I took the loading door off the firewood chamber this morning and completed some much needed maintenance. I removed the old seal and spent a good amount of time cleaning the whole thing down to the steel. Using a flathead screwdriver, a chisel, and a wire wheel on my cordless drill. I then installed a complete new seal kit that I bought from Alternate Heating Systems (AHS). Then it was time to install an expensive new accessory. I decided to purchase this after I happened upon it while looking for the new seal kit. This is called an air diverter, newer item that they manufacture to stop a puffing and huffing problem the Wood Gun can have if the Wood you burn is too dry. I should have taken a few pictures BEFORE I installed it. Anywho, it also has holes in the bottom of it down the left and at the back is a tightly fitting pipe just smaller than the air intake itself. So it diverts the incoming air around to the side and directs it to the bottom of the fire evenly coming out four different holes in the bottom. It also diverts some out the four top holes and three of these come with plugs. According to them if your moisture content in the Wood you are burning is higher you can remove more of the top plugs. With lower moisture wood leave the three plugs in. Now I have to wait two full days for the high temperature silicone to cure well and then it will be time!
Ceramics still look in good shape. Coating the door gaskets with silicon is the best. My door gasket is still pristine after 3 years. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't do that on everything.
Completely moved over to firewood heating as of last night. So far, so good. Now it’s time to move a lot of firewood under cover. Unfortunately it is going to be a wet weekend so will do a little on and off between the rain. About 3 to 3-1/2 face cord of dry leftover from last year is now moved into position to burn first this season.
Okay. Some improvement, but not elimination. A little disappointed in my purchase. Some of the issue is some of my firewood is probably too dry. The Wood Gun likes 20-30% M.C.
Yes I've slacked up on super drying and my splits have gotten much bigger. I won't split a 6-7" round.
20-30% huh? Interesting...Lamppa claims they want 18-28% for their Kuuma furnaces...and that my 15-18% stuff is really "too dry". I've started splitting bigger, and am going to give it an honest shot with burning some stuff in that MC range this winter, see if it makes burn times longer like they claim it will. My concern is that it will make burn times longer, but sacrifice "heat to the house" (more up the chimney in the form of steam)
I made this out of a putty knife for the WG door seal when my factory seal went to chit and I used some 1" fg rope and silicone caulk.
I replaced the loading door gasket many years ago. Now I just add another layer of high temp silicone each year and adjust the hinges(if needed). Haven't bought another gasket yet. While AHS states the WG can burn higher moisture wood than most, I find anything over 25% creates too much crap in my horizontal pipe. I try to stay closer to 20% and load larger splits/rounds. Only drawback to the larger stuff is my back complains after an early morning reload.
Here is a decent video on how Heatmaster does their door gaskets. In my case, the gasket fared better than the door and the door had to be replaced but the gasket was still like new after 3 seasons.
How's Bob doing? Yes I'm a little slow but you're horizontal pipe clued me in from the "other" site. I haven't even logged on the group pm for a long time. Good to hear from you!
Doing well, hope you are too. That pm section seems to have extinguished itself(see what I did there? ) I was thinking about the add on Gas shows in this thread but since burning larger splits I really have not had a huffing problem. I wish I could do something about the occasional back fires, but the retro fit for that from AHS is mucho $$$$.
So, I've been burning a lot of oak lately (not complaining!). With these outside temps I would normally need to run the cycle timer to keep coals ready for a burn, but not with oak. I am amazed at how long the WG can be idle and still the oak coals will light up. Lucky for me I have a lot of oak for this and next year
I'm rebuilding my "cyclone" and ash drawer right now. This is the bottom of the cyclone where it's welded to the ash drawer. Pretty tender but I think I'm on season 12. I made a ring out of a 3/16" x1 1/4" flat bar and a new "top" of the ash drawer out of 1/8" sheet (below) I didn't really take pictures for a "thread" but since I noticed Bob's WG mention and hope to be painting it today...... It's been 2 years for the last stove pipe that goes from the cyclone up into the class A that exits the building. Buying the heaviest pipe I can find, it still gets paper thin after 2 years. A light bulb went off and I ordered SS pipe from a "maple" producers supply place in VT. This is where I'm at now Basically the round part needs to be welded to the square part. I think it's a little cold to paint unless I drag it into the house, over my wife's dead body. Couldn't find any brush on high temp paint.
Good job!! To be expected I guess after 19 years....and I'm right behind you on that, in our 15th season. I have no welding skills so it may be a bit expensive when my time comes.
