Direct / Indirect Exhaust Diverter

 
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tomsusmc
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Post by tomsusmc » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 10:29 am

Hi Lee.....

Great looking mod/replacement of the baffle plate design...... As the Vogelzang and Clayton are similar, I follow your posts on just about everything you do to it.... Some day, I'll probably read where you came up with a mod to your grates that will GRIND up the ash to powder, before dropping into the ash pan, reducing jams/clinker.....lol

But...... I gotta ask ya...... is your Clayton your main heat source for your home, or do you have another system?
Meaning, when you experiment with your Clayton, and it's shut down for any length of time, do you fire a secondary system up? (wives do not like a cold house....lol)

I read in another of your posts that your convection blowers "Cycle" on and off? Mine come on when I fire the Vogelzang up, and do not shut off until the fire dies, or goes out. What settings Hi/Lo, do you use for your blowers?

As you may remember, my furnace is in my attached garage, and the heated air is ducted into my basement oil burner plenum, where as your furnace is in your basement, and the hot air rises into your home, I assume?

My manometer/and baro is installed, and reading .05 on the gauge, so my draft/chimney is no longer an educated guess, but I still can't seem to keep a good fire going/longer burn time with nut coal and the firebox filled to the top of the bricks.

But, anyway, your posts are very informative, as you seek the perfect stove/furnace design and system......keep up the good work, but don't let Mom freeze, it's a cold area where you live....lol

Tom


 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 11:00 am

Thank you kindly Tom! :)
tomsusmc wrote:is your Clayton your main heat source for your home, or do you have another system?
Meaning, when you experiment with your Clayton, and it's shut down for any length of time, do you fire a secondary system up? (wives do not like a cold house....lol)
I have a wood pellet stove in one part of the house and an electric fireplace in the other. These two heat sources I would consider secondary, I use them in early fall and late spring and while I have the coal furnace down due to tinkering. During the cold months I only use the coal furnace.
tomsusmc wrote:I read in another of your posts that your convection blowers "Cycle" on and off? Mine come on when I fire the Vogelzang up, and do not shut off until the fire dies, or goes out. What settings Hi/Lo, do you use for your blowers?
I don't use the traditional thermostat attached to the backside that came with the furnace. I mounted a thermal snap switch directly on top of the exterior warm air jacket. It closes (turns on the blowers) when the switch rises to 115 degrees, and then opens (turns off blowers) when it falls to 105 degrees. During times of low heat demand, it will cycle on and off. During warm weather burns, the blowers hardly if at all come on. During high heat demand like below zero outside, the switch won't get down to 105, so the blowers run constant. It saves money on the electric bill to cycle the blowers during lower heat demand periods. YOU CAN set the thermostat on the back of your furnace to cycle on and off but its clumsy and requires some trial and error to get it where you want it.
tomsusmc wrote:As you may remember, my furnace is in my attached garage, and the heated air is ducted into my basement oil burner plenum, where as your furnace is in your basement, and the hot air rises into your home, I assume?
I have my furnace completely incorporated into duct work with sealed cold air return and warm air heat runs. No air is exchanged from the basement. All the air it handles, comes from the living space, is heated and then is pushed back into the living space. Any warming in the basement is from radiant heat coming off the furnace itself.
tomsusmc wrote:My manometer/and baro is installed, and reading .05 on the gauge, so my draft/chimney is no longer an educated guess, but I still can't seem to keep a good fire going/longer burn time with nut coal and the firebox filled to the top of the bricks.
Are you completely clearing ash? What is your "over the load door temperature" thru the burn cycle? See my video on tending my clayton in the first post of my thread that is linked in my signature below, for more ash clearing tecniques.
tomsusmc wrote:But, anyway, your posts are very informative, as you seek the perfect stove/furnace design and system......keep up the good work, but don't let Mom freeze, it's a cold area where you live....lol
Thank you for the kind words. Tinkering with the furnace and burning coal has become a winter time hobby and it satisfies some of my curiosities and interests in science. I'm kinda a geek at heart.. :lol:

 
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tomsusmc
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Post by tomsusmc » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 12:03 pm

Very interesting sources of heat for your home, Lee....

I have an IR laser thermometer, and I take a lot of different readings with it..... of course, they are taken thru the sheet metal jacket surrounding the furnace, and range from 140-250 BETWEEN the feed and ash doors, and ABOVE the feed door it will range from 350-550 degrees depending on how fresh the fire is..... the cast iron feed door frame will usually be around 300-400 degrees, and the flue pipe around 200-250 degrees.

These are average temps, and I keep an eye on them a lot.....it tells me when the furnace needs attention.....

As I don't want to waste coal, my shake down is probably my biggest hang-up, I feel if I shake too much, those glowing coals falling into the ash pan, are not completely burned. But if I shake it down a lot, I have a tendency to lose the fire completely...... I also use a poker and pull it thru the fire box/dead spots looking for clinker jams a few times, and poke it up from the bottom and twist it to let air in.....

I am under the assumption that a coal fire burns from the bottom up, easier than from the top down.....

I am also under the assumption that due to the size of the firebox, and the amount of coal it holds, it takes a lot of air/draft coming into the spin draft to keep a large coal fire burning.
I have tried closing the spin draft, and the fire would die.

With a fresh built fire, and for about 2 hours later, this furnace will crank out a lot of heat, but I can't seem to find that sweet spot where it will hold longer, and require less tending.

For the most part, my ash seems to be fully burnt, altho some of it more so, than others.....but I'm looking for an over night hold, where in the morning I shake it, open the ash door for draft, the coals get brighter, and then re-feed it..... that part continues to avoid me....lol

I burned wood in this furnace for 15 years, it held overnight, but it also loved wood..... if I expect to get continuous heat from it, I could probably run about 4 five gallon buckets of nut coal thru it in a day, and it really has not got that cold here yet......

My wife loves a warm house, and this furnace will supply the heat, providing I tend it every 4-6 hours......

Thank you for the convection blower settings, I will double check mine...... Have you ever had a power outage up your way in Winter? I am curious as to see how this furnace will react if those convection blowers didn't come on..... (I do have a portable generator on stand by for emergencies like that)

Now....how about that grate mod that will grind ash to a powder??

Thanks for the reply, Lee..... very much appreciated, as I'm some what of a geek myself as to how things work....

Tom

 
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 4:42 pm

Before I get into your questions above, I was wondering, do you have a cold air return from the house to the furnace?

 
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 5:14 pm

Ok I reviewed some PMs. You don't want to waste coal? That's great. Watch this.

My return air to the furnace is around 68-70 degrees. During a medium heat output burn, it gets heated to about 105-110 degrees. So, we see that the furnace is raising the temperature of it's incoming air about 35 degrees.

Let's see what happens without a cold air return. Air entering the furnace to be heated could be 30-40 degrees or colder in the garage. Now we gotta raise that air up to 105-110 degrees and send it to the house. It needs to be raised 60-70 degrees or more to do that. It takes twice the energy to heat it than does a system with a proper cold air return, therefore it takes twice the coal to do it.

You want to use less coal and do less tending? Find a way to run a cold air return. This should be top priority to get more heat and use less coal and do less work. :)

 
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tomsusmc
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Post by tomsusmc » Thu. Nov. 27, 2014 10:14 pm

Hi Lee..... like everyone else today, I just returned home from the daughter's place, and turkey dinner....lol

To answer your question, no, I do not have a cold air return to the furnace from inside the house.... you are right, it gets it's colder air from the garage.

Your explanation makes sense about heating it, and burning extra coal to do it..... but...would this issue cause my fire to go out, or not hold a long time burn?
Is your cold air return ducted back to your convection blowers? I mean directly to the blower intakes?

I can, and will do some experimenting here.... I have an entrance door that is fairly tight leading to the garage from the house, I will open that door to improve air flow/return, and see how that works....

Thanks, Lee... sorry to be a PITA.....

Tom

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 9:10 am

tomsusmc wrote:but...would this issue cause my fire to go out, or not hold a long time burn?
Yes, it appears to me that you are running the furnace harder than needed and this burns the coal up quicker. How big a space are you heating? I'm heating 2400 sq feet (which includes the lost radiant heat to the basement) It's been 72-74 degrees in the house and average of 25 degrees outside. I haven't touched the furnace since yesterday around noon (19 hours ago) and it hasn't lost any heat output yet since. Over the load door temp is running around 268-270 and pipe around 165. That should give you something to compare to.
tomsusmc wrote:Is your cold air return ducted back to your convection blowers? I mean directly to the blower intakes?
Yes. It is a completely closed/sealed system as air tight as I could get it. I built a filter box out of tin work that encases the blowers and ran a 8x24 inch rectangular duct up to the first floor for it to draw air from.
tomsusmc wrote:I have an entrance door that is fairly tight leading to the garage from the house, I will open that door to improve air flow/return, and see how that works....
This should help. Hard saying how much, it depends on the air temperature being drawn into the blowers.

Happy to help. :)
Last edited by Lightning on Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.


 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 9:55 am

Another note worthy thing I notice with the new diverter. After fresh coal is ignited, I close the direct draft door. When viewing thru the window on the load door, I saw the flames take on a cyclonic pattern towards the roof of the firebox. Like a mini firenado. It wasn't rotating fast but surely was rotating. Was kinda cool lol

Still seeing a 20-30% better spread between stove and pipe temps too.. 8-)

 
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Post by michaelanthony » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 6:29 pm

So far so good I think you have found another way to save money...that is our main goal here :) Would tracking temps in your thermosyphon system over a specific time table give you definitive numbers to quantify your efficiency increase?
Keep up the cool work. 8-)

 
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Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 8:05 pm

As William said about Steve's (Kingcoal ) base heater conversion, " ... where the rubber meets the road". How much coal is it saving for the same heat output? I'm waiting to hear how much coal Lee is NOT having to shovel anymore !

Less strain on the back equals less strain on the wallet ! :D

Paul

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 11:34 pm

michaelanthony wrote:So far so good I think you have found another way to save money...that is our main goal here :) Would tracking temps in your thermosyphon system over a specific time table give you definitive numbers to quantify your efficiency increase?
Keep up the cool work. 8-)
Took me a few to catch yer drift here lol. My hot water usage is irregular so this wouldn't really be a suitable way to establish heat gain or loss. I like your thinking outside the box 8-)

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Nov. 28, 2014 11:38 pm

Sunny Boy wrote:As William said about Steve's (Kingcoal ) base heater conversion, " ... where the rubber meets the road". How much coal is it saving for the same heat output? I'm waiting to hear how much coal Lee is NOT having to shovel anymore !

Less strain on the back equals less strain on the wallet ! :D

Paul
I wish I could weasel a definite way to measure a difference in coal usage lol my efficiency gains with the diverter are probably in the single digits somewhere..

 
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Post by lsayre » Sat. Nov. 29, 2014 5:41 am

Lightning wrote:I wish I could weasel a definite way to measure a difference in coal usage lol my efficiency gains with the diverter are probably in the single digits somewhere..
Lightning, you are in the same boat here as for KingCoal. Since you have no past historical baseline for lbs. of coal vs. HDD's you will not be able to tell us your specific percentage of gain. As for his case this does not at all imply that there will not be gain.

 
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Post by blrman07 » Sat. Nov. 29, 2014 6:04 am

Is it causing the hot gases to stay in the box longer? If it does then you did get some gain. 1% or 9% is a gain. So what if you can't put an exact number on it? Did you have fun and learn something?

Then that in itself is a gain.

 
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Post by Lightning » Sat. Nov. 29, 2014 8:07 am

I think what is happening is that the hot exhaust rising from the coal bed is forced to naturally convect inside the tall fire box. I saw proof of this when I added a fresh load of coal that had a piece of wood that began to smolder. As the hot gases hit the roof of the fire box, they are forced to follow a mushroom cloud pattern (as Steve described) as more hot gases rise and push the gases above out of the way. While the gases are descending along the sides of the fire box, they have a better opportunity to give up their heat than they did with the plate baffles and the high outlet.

Evidence of a gain is shown with a better spread between stove and flue pipe temps of 20-30%. What exactly this translates into for heat gained can't be determined for certain.

You are right about everything though! Fun and educational project and from what I can determine, it has positive impact on efficiency..
blrman07 wrote:Is it causing the hot gases to stay in the box longer? If it does then you did get some gain. 1% or 9% is a gain. So what if you can't put an exact number on it? Did you have fun and learn something?

Then that in itself is a gain.


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