Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Username: Password:

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - AirForcePOL

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5
31
Equipment / Bought a Troy-Bilt 27 ton splitter
« on: December 02, 2013, 10:22:24 AM »
I bought a Troy-Bilt 27 Ton splitter on Friday at Lowe's (18 mo. 0% interest ends today if your're interested).  So far it works great!  I split 6 full truck loads over the weekend and didn't have a single problem with it and there wasn't a log that I wasn't able to split.  Does anyone else own one of these?  Any common problems to look out for?  I bought the 4 year extended service plan just in case. 



32
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Why am I burning so much wood?!?
« on: November 26, 2013, 01:17:33 PM »
My Hardy H2 has been burning a lot more wood than normal lately.  A load that used to last me 12-16 hours has only been lasting about 8.  I haven't changed anything in my system since I hooked it up 3 years ago. 

The only thing that I can think that has happened is that when I was one vacation a few weeks ago my brother was taking care of the stove and accidentally left the ash door open on the day that I got home.  The stove boiled over and lost quite a bit of water.  This caused the water level to drop below the pump and the pump continued to run without any water in the lines.  Surely if there was damage to the pump it wouldn't effect burn times, right?  Or I was thinking that maybe the aquastat got too hot and it caused damage to it and it isn't controlling the temp correctly now?

I have cheap homemade pipe that has done pretty good for me and I haven't had any problems with it.  I bought a infrared thermometer today and I'm going to see how much heat loss I have between the stove and the house. 

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to check other than those things?  My firerope is in good shape and seals up pretty good around the ash door and firebox door.  I just don't see what could have caused the sudden change in efficiency.  Any ideas would be appreciated!  Thanks!


33
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / I'm going on vacation
« on: November 07, 2013, 02:45:25 PM »
I'll be going on vacation in a few days.  I wasn't planning on leaving the wood burner lit but as my departure date gets closer the forecast keeps getting colder and colder.  At first it wasn't going to get below freezing while I was gone but now it will be getting down to around 21 deg one night and 25 the next.  I usually have my brother stop by and fill my owb while I'm gone but I just really hate to ask him to do that when he has his own problems to worry about.   

Here's my question.  How cold do you guys think it would have to get for the water in my owb to actually freeze?  I plan on leaving the pump running to keep the water moving.  The heat will be off in the house but will probably stay around 55 deg I'm guessing.  Do you think I will run into any issues if I choose to go that route? Highs durring the day will be around 35-40 deg. 

Please let me know what your opinions are on this.  Thanks ya'll

34
Electronics / Squirrel Cage Wiring
« on: November 07, 2013, 09:52:34 AM »
I am currently in the process of getting my garage hooked up to my owb.  The pipe is ran into the garage and I have installed all of the fittings on the stove.  However, I am not educated when it comes to thermostats and wiring the blower motor.  I am going to build my own setup as far as the HX and blower motor are concerned.  But once that is complete I don't know how to wire the blower up correctly. 

Below is a picture of the wires that come off of the blower motor.  The brown wires go to a capacitor (if I remeber right) but I will have to check tonight when I get home.  Then there are the 5 wires that come off of the motor.  Obviously as the picture shows, there is a white, blue, black, red and orange wire.  I would like to set it up so that I can have a switch box to allow for me to change the blower speed by the flip of a switch(s). 

Does anyone know how to wire these 5 wires to my power source or have a diagram that would show how they need to be connected?  Also, do I need some sort of relay panel that my thermostat wires will connect to to go from 24v to 120? There was a post on here a while back that showed a similar setup that I would like to have.  It had a series of 3 or 4 light switches in a box that depending on their positions, would change the fan speed from low, medium low, medium, medium high, high etc.  I found a diagram that I think showes how to do this but my wire colors are different than what is represented in the diagram. 

I'm lost, can someone help me out here?  :bash:  Thanks!



[attachment deleted by admin for space issues]

35
Fire Wood / Please tell me its not just me!
« on: November 15, 2012, 10:21:55 AM »
Am I the only one that is really anal about the length/shape of their firewood? 

I am thankful that people call me or let me know of someone that is getting rid of firewood however, I've been a few places to get wood that was "already cut up and ready to go" and I get there and some pieces might be 10 inches long and some might be 26.  Some pieces have a section in them where a branch used to be but they didn't cut it off flush so it makes it a pain is the ass to stack. 

I helped a friend cut up a maple tree last weekend.  It was a decent sized tree and he had a few guys from work come over and help us.  With three guys running saws we had all different sized logs.  Some of the ends were so crooked that I couldn't stand them up to split when I got home and they might have only been 10 inches long. 

Maybe I'm just weird?  Please tell me that I'm not the only one!

36
Hardy / I've been thinking...
« on: November 15, 2012, 10:05:46 AM »
Anyone that owns a H2 knows that they aren't very efficient.  I have been trying to come up with an idea to try and make my H2 a little more efficient. 

My idea would be to make a flat plate of steel that is not quite as wide as the firebox and about 5 inches shorter than the firebox. (so that it would be able to fit in the firebox horizontally) This would have to be made of two seperate pieces of steel so that I would be able to get it through the firebox door and then maybe bolt it together with splice plates once it was inside.

I would then make a frame out of say 1" square tubing (4 pieces) that would be placed on the sides of the firebox and hold the flat steel up maybe 5 inches away from the top. 

My thinking is that the exhaust will no longer have a direct escape route like it does now.  It would have to go towards the back of the firebox where the gap is and over to the chimney opening. 

Did I explain this good enough?  Don't the H4's have something similar to this?

37
Hardy / Hardy Phase II boiler
« on: November 08, 2012, 11:59:10 AM »
I saw on Hardy's website that they now have a phase II qualified boiler.  Has anyone seen one of these?  There's not too much information out there on them yet.  It's called a KB 165.

38
Plumbing / Cast Iron pump with a Hardy?
« on: October 25, 2012, 08:41:40 AM »
Does anyone know if it is okay to use a cast iron pump with a Hardy?  I know the manual states not to use any cast iron piping but I didn'y know about the pump.  I'm looking at a Grundfos UP-15-100F.  Which brings me to my next question.  Would this pump be suitable for a OWB?

39
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / How to secure your extended chimney
« on: October 25, 2012, 07:42:06 AM »
I've seen a few posts about people wanting to extend their owb chimney.  There's a guy that lives a few miles down the road from me that has a Central Boiler and I noticed that he was extending his chimney by about 10 ft. 

What he did was he took one of those old TV antenna poles and put it in the ground right next to his chimeny.  He then attached each section of extra pipe to the pole.  He also attached a light at the top that will illuminate the entire area around his stove.  I thought it was a pretty good idea and probably much better than having to use cables. 

I just thought I would share this idea with anyone who has a stove that has the exhaust coming out of the back like the Central Boilers do. 

40
Plumbing / Help sizing a pump
« on: October 12, 2012, 11:57:18 AM »
Hey guys, I have looked online at the charts and such on how to calculate ft of head but for some reason it confuses me.  I'm hoping that maybe you guys could help me out here.  Here is my setup:

I will run from my owb to my shop about 35-40 ft.  (maybe 1" line but most likely 3/4")

I will go up the wall 10 ft and over about 20 ft in the attic.  From there it will go through 2 heat echangers.  They are older and I think the pipe in the coil is like 1/2 or mabye 3/4 so there shouldn't be too much resistance there.  I will go straigt back over and down the wall and back to the wood burner. 

Also, there might be 4 - 90 deg elbows in the system.  I'll go a head and include them for sizing purposes even though I'm not sure if i will use them or not.

Can anybody tell me what pump I would need for this?  I'm trying to keep the cost down as much as possible.  Thank you!

41
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / I need help with my furnace blower
« on: October 09, 2012, 01:56:18 PM »
Well, after spending all of my 3 day weekend working on getting my Hardy permanently installed I have ran into a road block and I'm hoping that one of you can help me out here...

Everything was going smoothly.  I started a fire and got the water temp up to 155 deg.  I started the pump to get the water flowing and everything checked out as it should. 

Last winter when I hooked up the wood burner I wasn't really sure how to hook it up so I went a head and disconnected the thermostat wires that run to the AC/Heat pump unit and then this summer I went back down into the basement to try and hook it back up but could never get it to work.  I really don't think that it has anything to do with the problem I'm having now though. 

When I went to turn my thermostat on yesterday the blower wouldn't come on like it should.  I checked the connections multiple times but couldn't get it figured out.  I ended up checking the switch that is located on the panel that turns the power off to the furnace when you take the service panel off and learned that it was faulty.  I bypassed the switch and just hard wired the power supply hoping that it would solve my problem but it didn't.  I tested the power supply with my multi meter just to ensure that the furnace was in fact getting power and it was. 

With my thermostat set 15 degrees higher than the temp in my house and set to the "on" position I went back down into the basement to see if the furnace was receiving 24v at the control board but it wasn't.  I even tried a different thermostat.  I also tried jumping the common wire with the G wire to try and get the blower to come on but again, nothing.  I have come to the conclusion that the Fan Timer Control Board is shot. 

Finally, here is my question:  I am going to have someone come out and take a look at it because the control boards run about $150-200 and I don't want to buy one if that is not the issue.  I know there is a way that I can bypass the control board and hard wire my blower but I'm not too sure on what the combination is there.  I was thinking that if I could just hard wire it for a hour or so I could get my house up to temp to get me by until somone comes out to fix it (its 54 in there right now) 

If any of you have a solution for me I would greatly appreciate it and the old lady would be a lot happier.  Sorry in advance for the long post! Thanks!

42
Hardy / Fire rope size for a H2
« on: October 02, 2012, 01:27:31 PM »
Does anyone know what size fire rope to use on a H2?  I was thinking it was 5/8" but I wasnt sure.  I was going to try and buy some at my local Menards store this weekend if they have it. Thanks!

43
Electronics / Hooking up thermostat to a unit heater
« on: September 17, 2012, 12:33:14 PM »
I have two unit heaters that I will be installing in my garage here shortly.  There isn't a place to hook up 24v thermosat wires on them anywhere. 

I'm guessing that the only way to hook them up is to hook up some sort of relay from the thermostat wires to a switch that will turn the power to the unit on and off when the thermostat calls for heat.  The blowers are 115v.  Does anyone know what I need here?  Thanks!

44
Hello all! I'm glad to see that the forum has been fairly busy here recently and I'm getting excited about lighting my stove for the winter! So here's my question...

I recently acquired two unit heaters from work that they took out of a building and were just going to throw them away (what is wrong with them?!?)  I noticed them sitting outside and started talking to the guys and ended up taking them home with me.  I got two of these Modine unit heaters but I have no clue what the btu output would be on them. 

I tried doing a little bit of google searching with the model and serial numbers but really didn't find out much.  I would guess that the HX on them is around 12x12. I was hoping that I could use them to heat my garage (1600 sq ft) but I just don't know what they are capable of. 

If anyone knows anything about these or could give me a ballpark guess on what they will put out it would be greatly appreciated!  I am guessing somewhere in the area of 25-30k a piece??



45
Hey guys! This has been on my mind for a little while and I'm hoping that some of you can help me figure out how to do it....

I am going to be hooking my 36x45 garage up to my H2 this fall.  I will be using a forced air unit to heat it but I need to find a way to run the water lines into the garage.  It is a pole barn but when I built it I put it on footings so I wouldn't be able to go "under" the wall because there is just too much concrete there to even attempt that (I think?).

I am kind of thinking that the only way to make it happen is to have a small portion of the line exposed to the elements by just using an elbow or something to come up out of the ground a foot or so and then have a 45-90 degree turn through the side of the garage. 

If any of you have had to deal with this or have any ideas it would be greatly appreciated if you could share them with me. Thanks! 

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5