How do you feel about a thermostat controlled hand fired?

I grew up in a home with a hand fired Burnham brand boiler. It had a room thermostat control on it. A bi-metallic spiral type in the living room that controlled a 24 VAC motor. The gearheat motor was mounted on the ceiling above the boiler. The output shaft had two levers with chains to the ash pit door and a door on the flue pipe. The latter was much like todays barometric damper but made of cast iron and hinged at the top. When thermostat called for heat the motor ran for one half revolution. This would close the flue pipe draft door and open the ash pit door. The ash pit door was a secondary door that was part of the ash removal door. It also was cast iron and hinged at the top. When the thermostat was satisfied the motor ran another half turn, closing the ash pit door and opening the flue door. The system worked well. I still have the motor, chains and transformer.

I suppose you could adapt the same idea to your hand fired stove.

Yanche, that's a very familiar picture you paint. I'm guessing, the damper motor came along about 1950.

My wood burning boiler, add-on, had a thermostatic controlled draft, however, it was controlled by an aquastat. ... between the two, is how I got the bug to do this.

The difference being from the old boiler thermostat, this would be "power on/open" and "power off - (fail-safe)/closed".

Dallas wrote:Does anybody have any experience with a thermostatically controlled "hand fired"?

Since I've run out of things to do , I was thinking about adding a thermostat control to the stove. It would cycle between a preset idle value and wide open (I guess). Does anybody have any thoughts about "cycling the burn", rather than letting it burn along at a preset level? (It would probably be a bit more like a stoker burn.) Also, I was thinking about "coal size response".

While generally, it's a "set it and forget it" deal, I thought it might be nice to have it cookin' a bit harder first thing in the morning, while I wasn't cookin' at all. And I suppose, it might make conditions through the day a bit more even.

The only issues, which I see are the expense and where to locate the thermostat.

Not sure what you mean?
1.If you mean having the blower fan operate from a thermostat, I thought of that but find an electric timer works just fine. (I have the timer set to shut the fan off between 11:30PM-4:00am)
2. If you mean having the stove temp controled by a thermostat, how would you do that? (most hand fired stoves have mechanical slides/wheels that must be opened/closed. (Short of building a "Rube Goldberg" device to open the air controls)

Devil5052 wrote:Not sure what you mean?
1.If you mean having the blower fan operate from a thermostat, I thought of that but find an electric timer works just fine. (I have the timer set to shut the fan off between 11:30PM-4:00am)
2. If you mean having the stove temp controled by a thermostat, how would you do that? (most hand fired stoves have mechanical slides/wheels that must be opened/closed. (Short of building a "Rube Goldberg" device to open the air controls)

Let's go with #2, ... in part. There is no way it needs to be "Rube Goldberg", as it has been done for 60 years! Is there anything more primitive or basic, than sliding a door shut or open, by hand?

Dallas wrote:

Devil5052 wrote:Not sure what you mean?
1.If you mean having the blower fan operate from a thermostat, I thought of that but find an electric timer works just fine. (I have the timer set to shut the fan off between 11:30PM-4:00am)
2. If you mean having the stove temp controled by a thermostat, how would you do that? (most hand fired stoves have mechanical slides/wheels that must be opened/closed. (Short of building a "Rube Goldberg" device to open the air controls)

Let's go with #2, ... in part. There is no way it needs to be "Rube Goldberg", as it has been done for 60 years! Is there anything more primitive or basic, than sliding a door shut or open, by hand?

So what device could I connect to the "slide type" air control of my TLC-2000 that would electricaly slide it to the very fine adjustments I use? (I would say the control travel I use is sliding from the left (closed) to between 1/4" open (for warm weather) to no more than a few inches to the right)?
I'm not trying to be a wise guy here.....If there is such a device, that passes the wife acceptance test, I might just try it!

Devil5052 wrote: So what device could I connect to the "slide type" air control of my TLC-2000 that would electricaly slide it to the very fine adjustments I use? (I would say the control travel I use is sliding from the left (closed) to between 1/4" open (for warm weather) to no more than a few inches to the right)?
I'm not trying to be a wise guy here.....If there is such a device, that passes the wife acceptance test, I might just try it!

I'm not familiar with the TLC - 2000 and its controls or accessibility.

The other thing is, you wouldn't be controlling in "small increments of draft", but in large increments of draft, determined by the thermostat, which would be "on or off". It would be more like a stoker or oil burner ... on or off ... kinda ... how about "on or idle"?

http://customer.honeywell.com/honeywell/ProductInfo.aspx/M847A1072

Dallas wrote:

Devil5052 wrote: So what device could I connect to the "slide type" air control of my TLC-2000 that would electricaly slide it to the very fine adjustments I use? (I would say the control travel I use is sliding from the left (closed) to between 1/4" open (for warm weather) to no more than a few inches to the right)?
I'm not trying to be a wise guy here.....If there is such a device, that passes the wife acceptance test, I might just try it!

I'm not familiar with the TLC - 2000 and its controls or accessibility.

The other thing is, you wouldn't be controlling in "small increments of draft", but in large increments of draft, determined by the thermostat, which would be "on or off". It would be more like a stoker or oil burner ... on or off ... kinda ... how about "on or idle"?

http://customer.honeywell.com/honeywell/ProductInfo.aspx/M847A1072

Here is a pic of my stove with the slide air control on the ash door (the slide control in this pic is opened about as wide as I would ever open it. It usually stays close to the closed position (left) & still provides enough air & good control)O

Should take about 1. 42 hours and a 6 pack. ... unless the thermostat has to be mounted on the wall and the wire hidden.

Dallas wrote:The other thing is, you wouldn't be controlling in "small increments of draft", but in large increments of draft, determined by the thermostat, which would be "on or off". It would be more like a stoker or oil burner ... on or off ... kinda ... how about "on or idle"?

Let me clarify this a bit. The temperature wouldn't be determined by "where" the draft slider was set, but by the frequency and duration of the burn with the slider open, determined by the thermostat.

This is not new thinking
The Franco Bs, Surdiak, my victory and Hitzer all use a thermostatically controlled flap to control the fire . Its real simple, there might even be more I'm not aware of but these all came to mind first .

Oh yeah Kodiak by Alaska you could prolly find one of these to get a good look

My furnace uses a draft fan that is controlled by a thermostat.Works rather well.

Dallas wrote:Does anybody have any experience with a thermostatically controlled "hand fired"?

Since I've run out of things to do , I was thinking about adding a thermostat control to the stove. It would cycle between a preset idle value and wide open (I guess). Does anybody have any thoughts about "cycling the burn", rather than letting it burn along at a preset level? (It would probably be a bit more like a stoker burn.) Also, I was thinking about "coal size response".

While generally, it's a "set it and forget it" deal, I thought it might be nice to have it cookin' a bit harder first thing in the morning, while I wasn't cookin' at all. And I suppose, it might make conditions through the day a bit more even.

The only issues, which I see are the expense and where to locate the thermostat.

The design on the hand fired stoves I've used are KISS principled and not a room thermometer/thermostat. A simple bimetallic coil mounted near the top back of the stove can be preloaded by increasing or decreasing the coil's tension by moving a simple lever handle. On the other end of the bimetallic coil is a bead chain that's attached to a sheet metal door hinged over the air inlet at the bottom of the stove. The system, with a maintained fuel bed, regulates the stove temperature attempting to keep it constant. It results in fairly even room temperatures. An added plus is it responds to variations in draft when the weather changes, keeping over-fireing or under-fireing from happening when the operator is away.

Coal size would depend on allot of factors. Pea works best for mine. I guess it's because there's more surface area of the coal exposed to changes in the combustion air. I tried a ton of nut but it seemed to have a sluggish response. I've only tried bulk coal from a local Redding dealer and have seen some variations between loads, like flame color and ash. I'd like to try some Blaschak but haven't hunted a local supply down that's near NW NJ. Anybody know of one

VigIIPeaBurner wrote: The design on the hand fired stoves I've used are KISS principled and not a room thermometer/thermostat.

My stove has gotten a bit beyond "KISS" and "room". So, I'm not thinking of keeping the stove temp. constant, but have moved more toward keeping one section of the house at a "near constant", as will be determined by a programmable T-stat.

Dallas, have a look at the thermostat on the Wonderwood / Wondercoal cabinet style circulator stoves. They are very similar to some that Ashley sells (or used to), also have seen them under the Suburban brand. They are double-walled stoves with an inner firebox of sheet steel, surrounded by a metal cabinet that stands off about three inches from the firebox all around and on top. The top of the cabinet is a grate that allow passage of lots of air, and the cabinet sides are open at the bottom. The whole space between firebox and cabinet creates an excellent chimney effect and the hot air pours out the top and circulates through the room.

The thermostat on my Wonderwood (1980's vintage) worked extremely well. A bi-metal coil mounts very close to the firebox side, near the top, with a light-weight steel cable running vertically down to a flapper door that covers the air intake. The flapper is hinged at the top, so as the bi-metal coil unwinds, the door lifts open to admit more air, and as the coil winds tighter the door closes. There are two round holes in the flapper door, and a minimum draft opening is maintained by a sliding shutter that is manually adjusted by trial and error to block more or less of the holes. Angles and leverage between the spring and flapper door were such, that the flapper even acted somewhat like a barometric damper, in that when it was almost closed it could be sucked the rest of the way closed by wind-induced draft thereby decreasing the effect of the excess draft. Of course you wouldn't need that feature if you believed in baros (dig, dig -- aren't you the MPD guy?).

Here's a link to the Wondercoal parts list. I wouldn't be surprised if you could just get the parts new from U.S. Stove, or off an old stove if you can find one, and adapt them directly to your stove. Other than getting everything to fit, I would think the biggest issue would be exactly how close to the stove body to mount the bimetal spring, whether to encase it so as to reduce outside air from affecting it, so as to keep it within its designed operating range of temperatures.

https://www.usstove.com/Downloads/Owner ... MANUAL.pdf