Drolet tundra wood furnace

You'd really need to think about the cost to recoup. Sounds like a heck of an investment to get a decent set up. Little ones learn fast, just always repeat HOT when they are watching you near it. Put up a safetey gate around it of there is a chance they may get near it unsupervised. Save the 7-10k and buy wood or better yet a boat to take them fishing! They don't stay little forever. Good luck in your decision.

 

One man's opinion: the time you will lose with the little one processing enough fuel to feed an owb is never coming back. Up until a month ago we ran a Woodmaster 4400 for the last five years. Kid #1 is old enough to help so it was great scavenging and processing 15 cord/yr+. New kid is almost 2, and part of switching to indoor burning was to get time back. (The underground leak helped, too!)

All bets are off if you're going with one of those new fangled efficient owbs.. In that case, have a ball.

 

is that a typo? that is an insane amount of wood to burn in 1 year, is that face cord or full cord?

 

Full cord, not a typo. Open loop wood boiler, a little bit of elevation and lots of wind in the winter.. Poof! Crazy wood usage. First year we had no wood to start with (maybe three stove loads left by previous owner) and split by hand on Sunday to last the week, regardless of the weather. There were many evenings at the end of the weekly cycle when I would be a bit short and be out splitting at 8pm to fill the boiler for the overnight load. Negative temps sure make the wood fly apart when you give it a good whack! Went through 1.5 tri-axle loads plus everything I could scrounge that year... Bought a splitter in spring, swore I'd never do it like that again, and scrounged enough to get us through by fall. Been working on getting ahead ever since. After getting ahead by a season, it became fun instead of stressful.

This year I was halfway there by the time the snow melted, and finished my 15 cord by spring. Kept going, too, so now with the IS instead of the owb, I guess I'm on the three year plan.

 

I've considered an OWB just to be able to burn several acres of mostly junk pine . Without multiple buildings to heat or a house layout that requires mulitple stoves, the numbers just don't add up to any appreciable ROI. The fire and mess is outside. meh. Kids will be into that soon enough too. What I'd really like is a Garn or Garn type system with a heat storage tank, but at this point I'm just not going to live long enough.

 

Cat stoves do great at burning up the resinous pine stuff

 

Thanks for all the input and info guys, after thinking about it and adding up all the cost just to get started with an OWB I think I’ll just keep burning with the tundra for now. It’s just doesn’t seem feasible right now with all the other things I’ve got going on. I’m going to try to do some kind of mods to the tundra to try and make it a little more efficient. One thing I did notice last night while loading it up is the door doesn’t seem to shut tight anymore, is there anyway to tighten it up any the gasket seal looks to be good.

 

Yeah you can adjust the latch...look in the manual, it shows how to do it. Pretty easy IIRC
Are you on that "other" wood heat site? Just google the "everything drolet tundra/heatmax" thread (fair warning, its a monster) (if you can't find it, pm me) the temp controller and blower speed controller mods we did are shown there...hands down the best thing you can do to maximize the Tundra...it transformed mine from dud to stud. Not much $$ outlay either...

 

I’ve looked online trying to figure out door adjustment but can’t find anything on it and I’ve lost my manual for the stove. I’m going to look at it today when I get home from work.

 

I'll go take a peek at it to refresh my memory too...

 

OK, get a 10mm wrench and a 3mm allen wrench. Loosen the locknut on the threaded "stop" pin next to the latch pivot. (on the lower left corner of the latch pivot) Remove the threaded pin and locknut. Rotate the latch 1 turn clockwise. Re-install the threaded pin and locknut back to the depth that it was before, tighten the lock nut. Done...or at least should be done, unless the gasket was so loose that it needs 2 turns to be tight.
This only tightens the latch side of the door, there is no adjustment on the hinge side...if it loose there ("dollar bill test" to check it) you can try to "fluff up" the gasket to make it seal better, if that doesn't work, then the gasket will need replaced.
Also, on mine the latch pivot bolt comes loose sometimes, it is the allen head bolt on the inside of the door right behind the latch pivot.

 

Drolet manuals, any SBI products for that matter are available online.

I think that you made the right choice...I considered a tundra myself a few years ago for my second garage... Menards was blowing them out for like 900 bucks ...heck of a good price and would have allowed me to heat the Garage and the loft upstairs.

 

So after I got home from work today I got the door adjusted and as I was going over the stove I noticed that there are some cracks in it. I have 2 up by the sides of the heat exchanger cleanout door and one by the firebox door. Now I don’t know what to do, as this is my main heat source for the house. Would it be ok to keep running it through the winter and wait till spring to weld it up or should the issue be addressed now

 

I would contact Drolet. As Brenndatomu noted, there is a huge thread over on that other site... Any way, iirc there were some cracking problems with the first series of tundras. I want to say that they were replaced or repaired by SBI but it's been a while since I read that thread.

 

Well, yours being an older model, you should have the lifetime firebox warranty. I'd contact Drolet for warranty. There was a guy on that other site just went through this, they ended up sending him a new one (TII) after they offered to replace the firebox and he said if he was going to go to all the trouble of swapping everything over, he wanted the new upgraded furnace, he got his TII about a month after submitting the claim paperwork.
I think they try to pay for welding first, then try to get you to take a new firebox, then will send a TII if you insist...at least this has worked for some...maybe depends on how persistent you are, IDK.
Also, IDK if they would allow you to pay extra to upgrade to the larger HeatPro furnace...if you need a bit more firepower?

That said, I'd have no problem running it cracked...I bought mine 3.5 years ago already cracked, and never have fixed it. Works fine like that. I did do some insulating on the front of the firebox to try to minimize further cracking...and drilled the root of the cracks too...but they still have grown some. They will not move as long as the firebox stays hot...but let it go stone cold, cracks grow sometimes.

Up to you, but I'd probably try for a new one...even if you don't have the time to swap it out right now, they will just have you peel the ID tag off your T1 to send back to them, then you could swap the new one in next summer. The only thing there is that if there was a fire caused by the furnace I don't know how your insurance company would like having no ID tag on it...but, it is just a sticker though...would be burnt off in a fire anyways, so might not even matter. Just FYI.

 

I contacted Drolet today and they gave me an email and I had to send in a bunch of pictures of the cracks, and a bunch of information about the stove and phone number to contact. So hopefully I’ll hear back very soon the guy I talked to said the would get on it quickly. I will be sure to keep you all informed on what goes on. I’m definitely going to push for a new one, I really don’t want to fool with changing firebox out.

 

They have a good reputation. Cross your fingers.

 

I'm not sure if the replacement fireboxes are the fully updated ones that the TII uses, or not? If not, no way I would accept that...

 

I heard back from Drolet today via email after having to fill a furnace inspection report in and send in a few more pictures, they offered to send me a new firebox and swap all parts over from my existing unit to the new firebox. I told them that by the time and cost I would have in it to do that, I would rather have a new upgraded whole unit. So I can just do a swap right out and not have any time really without the furnace since it’s our main source of heat. So we will see what they email back with now but I’m really going to push for a new unit.