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[Mr. Maple]

 Update on furnace this morning, I avoided putting any wood in yesterday or last night, kept raking the coal bed and cleaning out between the bricks,got the ashes lowered substantially that I had most of the firebricks exposed , cut the blower down to half as was suggested by the dealer and P & M. I then loaded the furnace right to the top, anticipating a cold night. Temperature fell to -2 here last night, not overly cold, but cold enough anyway. Went to check on the furnace before bed as the kitec lines were not snapping hot like usual , fire was almost out as I did not have my large coal bed, and the wood had bridged for the first time this season. I opened the blower back up full and the fire took off raging like it should. As of this morning when my Father went out around 5:30, furnace was down to a few coals and temperature was down, looking for more fuel. I think this furnace is a good working unit, just not sized properly, the claims of heating 15000 square feet with it are totally &%#@#@%&. It would be fine for heating one large farmhouse, but for heating two farmhouses it does not have the reserve capacity to keep up. We went from 300 gallons with the old furnace to 160 with this one. I explained to my son this morning it would be like heating the bathroom sink to run water for taking a bath in the tub, maybe more efficient to heat the sink water, but when calling for a large amount of heat it uses up all the fuel to keep up with the demand.

[slimjim]

I think what you are not understanding is that the brick lining acts as your reserve instead of all that water, when you get the right formula of heat load and wood amount, you will really like the stove, as with any brick lined boiler, overloading it can be an issue as it cooks the wood to charcoal very quickly, I think you would be a prime candidate for the strap on aqua stat and timer that I typically put on the Optimizer 250, then run the boiler down more before refilling it, I got your E-Mail this AM and am simply not familiar enough with the line yet to give you an honest answer, can we give this one a bit longer and try to work through it a bit before you give up? Mr. Maple, you are in Vt aren't you, I am planning a trip there this next week if I am wrong on your location then perhaps I could visit on my way to the HeatMaster factory?

[Jwood]

What kind of sq footage are you heating now Mr maple?

[wissel12]

I have a Ridgewood 7500. I like the simplicity of the stove.
I am really happy with there costumer service.

But if I would buy a different stove it would be a BL series. I love the lining concept of the stoves. I would like to see one up close. Next  would be a HeatMaster.

[Mr. Maple]

 Hi Slim, no I am actually in Ontario,Canada. P & M recommended I cut down on the air to make the wood last longer.Here is what I am finding.I wish I had gone with shaker grates, thought they were just for coal.If I don't clean out between the bricks regularly from underneath, I seem to get a longer burn?, but then the furnace builds up with ash as no ash whatsoever goes down through the brick then. I am avoiding putting wood in as much as possible, burning the stove right down, then take an old 4 tine heavy duty potato fork and come down on top of the brick, stirring up the ashes/coal bed. I have cut down the blower to about 1/2 slower to recover but I can get a 12 hour burn, however it is still taking over twice as much as the old Empyre to do that at night. I load it right up so no space is left in the furnace, any less and the houses/fire is cool by morning.There is also a lot of smoke, even on partial loads as there is not as much air traveling at the fire to burn more intense, more gases, an of course little to no air from underneath unless I take the time to regularly clean out between the bricks.

[slimjim]

Good morning Mr.Maple I have another thought as I have another customer who is experiencing a similar issue with short burn times and he is fairly local, He likes the stove but does not like the burn time, Erik if you see this Please comment as well. You both have very large heat loads, I know Eric's place has a LOT of wind, I would like for you both to try a barometric damper installed into your clean out tee, I am thinking perhaps that you both are having a considerable amount of heat pulled up your chimney by the wind when the blower is off, the purpose of the damper is to break that draft by allowing the chimney to pull the draft open. I will be E-Mailing Erik this AM, perhaps the two of you should talk? I will ask him to PM you his contact info.

[Jwood]

Another thing you can try is what I did. I was having such various burn times with the same mixed hardwood and live in a very windy location on some days, so I took a single pleated furnace air filter and taped it inside the back door over the louvers. Wind cannot force through as easy and have not had any issues since. It's also a nice little way to keep the fan cleaner.

[slimjim]

Great point Jwood, I never thought of it that way but yes I can see that helping! Where the heck is that Like button?

[Jwood]

  there's a like button!

[Coach]

I have a Shaver - - - and they are a very poor company to deal with.  Not sure what I would go with next to do it all over again.  Probably a Portage and Maine though from what I have read 

[ijon]

When was your boiler made Mr. Maple? Does your firebricks have spacers built in from the factory? If you don't have the spacers that could be why you can't get your ashes through.

[603doug]

Have a wood doctor 10000 bought in 2008 and heat two buildings with it. Have had no problems but as i get older and New Hampshire gets colder wood sucks , Have 40 cord of red pine and it burns great but the 0200 feedings is getting kind of old. When time comes to replace I am debating selling all the wood equipment(bobcat, kubota, splitters etc and moving some place warm

[Sluggo]

Not to high jack the thread but I honestly don't think there is a stove out there that would heat 15,000 square feet mr maple.  I would have to guess I have one of the biggest stoves available and I'm heating 8,000 sq. ft.  That's all new construction also.  I really wouldn't want to heat anymore than that as I enjoy sleeping thru the night.

[agriffinjd]

Not to high jack the thread but I honestly don't think there is a stove out there that would heat 15,000 square feet mr maple.  I would have to guess I have one of the biggest stoves available and I'm heating 8,000 sq. ft.  That's all new construction also.  I really wouldn't want to heat anymore than that as I enjoy sleeping thru the night.

This one is supposed to do 20,000 sq. ft. so maybe it could handle 15,000:  http://www.woodmaster.com/woodfurnaces_6500.php

I've also seen the ones (not in person) that are top loaders that have a huge amount of BTUs.

I imagine to heat that much successfully you'd need at least 1.25" pex in your insulated underground lines.

[Jwood]

Might as well buy the heatmor 800css commercial model 25,000 sq ft rated biggest stove I can think of.