wood in a 1557 hot blast, work good???

hello to all. i own a USSC 1557 hotblast. i view myself fortunate that after a lot of agrivation and talking on this forum, it burns coal very well. in late spring i plan on burning wood in it, light it at night and let it die down during the day when we dont need the heat or whatever. i just have a few questions. i probably should not use my baro dampner and invest in a MPD, right? what are your experiences with wood in these units? i know that coal throws out a ton more btu's, but will wood throw out enough heat with wood? thanks a ton everyone
john

Hi, mudman. Yes, the unit will get as hot or even hotter with wood than with coal. Wood can be regulated easier with your combustion draft blower fan nicely to your heat demand with a thermostat. The combustion blower fan can either forge the fire or starve it for air. This gets you very close to a conventional gas, oil, or electric unit. The only drawback is you'll have to refuel more often and moving wood is requires more labor. With coal in a hand fired unit, longer more even burning is possible. But, you have to keep a handle on the firing rate to match you demand. Coal doesn't respond to quick changes in draft very fast, unlike wood does. I would definitely use a barometric draft regulator in the stovepipe. As long as you don't use wet wood, the heat output and the length of burn time will increase considerably, without the build up of creosote in your chimney. Also the fuel consumption will be reduced because the heat isn't going up the chimney. I burn wood during mild weather or anytime I can get my hands on some, and I have great results doing so. But consider the fact you are going to feed it pretty regular. Hope I helped. DOUG

yeah i kinda figured i would need to load it a lot more. figures the wood is cheap (free) in our woods, few trees blew over so gonna cut them up, today in fact. i fugured that in the spring time when the temps get low at night and warmer during the day this would be perfect, easier to get a wood fire goin . thats interesting that creosote will not build up using the baro dampner. someone tried telling me that with the chimney cooler the creosote will build faster. anyway, i got about three or four chord cut up, so its a start. thanks doug

Once again, the key to no or very little creosote build up in the chimney is, starting with a clean chimney first, don't use wet wood and if you do, only with a hot fire, a small amount at a time, keep the firebox temperature up, and really get it going once a day to burn the chimney out clean. That will keep your chimney clean when only burning wood. That is what I've been doing and it works. If you don't, creosote will build up with or without a barometric draft regulator in the stovepipe. DOUG

very good input doug, thanks a lot. i will be sure to use these techniques in my operation. got about 2 chord cut split and stacked thats seasoned, and got about 3 chord unseasoned. its a start

mudman: How's it going. How about some pictures of your operation. Did you install the barometric draft regulator? If so, how's it working? Thanks, DOUG

i did not. im using my baro, but kinda nervous. its getting a lot of creosote on it. aint the wood, seasoned 4 years. it was a softer wood, but was free . pic to follow soon. thinkin about getting a MPD for it

I am burning wood in my 1537 and it works quite well. Remember to allow combustion air in through the feed door and only feed a little air in through the ash door. As for temps, I can easily see 800 degrees as measured with a thermocouple in the flue pipe about 18" from the back of the furnace. I don't know what my actual stove temps are though. My biggest problem is creosote buildup when throttling back at night and during the daytime.

Wood burning in a 1557M. Do you guys have the draft motor installed? How has it worked out for you? I burnt one year without one, then installed it last year. I wasn't really that impressed with it, but not sure if I was utilizing it correctly. The paperwork with the kit had absolutly zero for operation instructions. Where are your dampers positioned( ash door, feed, and fan shutter)? It just didn't seem that the motor would stoke the fire as much as I thought it would. If I closed the feed door damper completely to let the fire die back when my thermostat was satisfied, when the draft motor came on, it just didn't seem to bring the fire back to life like I hoped it would. I ended the season not even using it, just kept the feed door damper cracked and got by like I did the previous year. One other thing, I had a steel plate laid on top the shaker grates that blocked off the ash pan. I was told wood burned from above, and if it got air from below it would just burn up quicker. I just cleaned out the stove, and removed the plate as I plan on trying some coal this year. Do you think the plate effected wood burning much? I figure I'll start burning this winter on wood and will compare how it does without the plate. Any ideas or comments would be great, as I'm still just learning how to use this girl! Thanks
Mike

I'm surprised that you didn't get good results from the combustion draft blower set up. True that I have a 1600 instead of the 1557, but I would think that it should work quite well on firing wood. Here is a post to check out. CLAYTON FURNACE FIRED ON WOOD I wouldn't use the steel plate, blocking the grates, when firing wood though. I would just not shake as often, leaving the wood ash to build up a nice bed on the grates. This way you still have the ability to clear the dead ash and have just a little air coming though your closed ash door spinner to get a complete burn of the ash to a nice fine powder.

Just a thought for an experiment when firing wood, how about laying a few firebrick on top of the secondary baffle? My thought is that maybe some of the moisture in the fire that licks the firebrick before going out the stack may stay in the firebox.

mudman wrote:im using my baro, but kinda nervous. its getting a lot of creosote on it.

Once creosote accumulates on the baro's plate it becomes heavier and will not respond properly, it will need to be cleaned and recalibrated before firing on coal again.

Doug, The fire bricks are something to try.. be interesting. When your burning wood, do you have any other source of draft to your box, or just the damper on the draft motor? I have a stainless steel liner, so I'm not real concerned with creosote. Once the draft motor would come on, how long untill you had a noticable increase in your fire? When the draft motor is off, does the stove die back to the point that the blower motors shut down? Thanks for the suggestion!
Mike

Mike, I just use the draft flap on the fan motor to control the amount of air into the firebox for the needed heat output. I adjust the flap to full open or almost closed, depending on the outside temperature. Want it hotter, open the flap. The main difference I see between your 1557 and the 1600 is that you also have the ability to let air in at the feed door too. The 1600 doesn't have that option.

After a while of using my Clayton, I was able to tell were to adjust the fan motor flap to the outside temperature so that the fan motor didn't come on until the natural draft was insufficient to keep the temperature, because the fuel was getting low, or only came on when reloading. The thermostat does its job of controlling the motor well, to the desired room temperature, when burning wood in the Clayton. The motor should be able to get your fire going hot enough to set the 200 degree fan limit off to the combustion draft motor within 15 minutes or so, depending on the moisture in the wood and the stage it is burning. Yes, the circulation blower may cycle on and off. It really depends on your fan limit settings and your demand for heat as to when the circulation blower will cycle. I just noticed that once you find the sweet spot for your stove in your house system, you'll always get the same results.

With a clean chimney, I would consider making one short hot fire a day, say 10 or 15 minutes, to burn off any creosote that may have accumulated in your liner, from burning only wood, and keep it clean. By doing that, I was able to lengthen the time between brushing out the chimney, bottom to top. Just a thought. DOUG

Thanks Doug, appreciate the info. I'll give it another go this winter. I'm curious to see how it goes without the plate covering my grates. Not that I'm rushing winter, but after the last week we've had..I could go for 40 degrees right now!
Mike

Is anyone getting a 10-12 hour burn time using seasoned red oak? Thinking about buying one of these or maybe the 1602M.