Fahrenheit Endurnace 50F Project

Yeah. Would have been good if we'd had more time, but I'm sure you'll get down this way again. Like I said, let me know anytime your heading down this way.

Good to hear you had a good drive with your son. It's nice to do a road trip like that. Keith? Hmmm, work was crappy tonight so I should go see what I can round up for a night cap

 

HAHA, man, I can't believe how much stuff you jammed into that van!

After our talk about pellets and you blending corn in with them It got me thinking about talking to a local farmer to see if I can get some corn. My g/f's dad knows a few farmers in Keene. I'll have to see what I can get for a price on some to test it out.

 

You got nothing to lose, it might be your choice of fuel when pellets gets crazy. I got to do some thinking on your stove, was the back baffle cleaned out? Maybe you're loosing heat transfer for your distribution air. Is it any hotter after I left? Try opening more air to it and see if flame becomes more torch like. If no, maybe make a smoke test to see the air travel route through the furnace.

 

When I first did the install I had a low flame issue, I did troubleshooting on the phone and Matt said it was just a combo of pellets and air.
So I changed pellets and instantly a huge flame like it should be on level 4 and 5.

So I used the low flame pellets early on with the oak wide open, low flame but LOTS of heat throughout the house. Also noticed the burn is so good it took 2 weeks to fill the ash pan. No remaining pellets even from self cleaning. Just nice fluffy ash.

Once the temps hit in the - again, I have the hardwood pellets on standby.

At 75 degrees you can walk around in boxers, i haven't ran the oil eater again since turning this on. But it's my back up so it's ready if I have to. It's such a difference in quality of heat, even with oil prices down I rather heat soak my house then blow hot air in quickly and have it fade out just as fast. Set the T-stat to 72 or 73 with a 2 degree swing in both directions and I'm all set.

 

Flame is better since you were here. But still not a lot of heat out of the unit. At heat setting 3 the distribution blower won't stay on and when it is running the air isn't hot. Need to get a thermometer still so I can give actual numbers.

Which back baffle do you mean? The one in the back of the fire box?

I've tried running the air intake wide open and it never gets fully torch like, at least not like the Harman does anyway. I'll have to start taking some videos.

That's a good idea to do a smoke test. What did you use to make a smoke to test the exhaust path in your unit? How much should go up through the heat exchanger tubes and how much should go down?

 

Hmmm, see I've got lots of flame, just no heat out. And the fire box is freaking hot! When I open the outer door I can feel the fire box is very very hot.

But just not getting hot air from the distribution blower.

I hear you on the different pellets though. Threw a bag of pinnacles in today to start playing with.

And I agree, I prefer the heat of the pellets to the propane unit I have.

 

Recommend getting (2), a simple one to measure intake air temp,
and a higher temp. range to measure heat exchanger output ..

Depending on intake air temp., the heat exchanger output temp. can vary by as much as 40 F / 22 C when the stove is cold / not fully heat-soaked on the stove here .. With air intake only varying by 4 F / 2 - 3 C .

You may be drawing too much heat out of the burn chamber & exchanger at distribution blower 3 with the current feed rate & air settings, so ..

You may want to start tuning at the next lowest Distribution Blower setting (2), get the burn chamber and heat exchanger fully heat-soaked, then use those settings as your baseline for tuning. Just a thought.

 

I've never tried a smoke test so what I'm about to say might be false or not. Here's what I would do is have the furnace off and introduce a smoking plate of smoldering egg carton at the inlet pipe on the back of the stove and look inside the firebox. Note; make sure exhaust fan is running with no fire, Look at pattern of smoke if existent coming through the burnpot assembly and watch if it goes upward towards the front of furnace. It goes up the front then behind downwards toward the back baffle plate and into the holes towards the exhaust fan. You can have a big metal coffee can with lid nearby to cover up to stop the smoke in a instant. The more egg carton pieces, the more smoke. The back baffle is the back of the firebox, needs to be free of ashes/crud.

 

Are you getting heat out of the top of the furnace but not in the house?

 

Distribution air is not very hot. Mine blows his away. He has the diffuser on his unit.

 

I just caught up, he also said has good flame. So maybe air is not circulating around firebox.

 

That's my thinking. Good troubleshooting for everyone involved. History of the furnace it was blocked tight at the tubes, maybe the back baffle is blocked and not aware of this. With the suggested smoke test, maybe we might see whats going on in there for the flow path. Haven't tried it so it could be a hit and miss test.

 

Noted. Thanks for the tips. I'll buy two thermometers. I think Ivanhoe also mentioned this to me during his visit the other day.

I don't know if I have too much air passing thorugh the stove, as I still have a bit of a lazy flame. Plus, the burn box is very hot. I'm leaning towards what everyone is saying in that somewhere I still have a air passage blockage that I'm not getting.

 

It makes sense and I'm willing to give it a try. I sat there this morning for 20 min watching the stove burn trying to tell where the air flow is going. I've cleaned the back passage you mention and have even double checked it, and it seems OK. I need to find something larger to try and pass up through the pasage to trple check it isn't blocked.

 

As Ivanhoe mentions, I'm getting a pretty decent flame, just crappy heat output. However, that being said, the flame still isn't as big on 3 as in some videos I've watched. But a bigger flame isn't going to help as the furnace is all buring dirty. So I'm kinda fighting a mess of issues at this time.

The way it is running now I'd be lucky to heat my house in the warm weather we currently have. I'd never heat my house if winter ever shows up.

First thing is first though. I'm going to triple check all the internal exhaust passages to make sure they aren't blocked. I'm sure I've got them clear, but who knows.

 

This unit was abused BIG TIME. Everything was very blocked in this unit.

 

Another thing it could be the air leakage of the hopper, maybe for lazy flame. Did you try banging on the back panel?

 

Do you have access to compressed air? That was a HUGE help when I was rehabbing the Francesca stove here, 125 PSI, a blow nozzle, and a few different lengths of semi-rigid hose ( .3 to 1 meter ) knocked out a huge amount of crud I would've never been able to get to, otherwise.

I downloaded a copy of the manual for the Furnace, I think I see the baffle plates ivanhoe is talking about (#20), and there is also a front removable plate that exposes the front of the tubes head-on (21, gasket is 46).

Stupid question: if operating in standalone stove mode, does this plate get removed? It would appear so, if not redirecting air -> up to the top plenum attachment. Apologies in advance if this is off-base.

 

That part has been cleaned. It's the back wall section leading downwards(double wall air spaced, about 3/4" to 1"). Might not see it in the diagram but it warms the distribution air, it's part of the combined surface area. Compressed air and banging will help along a semi-rigid metal hose attached to a drill.

 

I've addressed the leak in the hopper (I think) as I had it leaking between the hopper and the top panel. I added that white foam I was showing you to seal it up. If the hopper is leaking still, it's really small as I'm not getting that buffeting effect in the flame like I had during the hopper leak.

I'll recheck all around the hopper though. I'll try using incense, isn't that what you used?

I haven't banged on the back panel, but I'll try that as well.