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1

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: ThermoPex

« on: February 24, 2010, 04:21:45 PM »

I have to say, I bought some stuff off of ebay, "Firemax Heat Lock". $550 for 100' shipped to my door. I was a little leary, and I should have been.  The stuff is junk. I have a bare trail from my burner to the house. -5F and there is water sitting on the ground above it.  JUNK!  I will be constructing my own and redoing it all this summer. Lessons learned.

2

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: too much draft?? or not enough??? that is the question.

« on: February 16, 2010, 06:18:46 PM »

I get the same problem, it seems it comes and goes.  I have found the flue partially plugged before, But a good clue comes from the smoke. When this is happening, is there alot of white smoke, or is it burning clean?

3

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Inducer fan speed

« on: February 16, 2010, 06:10:24 PM »

Hello all, I am new here and this is my second winter with my home made OWB. I am a tinkerer at heart and nothing is ever good enough. That said, I have been tweeking on this thing ever since, trying to make even the slightest gain in efficiency. I heat my 3200 sqft house and load approx. every 12 hrs. when the temp is below 20F. Down to my idea: I have an inducer fan on my unit, with a damper on that which shuts off drafting air flow. which works great when the thing gets away from you and all you have is a little coal to relight. I have also been experimenting with micro controller programming. What is the best speed to run your inducer? I think running it fast makes a great burn, but also pushes the heat out the stack very fast. Slow, and not enough air, alot of smoke, and not enough heat.  So my idea is this, program a micro controller to open the damper when say, temp falls below 145F , turn the fan on low when the temp is between 140-144. medium when temp is between 135-139, and high when temp falls below 135.   Has anyone done anything like this, any ideas, is it worth it?  I have a dimmer switch hooked to my fan to control speed now, so depending on the day, I can adjust. It seems to help my wood consuption.

4

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: antifreeze in owb?

« on: February 15, 2010, 06:53:27 PM »

The function of antifreeze in a car is to absorb heat from the engine and release it through the radiator. Exactly what we are doing. You can get bulk used antifreeze from salvage yards cheap. i got it for a $1 gal. I built and programmed a micro controller to shut my pump down if the water temp gets too cold for what ever reason. If I have to use gas, Im not using it to heat 200 gal of water outside my house.  I would have to have a major problem to have an underground leak, because I have no joints there. only ones are on the boiler and in the house.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: coughing wood furnace

« on: February 15, 2010, 06:42:37 PM »

Yes, If I load mine with some really volitile fuel, like cardboard or other stuff like that, It coughs and puffs like a train. it will even backfire out the inducer inlet sometimes.