another benefit is the size of the wood this thing will take. Bigger wood means less processing, it just swallows logs. Less processing, bigger wood, less handling of the wood as it burns longer and one piece is the size of 4 pieces for the old wood stove. One thing that will have to be done before next year, I will need a hatch into the basement for firing logs down there. As of now I have to lump the logs down by and, bobbling down the stairs and over the cat and whatever else is in the way. A fall will be eminent. There is an old coal chute that's been bricked over so I'll have to blow that back open and get the old oil tank out of the way.

The system will have two 8" main trunk lines, one with three registers and one with two, and each trunk line will have its own damper as well as each register for a total of 7 dampers. I will be able to fine tune the direction of the heat and put more or less heat in virtually any part of the house that I want to. It's quite impressive to me really and nothing like whatever I was going to build, haha!

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1195_zpsba9499de.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1195_zpsba9499de.jpg.html)

This is the line that goes to my bedroom. It is the longest and most turbulent run with the 45's having to clear the newly installed support beam. The beam was just put in last month during the remodel of the bathroom once it was discovered that the plumbers had cut all the joists to run the plumbing to my bathroom. That occurred long before I bought the house, but you certainly could feel it in the floors. Even with the length of the run and the bends it still flows absolutely fine, but it wouldn't matter if it didn't. I could just send more air that way with my dampers. :D Steve was concerned with the flow of this pipe, but if there is any room in the house I would want cooler than the rest it would be the bedroom for sure. I'd rather have that a tad cooler. I like the house between 75-80 but that's too hot for sleeping in a bed.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1197_zps0f00e427.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1197_zps0f00e427.jpg.html)

The line going to the left is the run to my bedroom again from the other side.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1198_zps6a3f17ec.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1198_zps6a3f17ec.jpg.html)

Steve's schematic is very impressive. He spent about 3 hours here the first day just measuring and imagining what he needed to do. I thought it seemed a bit excessive at the time, after he threw away his first two schematics and began again, but as with all things mechanical with Steve involved you just cannot argue with the results. I've learned to be patient as it always pays off. This was his 5th or 6th version of the schematic I think and it's even evolved a bit more since I took this picture, haha.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1145_zps43f0dd0b.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1145_zps43f0dd0b.jpg.html)

So here's about 80% of my old heating system. It'll be on its way to the scrap yard as soon as possible. The first picture is what's left of the boiler after I attacked it. It's no wonder the thing was running at about 3% efficiency as the inside was literally caked with soot, rust, crud, crap, and ca-ca. I guess it would have been kind of a big deal to dig that far into it to clean all that schmegma out of there which is why nobody ever did it or suggested it. It was a disgusting, fossil fuel sucking, cancer causing turd and I couldn't be happier to be it's unmaker.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1193_zps13599a77.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1193_zps13599a77.jpg.html)

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1194_zps4e1f8b81.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1194_zps4e1f8b81.jpg.html)

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1200_zpseb7b9dab.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1200_zpseb7b9dab.jpg.html)

I was thinking earlier to myself "Dafaq would anyone care about my heating system for?", but then I'd find myself just walking around down there looking at it and touching the ducts and stuff. It's a really nice setup and it's really going to heat this place nice. Thanks for all the help Steve!

fabiodriven
12-30-2014, 11:54 PM
Another thing I'd like to ad for anyone who has one of these units or something similar, or for those who are interested in getting one. While I was researching my unit (the night I got it home after I bought it), I read somewhere to seal off the loading door damper completely. I hadn't yet done that until today. I took the cover off the loading door and shut the damper all the way. You used to be able to see inside through the gap in the damper even when it was closed all the way. Obviously that's not good for the longevity of the burn time. I hesitated to seal it off as I was using the damper, but after having sealed it today I can say that should be the first thing a user of one of these furnaces should do. The stove runs much better altogether and I'm curious to see how long she burns tonight. It's been burning plenty long already but it should only burn longer now.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG1201_zps0832e2f4.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG1201_zps0832e2f4.jpg.html)

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r275/fabiodriven/IMAG12021_zpsbe2fe3e7.jpg (http://s146.photobucket.com/user/fabiodriven/media/IMAG12021_zpsbe2fe3e7.jpg.html)

Dirtcrasher
12-31-2014, 05:40 PM
Did you cut up the floor at all yet Johnny??

I just have to get that fitting extension I need and we'll finish the back run soon.....

fabiodriven
02-18-2015, 12:19 AM
This winter has been HARSH! The furnace runs pretty much twenty four hours a day now which keeps the house at about 60-ish with the system still not ducted upstairs. When relaxing for the night I'll start the wood stove upstairs and then you can bring the temperature up to whatever you need and then some. Sky is the limit really. After installing the furnace and getting the walls insulated this place is plenty warm.

I didn't get this furnace until winter had already started, so I really wasn't prepared with wood. I had a decent amount already processed but I knew it wasn't enough, plus it was split a lot smaller than ideal for the furnace. It was split for the stove which is smaller. The furnace just eats little wood right up. I had been processing the big wood for the furnace as I was going along, however everything has been covered in a few feet of snow for about a month now leaving my wood processing operation dead in the water. I figured no worries, I'd call my buddy next town over and just pay him to deliver me some wood. I don't like to pay for it but I will if need be. Turns out he's buried, no wood. Same with just about everyone around, so I bought coal instead. The coal works great in conjunction with wood but just OK by itself. The coal/wood combination is better than just the wood by far, but almost everything I've burned this year has been unseasoned, so I still don't even know how the furnace will do with seasoned wood. Coal by itself is OK, but it's slow to control and makes a ton of ash. Takes a while to heat it up and it can sneak up on you.

I didn't want to get stuck with just coal by itself but I was running out of options, plus the stove can't burn coal without the coal basket being put in which isn't even worth the effort. The furnace takes whatever, no modifications. Then I thought about wood bricks. They're like giant pellets you burn like wood. This is day one of me burning wood bricks which has prompted me to write this right now. These bricks are insane! They burn hot and they burn long, hotter and longer than coal, wood, or a mix. I am really impressed with these things so if anyone is curious about them I would definitely give them a shot!

tripledog
02-18-2015, 01:16 AM
The wood bricks are made compressed sawdust that is harvested from sawmills. I have used them several times, but they aren't ideal for my application. They burn TOO hot for my 1,200 square foot house, and they seem to burn and leave no coals. Also, make sure they stay dry. They are very absorbent! I had some stacked outside my front door, they got rained on and, even though they were still in plastic packaging, blew up like little life rafts.

fabiodriven
02-10-2019, 12:44 PM
I've had this US Stove wood furnace for just over four years at this point and wanted to check back in about it now.

First of all, DO NOT BUY ANY US STOVE PRODUCTS EVER.

When I first got this unit, I figured out fairly quickly that the grates in these melt if "overfired". The grates are sub par and if you are aware of this fact and follow certain rules, you can make them last. In my opinion, this company should not be allowed to sell these furnaces with the grates they currently do. The grates melt far too easily. The first grate I had was never "seasoned". Apparently that was my fault, but the company sent me a replacement because my furnace was almost new still. The second time it melted from operator error, but it wasn't me. My roommate never cleaned the ash pan, so then the grate would be completely covered in ash and embers with no air flow going over it to feed the fire and cool the grate. He essentially buried the grate in embers, so that was definitely his fault. He also melted the piece that holds the grate up when he did that, but I didn't know that at the time. I figured that out a year or two later, so then that piece had to be replaced as well.

The fire bricks are sub par and are no good after about 3 years.

The door hardware looks like an afterthought and falls apart constantly.

The way they introduce air to the firebox causes an uneven burn every time. That's not a huge deal at all really, this thing does burn great. It just showed me that nobody is concerned with the engineering of these because of things like that.

Their replacement parts are ridiculously overpriced. I always attributed that to the fact that they're made in the USA, but I was wrong. US Stove products are actually made in China. I never knew that before today and I'm pretty bent about this whole thing right now. I'm about to get in touch with Tractor Supply Company because after what I've read, US Stove themselves has zero regard for customer satisfaction or a quality product.

The nail in the coffin that got me to write this today, I found a crack in my furnace last night. If you know anything about furnaces, that's it. It's done. It's no good anymore. It's just a tiny crack, but it's not going to stay that way. The furnace looks brand new still. It makes great heat, it heats this house wonderfully, I've been happy with it overall despite it's flaws. I've put two grates in it, a grate mounting plate, fire bricks, and I only paid $1200 for it brand new, so it's heated my house for free for four years. $1200 is cheap, but if they told me it was going to die after four years of use, I wouldn't have bought it. The furnace looks brand new still, it doesn't even get used every day. I only use it if the temperature gets below 30 degrees or else it will blast you right out of the house, so with a winter like this it hasn't gotten used a whole helluva lot. We had a solid week or so where it was running, but other than that it just gets lit here and there. So for something that gets used relatively occasionally, this is definitely a premature failure.

In the grand scheme of things, it was cheap. It's still bee ess though, and I have a huge problem with the US Stove company as well as Tractor Supply Company right now. I'll just have to factor in a replacement furnace with the house sale. That's something I shouldn't have to do right now.

Here are some reviews anyone considering US Stove should read.

https://www.furnacecompare.com/wood-furnaces/us-stove/reviews/

Dirtcrasher
02-10-2019, 02:26 PM
^ Furnace?? Bryant or Trane, Payne is exactly the same as Bryant and 20% cheaper, just different labels...