Pictures of your stove

Here are a couple of pic of my stove it's a Harmon Mark III. It was with the house whrn I bought it, and I'm loving it.

My Alaska140 auger FHA in the basement, heats the entire house including garage and basement

I'm new here and to all this, so here my stuff....

Just fired this up on 7 December.

The Stats -
Location: Michigan
built: 2005
Construction: 2x4 exterior with celluous insulation through out
Basement: unfinished
Square Footage: 1650
Bags per day: 1 bag/day 40 lbs each. 80 lbs day one. Yesterday i estimate I estimate 35 lbs, it was about 12 degrees outside all day.
Stove: LL Pioneer Back Vent

My new Alaska Kodiak in the living room.


My old Alaska Kodiak on the other side of the house on the back porch.


I had the firebox reducer in the old Kodiak and took it out because the stove just wasn't burning consistant.I figured too much air was going through the reducer instead of the coal bed.




The firebox is 27" deep.


The grates appear warped but it's just the wide angle lens I was using.


Grate linkage.


With both stoves running at 350* it's 100* at the farthest point from each stove,which happens to be at the front door.I keep my door open and leave the storm door closed.The house is an old 2 story farmhouse with the old windows and not much insulation.The upstairs is in the 80's.My poor oil furnace is just sitting there being useless.In the past my wife would say we have to do something about it being too cold in here.The other night she said we have to do something about it being too hot in here .I just can't win.

Mike

OK here is my entry

here my pics of the stove, you see a 4" black pipe on the wall, it comming from the coal bin

My new Hitzer 82FA. I built the stand out of 1" square tubing. I am very happy with this unit and the more I use it, the more I like it. I had a Leisure Line stoker I had used since '97 and with aprox. 200 acres of timber, mostly hardwood, I decided to try something new. I have a deal worked out with a friend, who skids logs to a landing for me. To put in 20 face cord of wood, it takes me around 40 hours and less than $75 in fuel to get my wood in for the winter. I have also discovered that I will not use that much wood in a season and now that I am figuring out how to burn coal with it, I will burn even less wood next year.

That stove looks like it's built like a tank. I've never seen a Hitzer in person. On the wood, I don't know what a cord of wood goes for in yoour area but if it were me, I'd sell the wood and buy coal.

1912 Hub Heater
Almost done with the game room, still gonna put a railing on the back side between the pillar and wall.

Coble stone bricks are the floor, late 1800's they were made in Bridgeville PA. The wall is random used bricks. Trim is rough cut cherry.

PC 12-47E wrote:Picked up a not so new Gibraltar fireplace insert today. Wow that was heavy. I think it is a CFI model with five grates. This stove needs sanding , paint a shaker tool and six fire bricks. Hope to get it burning this winter. This stove came from Maine Craigslist.

PC 12

IT is DDI insert 670 lbs wll hold 115 to 120 lbs of coal when filled up can burn Pea Nut or Stove size coal 7" I.D. Flue.
CFI only has one door 650 lbs 6" I.D. Flue Older early models had a SQ flue

mkline wrote:My new Alaska Kodiak in the living room.

Kodiak_New.jpg

My old Alaska Kodiak on the other side of the house on the back porch.

Kodiak_Old.jpg

I had the firebox reducer in the old Kodiak and took it out because the stove just wasn't burning consistant.I figured too much air was going through the reducer instead of the coal bed.

IMG_9884 copy.jpg

IMG_9879 copy.jpg

The firebox is 27" deep.

IMG_9888 copy.jpg

The grates appear warped but it's just the wide angle lens I was using.

IMG_9886 copy.jpg

Grate linkage.

IMG_9895 copy.jpg

With both stoves running at 350* it's 100* at the farthest point from each stove,which happens to be at the front door.I keep my door open and leave the storm door closed.The house is an old 2 story farmhouse with the old windows and not much insulation.The upstairs is in the 80's.My poor oil furnace is just sitting there being useless.In the past my wife would say we have to do something about it being too cold in here.The other night she said we have to do something about it being too hot in here .I just can't win.

Mike

I too had a old kodiak like the one you had except mine had a blower plate next to the grate bottom right with one center air knob below the grate that you would take that off and the blower would replace it it had a themostat control on it
set the temp would kick the blower on when the stove temp dropped to rav up the fire under the fire air mine was a 1979 model very heavy 750lb or so The I.D. tag was on the bottom right front corner it was one of my first hand fired coal stoves burned wood better then coal .V shaped firebox with 2 air knobs on the loading door like yours and one air knob centered under the grate with air slot vents in ash door. One of Alaska first hand fed wood & coal combo stoves they still have info on them if you want or do not have the manual Just email or call them .

Back in March, I posted pics of my then new Alaska Channing III. Since then, I've made a couple of upgrades.

Here's the "Before"



The first upgrade was to replace the Dayton fan used for convection. The big problem was how to get a 6" round duct from my new 405 CFM fan (the blue thing in the picture) to connect to the rectangular connection used by the original fan. Once solved, (with a number of sheet-metal cuts to my hands), it was off to the races . I had to write the directions on the final piece of ductwork so that I, my heirs, or the next homeowner can figure out how to disconnect it!





Then, it was time to construct a side panel jacket for each side, to be fed by 4" ducts. The first picture shows the 2nd fan with it's 6" duct output being split into a pair of 4"s, feeding a pair of modified mail-order duct boots (cut down to width) to feed the jackets



I couldn't find a "gentle" turn right-angle rectangular duct that would fit underneath the stove to feed the two side panel jackets, so I custom-made them...2.25" h x 8" w in a sweeping curve, and pop-riveted them to the duct boots from the fan. Then I made "U" shaped stand-offs using a 2x4 as a bending form for the top, bottom and rear of each side. Then, figure out where the under-stove curved duct hits the bottom "U" channel and cutting it out. Then, I attached the 4" end-duct boots (megaphone shapes) to a full sheet of panning, bent it to fit over the front, and screwed it all to the stove. Here's a close-up of the left front of the stove.



And, finally, the finished project...after about 3 weeks of evenings and about 2 dozen Band-aids!



For an old-geezer that never did any sheet metal work in his life, I think I did OK on my second sheet metal bending project (the first was the outside funnel on the mini-bin, seen on the right of the second picture.

My basement is now only a couple of degrees warmer than the heated area of my cape-cod style house, thanks to the side panel jackets. As an experiment, I cranked up the stove to 3.5, at which point the burning coals --almost-- go off the end of the grate. Previously, the side walls of the stove would be in the 450* range...now, the jacket registers about 150 at the hottest point (top rear), and that heat is now ducted upstairs! It's reduced my coal usage by about 30% over what I was burning this past February! I'm now a happy, and TOASTY, camper!

Now, all I have to do is to re-work the take-offs from the cold air returns. Sucking a large volume of air through the square take-offs makes too much noise coming from my 2 living room cold-air returns...see below



Two lessons learned the hard way during this project:
1. I built the side panel jackets while the stove was running. Avoid leaning over towards to stove to check 'alignment' of ducts, attachments, whatever. I managed to get burned on my bald head trying to 'sight in' something.
2. Have a very generous supply of drill bits to drill into the hardened steel of the stove itself for mounting the jackets. To mount the "U" shape standoffs and the side panels, I drilled 17 holes into the stove on each side. I managed to break twenty three 1/8" drill bits in the process!!! The record was 3 seconds before one snapped! I tried every brand carried by Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace Hardware! The best ones are the Rigid brand! Yea...I kept buying 5-6 at a time, so I made a good number of trips!

coal berner wrote:I too had a old kodiak like the one you had except mine had a blower plate next to the grate bottom right with one center air knob below the grate that you would take that off and the blower would replace it it had a themostat control on it
set the temp would kick the blower on when the stove temp dropped to rav up the fire under the fire air mine was a 1979 model very heavy 750lb or so The I.D. tag was on the bottom right front corner it was one of my first hand fired coal stoves burned wood better then coal .V shaped firebox with 2 air knobs on the loading door like yours and one air knob centered under the grate with air slot vents in ash door. One of Alaska first hand fed wood & coal combo stoves they still have info on them if you want or do not have the manual Just email or call them .

coal berner,
The man I bought this from said he only burned wood in his.There is a steel plate that covers the grates and firebrick goes on top of that to protect the grates.The way the grates looked I'm not sure if there was any coal burned in it.It's the furnace model.He had the manual,a brochure and the warranty card.This beast blows away the new Kodiak that I bought,although it's not really made for the living room like I have the new one in.It will easily go over 24 hrs without even looking at it.Then with a shakedown there's plenty of coal left to go another day.I love it! Here's a few pics .

Mike

Before shakedown after 15 hrs burntime.


After shakedown


Front cover of manual


Rear cover of manual


Brochure.Mine's the Furnace model


Brochure


Warranty card

I wamt one - how much ?

LsFarm wrote:I finished the install of my new wood/coal boiler. It replaces the old too-small Menomonee Boiler that has been heating my house since before Thanksgiving.
The old boiler couldn't get the water temp over about 140* and that was only with a roaring wood fire.
Now I can get 160-180* with the same size pile of wood as before. The old boiler had very little surface area to conduct heat to the water.
I designed the new boiler to have a lot of heat-exchanger surface area. It is made entirely of 409 stainless steel.

It has shaker grates, ash pan and below-the-grates combustion air so I can burn coal too.

I'm still learning the right settings for the combustion blower, aquastat and how to create a long lasting fire with wood and or coal. But I'm very happy with the results of my design so far.

The photo shows the old little boiler in the back of the outbuilding still hooked up. The new boiler is on rollers waiting to be rolled into position and hooked up. I made the new boiler to just fit through the doorway in the outbuilding. It had only 1/2" clearance for each side and top.

LsFarm/ Greg L

OK my bran new Harman TLC 2000 Hand Fired, just put in a week ago, 7.5 days and 6 bags of coal, 6 below zero this Morning. house was 61 when I got up now up to 68 and rising 40 min later I love this stove.