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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.