Refurbishing a Salvo Citation

So I made a mistake this morning. I left the ash door open and went to work. As I sat at my desk, I could not remember if I had closed it. Fortunately I live 10 minutes away, so I drove home and checked it. It was wide open and the stove top was at 750 F. I closed all the air inlets and turned on the heat exchange blower to bleed off some heat. Within 10 min it had pulled back to around 600 and settled on down from there. I added some more coal at around 450 which also helped smoother the fire. I could have added it sooner, but my first instinct was to not feed any more fuel to the fire. If it had continued to run away, smothering it with ashes would have been my next step. But the stove is fairly air tight, it responds quickly to changes in air.

Nothing looks warped, and I believe there is no damage. 750 is hot but not outrageously so. It had excess air for about 1 1/4 hours and needed time to get up to temp. Fortunately I had fed it pea rather than nut coal, which might have burned hotter. Also, the barometric damper did its job. The flapper was mostly open and the stack temp was around 200 F, not bad for a stove at 750. Without the damper, the draft would have been higher and the fire even hotter.

My habit is to check the fire last thing before I leave the house, or go to bed, but today I simply forgot. Our dogs have been needing extra attention lately, and I was distracted taking care of them. At least no harm was done.

I like the idea of a reminder. Maybe a small timer to put in my pocket. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ouch! Develop a scheme to remind yourself the door is open. Some people carry a timer around their neck or in their pocket as a reminder. After I did this once - didn't get further than a half mile from the house before I remembered - I decided that if it's open I don't go ANYWHERE out of sight of the stove. My stove has one removable handle to open all the doors so I carry that as a secondary reminder totem should I get distracted.

wsherrick wrote:

dlj wrote: Coalberner,

Sorry, can you restate this? I'm not following exactly what you are trying to say...

dj

Dj: If I understand correctly; he is assuming that the Glenwood is not airtight so you can't tell how the chimney draft is affecting the stove. My Glenwood is totally airtight and I assume since you just had yours restored, it is airtight also.

No I am not saying his Glenwood is not air tight I am saying any stove that is not air tight the draft control will really not do much as it would in a air tight stove

coal berner wrote: No I am not saying his Glenwood is not air tight I am saying any stove that is not air tight the draft control will really not do much as it would in a air tight stove

I've been looking for a manometer that will do data logging and hook it up to my chimney. I'd like to put it on the stove side of my manual damper and see how the draft fluctuates over time. If I could get one with two probes, I'd put one on either side of my damper and see how the two compare. I was looking and only found a unit that was several thousand dollars which is way above the budget I had in mind...

My reluctance to put in a baro is I'm very happy with how my stove runs with the manual damper. If I could see numbers that would indicate an improvement, I'd get one.

dj

I have started using the heat exchanger and like the hot air is puts out. The stove was built with a blower fan on the back and an exchanger jacket that feeds the air across the top of the firebox to an exit on either side of the front. I was not using it before because the fan is noisy. I even bought a rheostat to lower the fan speed, but it is still more noisy than I want to live with. With the cold weather lately I revisited the idea and had the inspiration to try putting a small house fan (~5 in diameter) at the blower inlet. It works well and makes little noise. I am tempted to remove the original blower blades that are probably restricting the airflow, but it is not worth moving the stove right now. I'll consider it for next year.

spiker wrote:I was not using it before because the fan is noisy.

I'm sure you already covered this, but, have you oiled the blower motor???

I also find that some blowers are just plain noisy no matter how much oil they see, so it may help it may not, just a thought...

Also, I just read the entire thread from start to finish and wanted to say- Nice job on the restoration/install, looks very nice...

Murdoc

Thanks for the suggestion to oil the motor; I did not think of it. I may be able to squeeze back there (when it is not running so hot) and give it a go.

Saturday morning my fire was mostly dead and did not recover. I was lazy and let it go 11 hrs overnight. Sometimes I can get away with that, but it is a risk. First down time since being away for xmas. Ah well, I had a stove tweak in mind for the next time it went out. Whenever I shake it down, ashes worm to the front of the grates, and as ashes will they try to get on everything around them. All in a plot to get the wife mad of course. I recently had the inspiration to solve this problem and put it into action. I cut and fitted a scrap piece of aluminum drip edge into a guard that covers the ends of the grates and prevents the ashes from escaping to the front of the stove. What ashes do work their way to the front are directed by the new guard to fall down into the ash tray. While aluminum does not have a high melting temp (remember the British warships melting in the Falklands war), this location is not in direct contact with the hot coals so should be OK. So far it has worked perfectly, cut down the stray ashes significantly, I would guess by 80%. Come spring I'll check the condition of the aluminum and see if I need to replace it with a hardier metal. In the pictures you can see how I have plugged up any holes that allow ashes to drop to the stove front.

Just an update. The aluminum strip held up well and continues to control ashes along the firebox front. No need to replace it so far.

I solved a squeak that my wife hated. Shaking the grates had a chalkboard like squeak. In prepping for the heating season, I pulled the firebricks out of the back and applied graphite grease to the grate pivots. That solved it. The shaking noise is now minor.

Some of the finish paint is flaking and I had to touch it up. Not looking forward to refinishing it down the road because it is so heavy to move. I'll live with touch ups for now.

My chimney cap got bent badly in the Aug hurricane. Parts were home made of light metal and were corroding anyway, so it was not a surprise. I had a local shop weld up a new cap of much stronger steel. It took many trips onto the roof to get it installed just right, but all went well. It should last a long time and only need a seasonal paint touch-up.

In addition to the baro, I added a manual damper this year. I wanted more control of the draft. The MPD is installed before the Baro for safety. When I burn wood, I cap off the baro.

In the shoulder seasons I burn wood. You know, a small wood fire in the evening to make it cozy, then let it go out overnight. My propane furnace then warms the house up in the morning, and the sun keep us warm during the day. When we had a cold snap of a few days I burned coal. I also can control the heat output with the heat exchanger fan. Having the fan on low (rheostat controlled speed) puts out a lot of heat and I can barely hear it. If I want to hold a low fire during a warm day, I turn the fan off and it helps avoid overheating the house. As long as I don't mind the effort, this mix of fuels is cost effective.

Stay warm everyone!

spiker wrote:Saturday morning my fire was mostly dead and did not recover. I was lazy and let it go 11 hrs overnight. Sometimes I can get away with that, but it is a risk. First down time since being away for xmas. Ah well, I had a stove tweak in mind for the next time it went out. Whenever I shake it down, ashes worm to the front of the grates, and as ashes will they try to get on everything around them. All in a plot to get the wife mad of course. I recently had the inspiration to solve this problem and put it into action. I cut and fitted a scrap piece of aluminum drip edge into a guard that covers the ends of the grates and prevents the ashes from escaping to the front of the stove. What ashes do work their way to the front are directed by the new guard to fall down into the ash tray. While aluminum does not have a high melting temp (remember the British warships melting in the Falklands war), this location is not in direct contact with the hot coals so should be OK. So far it has worked perfectly, cut down the stray ashes significantly, I would guess by 80%. Come spring I'll check the condition of the aluminum and see if I need to replace it with a hardier metal. In the pictures you can see how I have plugged up any holes that allow ashes to drop to the stove front.

Spiker, nice job you did on your stove. In fact, I just looked at it yesterday and said to myself that you did exactly what I did to my VigII. I removed all the front bars,supports... and replaced them with a 1/2" T. X 5" H stell plate. Like you I made testings with big rope gasket...before the final decision. Much better stove now.
Good luck

Thanks Nortcan. Actually the front plate is original, but you have the dimensions about right. My adjustments were to control the ashes worming under that plate. It would be nice to have a deeper firebox, but as a front loader, I can't raise the front anymore and still load fuel over the plate.

User sebring sent me some PM questions and I thought I would answer them here on the post for others to see. Hope you don't mind sebring.

sebring PM:

Hi. Just read your post on fixing up a Citation. I just bought one, and had a few questions. Can you tell a difference in having a barometric damper? Do you use less coal with it? How about the blower motor? Do you still use it, or did you hook up a quieter fan? How much coal do you use when its cold out? I use about 50-60 lbs. Im new to this coal burning thing..lol..thanks

Welcome to our wee [Citation] club. Not many of these stoves being used for coal, from what I have seen. Not that they are bad, just not well known with the coal crowd and most people don't think to burn coal. I liked it because it was inexpensive, good looking, and fit my space.

With the baro, I don't know for sure if it saves coal. I believe it does, but hard to know. I haven't burned much coal w/o the baro, so no good comparison. I do see it swing wide open on windy nights, so I can see how it helps regulate the draft and thus stabilizes the heat output. Because these stoves do not have any automatic controls on the air input, I figure it helps to automate the draft side.

As you can see from my earlier posts, I am happier with a small and quieter fan than the original. Having it on a rheostat so that I can turn it down fairly low has worked very well. It does not need much velocity to generate a lot of heat. I did not use any fan at first and then found that adding a low fan made a big difference. In fact, if the house overheats on a warmish day, I will turn off the fan and that reduces the heat output when I don't want it. I just use a 4 in room fan pointed at the inlet to the original squirrel cage fan. I asked for the rheostat as a bday present, I don't think it cost much. Having it just lets me run the fan quieter. So the value of that item depends on how much noise you are OK with.

My memory from last winter was that I used 30+ # on a normal 24 day, and 40# on a nasty cold day. My house is small but not well insulated.

So far this Fall, there have been more warm days than cold, so I have been burning more wood than coal so far, but I'm sure to switch to all coal very soon. It is December. Full disclosure, when I burn wood, I also use more propane for the furnace. At 300/ton for coal, I use a mix of fuels to manage my total cost.

My friend bought a citation over the weekend..hes decided coal is cheaper to use then oil, the only problem is he needs a blower for it. The company is out of business and I've been searching the internet with no success. Does anyone know where we can find one? Ty So Much

I made up my own fan for my Citation.

Take a piece of sheet metal about 6.5 inches square, a cooling fan (the one shown came from Radio Shack) with a blade diameter of about 4.5 inches and assemble then as in the picture below. Mount this to the stove with some flameproof gasket material to lessen the vibration noise.

This worked for me for about 10 years, then I replaced the stove.

As you can see from the hack job I did not have any sheet metal working tools at the time.

Hi Spiker, I have the same stove. Can you field some questions about the stove.