It's Ugly, But It Works

In my never-ending quest to get the heat from the basement of my ranch house to the first floor, I finally worked up what you see in the attachments. I'm basically just testing it to see what they final results are. If I want to keep it this way, I'll work up something much more pleasing. I think that the C-clamps holding the register boot are a particularly nice touch.

Everyone with the newer Harman Mags that have this feature built in can chuckle at it. So far, it's working great. The house is almost even in temperature, and the basement isn't hotter than hell.

Here's a question. It's hard to see from the picture, but the flex pipe is about 6" away from the baro damper. I don't think that it's restricting the flow of air, but the baro is going to pull off the really hot air (I'm guessing the air exits upstairs close to 200*) around the flex pipe which will essentially further heat the vent gas. Should I spin the T and baro around 90* to keep it away from the pipe? I seem to remember reading that the baro should face front of the stove. Next year, I'll put it on the horizontal run when I replace the pipe, but, what about for the time being?

What do mean that's ugly? That is beautiful compared to mine(I have two hoses like that). The main thing the house is warm and the woman isn't complaining.

As far as the baro question there are plenty of qualified people that will be here shortly.

BOB

Like it, I like function over aesthetics.....Mine is the basement, so doesn't matter what it looks like, as long it heats the upstairs!!

Doesn't matter on baro placement, it will work in any direction. Mine is off the to the side.

I have flex pipe on mine too!!

All things being equal it will take less cool dense air than warm thin air to dump the same amount of overdraft, therefore the theory would be less air out of your cellar. So any way you can get the baro to gulp cool rather than hot air would help save heat, theoretically that is.

Do you know that your magnum has a 6" opening on the top in front of the vent pipe tap where you can install a 6" round pipe? you have to remove a bolt inside the top of the stove to open it up.

Thanks, everyone.

CoalKirk:
Earlier version of a Magnum. Totally different design without the opening. Believe me, I looked for the hole many times.

Looks good! I used two flanges and drilled though the overhang lip in the top of the stove and attached with Zap screws.

If you can't see it from upstairs....it's beautiful! Hey, if it's working it IS beautiful. Enjoy!

I'll bet just a few holes cut with grates (like in the older houses) would be just fine... Heat rises and will find the holes. You do however will want a return air hole somewhere.

As eelhc said, you need a cold air return.. Hook a similar flex duct to the inlet of the distribution fan, and the other end of the flex duct to a far distant room upstairs.. this will draw cold air from the far room, and the hot air will replace it.. You will essentially be making your 'stove' into a 'furnace'

Greg l

You could cut that 6" hole in the top of the stove yourself, but the metal is much thicker on the Harman then on my Alaska.

QBall:
I knew that I saw this before somewhere. You gave me the idea for the register boot (flange - you're probably right on that one). That's a great pic with the perspective down the duct. Does the air stay hot in a long run like that?

While you can't really tell from the picture, the basement is pretty much finished, so it needs some heat. So far today the radiant heat is keeping it nice and toasty, and the upstairs is actually warmer than the downstairs. Not too cold today, but it's much more comfortable and even in the house. I even knocked the T-stat down by one degree, and may go for another. Need to wait for colder weather to really know. It takes a lot longer for the T-stat to get satisfied (so I'm burning more coal) but I'll take it if the rest of the house stays warmer. I can move the boot over so it catches less air and allows more to the basement until everything is even.

Greg & Eelhc: I've got holes - seven of them plus the stairway - all over the place in the ceiling. House used to have a furnace; ductwork and furnace were torn out long ago. I constantly ran fans in the cavities between the ceiling and floor. I ran a cold air return from the farthest room to the stove a while ago. Farthest room (which is over an unheated portion of the house) got colder. After running the duct upstairs and running the cold air return the room balanced out. Seemed to me - for my house - that I needed both. The hot air just sat in the basement and took forever to wend its way upstairs.

Thanks everyone for your input. Hopefully someday someone will ask a question that I can answer so I can repay the kindness.

Wood'nCoal wrote:You could cut that 6" hole in the top of the stove yourself, but the metal is much thicker on the Harman then on my Alaska.

So .... I couldn't do it with tin snips?

Thought of that - that's how the newer Magnums work - but the way this stove is designed, I would cut into the chamber where the stove gas comes through before exiting through the pipe. I'm not sure how the dist air gets to where it's going. I can't tell what path it takes. It really is a poor and very nearly deadly design, in my opinion and my experience, compared to the new Magnums.

Good information, I didn't know that. There may be channels along each side under the top for the hot air and the combustion gases run in the middle.

One of the runs is about 20 feet and both pipes stay hot. I am getting anywhere from 140 - 170 degees at the registers. I have not had the stove blower turned up high yet. I did do a cold air return that isn't in that picture. I ran flex pipe from the coldest room, 1 in line fan, right back to the blower on the stove. My basement stays plenty warm with the radiant heat from the stove and duct work. When we had that cold snap, in the teens and twenty at night, My house stayed around 70. Here is the link to the cold air return. Even without the booster fan on, I am seeing air sucked down the register (tested it with some inscense.) Cold Air Return? pics on bottom of page 2.