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[SugarBean592]

I am looking for people who have acme stoves from Macon, MO company?

I bought the Acme 320 in Jan. 2012 & at that time I hooked this stove to my 2000 sq ft. home (two-story, complete remodel on the home 5 yrs ago, although the floor is not insulated, built in 1889 with part of the 2,000 sq ft in upstairs 3 bedrooms). The stove heated the home fine with a distance of roughly 75 ft. from furnace coil to the stove.

In Nov. 2012 I hooked on a fully insulated 3000 sq ft outbuilding (from stove to furnace coil probably 180'). I was told the stove could heat up to 8000 sq ft however the stove will only heat 70 degrees in the home and 60 degrees in only 500 sq ft of the 3000 I am trying to heat (I had to close off the other 2500 sq ft). I know with the distance I will have some heat loss...

As a result I have changed the blower to the hardy style blower for the commercial model stove & have a better result but I am still not able to heat over the above degrees without exhausting the heat of the stove. The manufacturer suggested my insulation on the 1" pipe may be too light and said if the snow melted off I would know that I was loosing heat. During the recent snows it did NOT melt over the line. So I assume that I am not having a heat loss on it?

My burn time right now is 4-7 hours depending on the wood & the outside temps. Any help or answers from other people would be appreciated. I also was wondering if you changed the thermostat how did that help your unit? If you changed did you use the Honeywell digital? What temp have you been running on your thermostat?

Also does anyone around the Columbia, Fulton, Mexico Missouri area service these stoves?

I'm at a loss as to what my next step is...I'm ready to sell & be done with these stoves, customer service has been really bad from the company once my purchase was made....

If you are an Acme user & made modifications to the stove could you let me know what they are?

Thanks, Suzanna

[woodman]

I don't have an acme but what you describe indicates your heat load is way, way more than the stove can handle. Your heat load includes what ever heat you are losing to the ground. If you are serious about figuring this out you have to start with knowing what you are losing (if any) to the ground. The only way to do this is to isolate the lineset and figure the btu loss. What kind of lines do you have? How is the building heated, forced air, radient? If you take the house out of the load can you heat the entire building to temp? I assume you have seperate lines, pumps for each building?   

[Scott7m]

The truth is a lot of these knock off companies have no idea what that stove will heat.  If and I think they do use 1/2" fireboxes, well there is where a lot of your heat is going, straight up the stack.  It takes 26% more wood to put the same # of btu into the water for a 1/2" firebox vs a 1/4" firebox. 

So you are obviously getting your wood to burn, and a lot of it from the sounds of things, so the air thing is out the window.  Your not melting snow which is another good indicator that your line is doing it's job, unless you just went so deep it's not showing up on the surface?  So with that being said, your stove could be simply to small and not efficient enough, not efficient enough is the key word here, sometimes companies take a peak btu rating, them apply that to estimates of what spaces should require btu wise, one thing they never or rarely figure is that stoves rarely make max btu's and if they were, the wood would burn up in a few short hours. 

There is a guy in my area who has an acme as well, your story sounds nearly identical to his.  He bought one planning to heat 3 small homes, about 5,000 in total and he can't get burn times over 6-7 hours.

[fj40duck]

any other luck on your furance??

[rick w]

hello buy portage&main and have heat left over happy burning rick

[MALACHI 4:1]

I am heating a 2000+sq ft house, and a 3000+ sq ft shop with my furnace.  It's a acme 235 rated at 5500 sq ft max I believe. If its not keeping up, and your not losing heat in the ground, the other thing is to make sure your chimney is not clogging up.  I just cleaned mine last night.  Leave your door until fire shoots out the stack for a few min.  I would run a 2x4 down through your chimney after just to make sure. If you see any smoke from the front door it is time for a good ole chimney fire.  If your chimney is clean, you can open the round cover on your blower to give you more air.  Turn your pumps to the highest setting.  If these don't work and you buried your lines 3ft, it would be insulation time.  I put new windows in my basement and replaced the wood around them.  What a difference!!!  You can lose heat to quick no matter what size furnace if you have other issues that need addressed.