Coal Stove Setup Pictures

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bradfr
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Post by bradfr » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 9:35 am

Hello, I am brand new to this forum and in search of help to connect a coal furnace into my existing forced air system. I have seen the hot air jacket setup on Liesure Line's website and have a basic understanding of how to achieve this. I am looking into a used Keystoker 90,000 BTU stove to either supplement or be the primary heat source of my home. Here are the questions that I am thinking about now:

-Is it possible to fab up my own custom jacket around this stove? (any pictures or ideas)
-Can I direct vent this to an outside wall w/out the need of the large chimney stack outside, similar to my hot water on demad setup currently?
-When tying into the existing cold air intake ductwork is there a specific distance that I am allowed to be from my current furnace?
-When tying into the existing cold air intake ductwork do I want to add a spot for filtration?

If anyone has any pictures of anything that could help that would be a great help. With my propane prices increasing by 75% this year I think it is time for an alternate solution to my main heating source. Both of my brothers have moved to wood burners but that just looks like way too much work and hassle for my liking and I have read that coal is more efficent as well.

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 10:08 am

Hi Brad, welcome to the forum.. I'll try to answer some of your questions.
Yes you can make just about any kind of bonnet you like to work with a stove to hook it into you current ductwork.
Yes you can direct vent or power vent [they are different, do a forum search] a Keystoker 90 stove.
I don't recommend direct or powerventing, it adds another maintenance and failure item to the system.
A masonry chimney requires no yearly maintenance and will last a lifetime or two.

Some things to think about what you seem to be thinking about is making a Keystoker stove into a forced air furnace, or a suplement to your furnace, all furnaces use a circulation loop, pulling cool air from the heated portions of the house, filtering it, reheating it and then ducting the hot air back to the house.. you should try to copy this as much as you can if you want to efficiently use a stove as a furnace..
A stove is meant to sit in a living space, and radiate a lot of heat as well as have a convection blower moving air over the heated surfaces to pullheat off the stove.. A furnace is meant to sit in a basement, give of little heat, keep all it's heat inside the furnace jacket and in the ductwork.

If you put the stove in a basement and try to convert the stove to a furnace, then you have to be pretty creative with ductwork, or you will be heating the basement more than needed, and not getting the heat upstairs.. So an effective way to use the stove is to make a sheet metal jacket for most of the stove, trying to capture as much of the heat off the stove body as possible.

Many keystoker and other stove owners have had success with just cutting an 8" hole in the top of the stove, the outer layer is an air jacket or shallow duct. Into this hole an 8" duct is placed and this is routed into the heated spaces of the house.. The problem with this simple approach is that the entire body of the stove is giving off lots of radiant to the basement, and the convection fans on the stove are pulling cold air off the floor of the basement, this is the coldest air in the house, and makes the stove have to run very hot [use more coal] to heat this cold air.. If the convection fans are hooked into a ductwork that pulls it's supply air from the heated portions of the house, then the stove is reheating warmer air, uses less coal and heats the air to a higher temperature, resulting in a warmer house..

Sorry for the long reply,, you can use the search function on the forum, or go to the various forums about ductwork, chimneys, stoves, pictures of your stove, and find hours of reading and information..

One item to think about,, do you live where coal is readlily available??

Hope this helps.. Greg L.

 
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Post by CoaLen » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 11:25 am

My 2 cents:
I agree with what Greg has stated but want to add that radiating heat into the basement is one of the benefits of the coal furnace. We have installed a Keystoker Koker in the basement and made every effort to duct the heat and return air vents into our propane furnace ductwork. The propane furnace blower and Koker blower will be running in tandem, distributing the warm air throughout the house. However, we are also looking forward to the radiated heat in the basement warming our floors. The "R" value of wooden floors is low and we should get noticable heat to the first floor through radiation.
At least that's the expectation....
-Len

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 11:56 am

Hi Len, yes that is a good expectation, but are your basement walls insulated?? if not, they will pull all the heat into the foundation and shed it outside.. if any of the foundation is above ground, this portion will give off a lot of heat from the basement..

There are a lot of people who DO benefit from heat in the basement, and warm floors,, but you need to make sure you aren't wasting this 'excess' heat.. insulate the ends of the joist spaces where they end at the outside walls, insulate the walls if they aren't already,, and caulk the sill plates so there is minimal cold air infiltration. In my old farmhouse, it took 20+ cans of 'great stuff' expanding foam to seal the huge air gaps at the foundation/sill plates.. the old field stone foundation didn't have much of a smooth top surface, and I could see daylight from inside the basement on 80% of every wall.. The cobwebs were waving in the breeze !!..

Hope your warm floor expectations come true,, a warm floor is a real luxury..

Greg L..


 
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WNY
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Post by WNY » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 12:34 pm

Do a search in the pictures section (Best Of) and see some of our setups..

Pictures of Your Stove

 
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Post by stokin-railroad » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 12:56 pm

bradfr have you considered the koker. it has a heat "jacket" all ready built around it.i heated with one last season as you describe your system to be and was very satisfied. I will be connecting to cold air return for this season expecting better results.claridon is right your floors will be much warmer from the radiant heat in the basement.i ran a power vent purchased with my koker from the dealer but am strongly considering masonary chim. as gregg stated for one it is one less motor to fail also they are some what noisey both inside and outside,i can always hear it running directly under livingroom and near first floor bedroom not real bad but can hear it run.koker works great as a supplimental heat source.i'm not familiar with the 90 but all that is required to connect koker to furnace is to cut or have keystoker cut 11"x19" in to of unit and attach duct work or 2-10" round .i did 8" round to start but went 11"x19"and bought 12"x20" sheetmetal box and attached 2-8" round from box to plenum worked very well even without cold air return hooked up. :D the opening in top can be cut at the factory for a slight additional charge or just cut yourself with saber saw metal cutting blade. I think the charge was $105.00 last year.

'

 
bradfr
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Post by bradfr » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 1:51 pm

Wow I wasn't expecting this many responses so quickly. Thank you for the help thus far and this has also triggered some more issues in my mind. Let me explain the reason for trying to make this system work with a Keystoker 90. I wanted to buy a keystoker koker that is designed more appropriatley for this setup this year. The price wasn't an issue at all. The problem is that everyone that I call for a coal furnace setup is not able to get me one until next summer sometime. My propane prices have increased by 75% this year and I refuse to pay that much. The only way for me to be able to implement something this season is to find one used within my area. I just happened to be so lucky as to find this 2 year old keystoker 90 for $1400 locally. My thought was to try and convert this to work better with my current forced air system with a custom jacket. I have gathered many ideas on how to fabricate my own jacket out of sheet metal but have a couple of basic questions on the design. First, do I want to duct in multiple spots on the jacket to feed from my existing cold air return or is just 1 spot sufficent? Second, it sounds as if maybe using a 11 x 19 duct feed off the top rather than the standard round duct might be a better alternative for this stove. Thanks again for such speedy replies and I look forward to heating with coal this season.

 
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Aug. 27, 2008 9:02 pm

Since this may be a one season install, if you decide to get a Koker for next season, they pretty much whatever you hook up will put a serious dent in your propane gas bill..

You can make a simple hood or bonnet that covers the top, sides and as much of the front as possilble.. then put an outlet in the top and hook to your cold air return.

Once you get it installed and running you will learn a lot about how your house heats, how the air circulates through your house, and whether your basement can be warm enough to effectively heat your floor.

Do you have a class A chimney in your home now?? What square footage is your home, how well insulated?

You have the most important part: you have the keystoker 90. Stoves are in short supply this season..

Greg L.

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bradfr
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Post by bradfr » Thu. Aug. 28, 2008 8:15 am

Greg,

That is exactly how I was planning on starting. Get my makeshift system up and running to see how I like it. On top of making my makeshift jacket and ducting to the cold air return off the top would it be worth my while to duct in another cold air return on the bottom(like liesure line's diagram) to help with the efficency of not sucking cold air off the basement floor? My current furnace is actually very small for my size house because of the insulation that was used in the construction(60,000 btu). I built this home myself 2 years ago and paid the extra to have spray foam insulation installed so it is very tight. This house has very little heat loss. The current furnace is a 2 stage and heats the house up just fine.

I picked the stove up last night and noticed a couple concerns. I only have a knob on it to adjust how much it feeds and a fan that comes on whenever that knob is turned on. Do I just try and find a happy medium for that setting and turn the forced air fan on low to use this setup? My only concern was that I don't think I would want that knob on the back of the coal stove to be at the same place if its 0 degrees out compared to when it is 40 degrees out.

Thanks again for all of your help!

 
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Post by bradfr » Thu. Aug. 28, 2008 8:32 am

Sorry I also have one other question. On the liesure line diagram (http://www.leisurelinestoves.com/1904137.html) if connecting to my current forced air setup it says not to use the power assist fan for pushing the heat into the cold air return. I just wanted to make sure that this is the best way for using this stove in my setup.

 
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Post by WNY » Thu. Aug. 28, 2008 8:40 pm

Normally the blowers on the coal stove are much smaller than the furnance blowers (265-350cfm on the stove) vs. 1000-1500+cfm (cubic feet per minute) on your furnance. you probably can't move enough air thru the duct work with the blower(s) on the coal stove.

Most stoves are made to be put in your living area, not to be used as a furnace. you can adapt them thru the heat jackets, but will not be as efficient as a true furnace type stove that usually comes with a larger blower.

My stove have 2 blower (265cfm) and can move the air okay thru one 8" duct upstairs, it definitely could use more, and I will work on it for this winter...without the heat jacket, you loose the radiant heat from the sides into the basement.

 
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Post by gambler » Thu. Aug. 28, 2008 8:48 pm

Yes you remove the covection blowers so that they do not impede the air flow through the stove created by the larger duct fan or furnace blower.

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