I have either a fisher mama bear or granpa bear woodburning stove with no baffle, secondary combustion or anything. What can i do for a reasonable small amount of money to improve its efficiency. I would imagine that installing a baffle would be my number one thing to do, but how do i go about doing this.
does anyone know if 5-6 cords sounds alright for heating 2000 square feet from a basement in a 45 year old house with this stove?
im thinking its a mama bear stove because dont all granpabear stoves have a baffle?
It may be better to just sell the stove this fall and purchase a new EPA stove. A new stove will end up paying for itself in a few years or less.
But if I was to modify a Fisher, I would weld some brackets and insert a ceramic baffle in the back of the firebox. You want the air to create an “S” pattern in the firebox to keep the gas and smoke in the firebox longer so it will burn.
I’m going to install a baffle into my masonry heatform fireplace this fall and see if I can get some secondary combustion and a cleaner burn. I already installed air tight glass doors and outside combustion air, just need a baffle and some way to control the combuston air.
I agree. Considering that it can be replaced with a stove for under $700 that will run circles around it for efficiency, it’s time for an upgrade. You’ll save wood and burn a lot cleaner.
But if you like tinkering and want to try to make it burn better and know how to weld, it would be a decent project. You’d need to drill aligning holes in both sides and weld in some 1/2” black iron pipes that have holes pre-drilled in them to create a secondary manifold. The pipes would be capped on one side and teed together on the other side ending in a nipple with a gate valve. A baffle would then rest on these pipes. With adjustment of the gate valve you might achieve decent secondary burn after some trial and error. It won’t look too pretty, but might work.
Agreed on all counts. I think back on how fast our old Fisher could go through wood and shudder. World of difference with the new equipment. Besides, the entertainment value of watching that secondary burn is priceless.
To reply to your wood use question: Burning 5 to 6 cords per year to entirely heat your house does not sound unreasonable, BUT you would probably find your wood usage going down to about 4 (maybe a little less) with an EPA cert. stove. Yeah, it is possible to get a relatively clean burn from a pre-epa, but really, its much easier to do with an EPA stove and over a wider heat output range for the stove (read: you can tune an epa stove down and still burn clean).
As far as mods for this stove, I think BG hit it on the head.
I have either a fisher mama bear or granpa bear woodburning stove with no baffle, secondary combustion or anything. What can i do for a reasonable small amount of money to improve its efficiency. I would imagine that installing a baffle would be my number one thing to do, but how do i go about doing this.
does anyone know if 5-6 cords sounds alright for heating 2000 square feet from a basement in a 45 year old house with this stove?
im thinking its a mama bear stove because dont all granpabear stoves have a baffle?
Well here is what I did. After reading about the new stoves with secondary burn technology, I decided it would be an interesting project to upgrade my Fisher stove.
I looked at many of the online stove manuals and looked at the stoves on display at Home Depot and Lowes. I came up with a design for a baffle and secondary air tubes that could be installed with minimal modification to the stove. I modeled the stove and baffle in Pro-E CAD. The baffle is made out of ¼” steel plate, ( it’s made in two pieces so in can fit in the door) , with square tubing attached for the secondary air passage, the air tubes are stainless steel with holes drilled in them. I placed some ceramic insulation on top of the baffle.
The modifications made quite an improvement, the stove seems to put out much more heat than before, wood consumption is reduced and after 10 or 10 minutes there generally there is no visible smoke from the chimney.
The secondary air enters the stove through a two 5/8” holes in the back of the stove (see the pic). You can also see the cover plates that can close off the secondary air incase of over firing. (I never had to use them). The air holes and the cover plate holes were the only modifications needed to install the baffle and air tube.
I purchased the stainless steel tubing, rectangular tubing and the ceramic insulation, the plate for the baffle I had. I was able to do all the fab work myself (there is a machine shop at work). I don’t remember the exact cost, probably around $100 of so.
You should be able to get the general idea from the pics; I could probably E-mail some PDF’s if you need more detail. Be aware that the baffle would have to be sized for your stove as it needs to be somewhat of a snug fit.
