Kumma VaporFire 200 Delivered And Running!!!

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Binny

New Member
Sep 26, 2011
26
Hudson Vally NY
Well after all of your help and questions being answered I decided to to go with a Kumma Vaporfire 200. Expectations were high and they were by far exceeded. I ran separate ductwork from the Vaporfire to the existing registers in my home. I am currently burning less then ideal wood and getting 8hr burn times I would expect them to go to 10-11 hours maybe more when I start burning locust and oak. My house is 2200sft and it was 31deg last night - woke up to a 73 deg house!! with a bed of coals. Best of all - NO SMOKE. Granted the first 5 - 10 min a small amount of light smoke can be seen coming from the chimney but it quickly turns to vapor and stays that way usually even through reloads. Very little ash. I should have went with the glass door though. Sometimes I just cant help myself from opening the door to see whats going on in there. I might get it because I was told that opening the door during a burn decreases the burn time from the cooling of the fire chamber. I will keep you guys posted. Feel free to ask any question. Overall excellent product built like a tank and absolutely great people to deal with.
 
  • Like
Reactions: UrbanBrnr and GS7
It's always good to hear of someone who has high expectations that were surpassed!

TS
 
Yeah It is sweet. I can't wait until I get the duct work insulated and set up the return. Performance should get even better.
 
Well after all of your help and questions being answered I decided to to go with a Kumma Vaporfire 200. Expectations were high and they were by far exceeded. I ran separate ductwork from the Vaporfire to the existing registers in my home. I am currently burning less then ideal wood and getting 8hr burn times I would expect them to go to 10-11 hours maybe more when I start burning locust and oak. My house is 2200sft and it was 31deg last night - woke up to a 73 deg house!! with a bed of coals. Best of all - NO SMOKE. Granted the first 5 - 10 min a small amount of light smoke can be seen coming from the chimney but it quickly turns to vapor and stays that way usually even through reloads. Very little ash. I should have went with the glass door though. Sometimes I just cant help myself from opening the door to see whats going on in there. I might get it because I was told that opening the door during a burn decreases the burn time from the cooling of the fire chamber. I will keep you guys posted. Feel free to ask any question. Overall excellent product built like a tank and absolutely great people to deal with.

Thanks for the positive feedback. If you ever have any questions please feel free to contact us directly because we aim to please!!
 
Pics or it didn't happen!!!!
 
Ditto!

TS
 
I will get some pics up asap. Right now I am having an issue. I ran separate duct work for the Kumma and am trying to figure out if I can tie into the existing oil furnaces return if I am not using the existing oil furnaces duct work?? any ideas. I am trying to avoid making another return.
 
What is the issue with using the existing furnace's returns? Maybe I'm missing something, but if you use backdraft dampers, you should be fine.
 
I so I would put a backdraft damper in the return ( in between the oil furnace and the wood furnace ) ? I guess that could work. This is my first time doing any kind of ductwork. Also what I am debating is I think my current return is in the wrong spot. It is in the 1st level of my house, I always thought it should be upstairs for air circulation but thatis the way it was when I bought it. So if it should be upstairs then I dont want to feed from the iol return I would run another one. My house is usually 3-5 deg warmer upstairs. Since I stopped using my oil furnace ( THANK GOD ) it is colder upstairs. We like it a few deg warmer upstairs, I am thinking it is because of the return not being hooked up but im not sure. Im pretty confused on what my next move is.
 
You should be able to hook the wood furnace return up to the return for the existing oil furnace. You just need to make sure you have a backdraft damper going toward your wood furnace and also one going toward your oil furnace. If you have seperate duct work though, I'm not sure the damper is needed in the oil furnace. The worst that would happen there is your supply lines for the oil furnace could begin acting like returns.
 
Once you get it up and running post some pics and please update us "me" on how it works and wood use. I'm looking to upgrade in a year or 2 and this is one of the add-ons that I was looking at.
 
As far as wood use goes I get 8hr burns with the fire box filled with crap wood. I would expect 10+ hours with well seasoned hardwood. If I could get 12 I would be in HOGHEAVEN! only time will tell. I have a 2200sft 2 story house that is not properly insulated. 1st floor temp hovers around 72 when its 30deg out on the lowest setting. Again this is with crap wood, no return setup, and uninsulated ductwork. I do not know much about hvac work but I can only imagine things getting better when those three things are fixed. Anyone have any input on that. What do you guys expect my temp would increase when the return is set up and I insulate the duct work ( If Any ) ??? Right now the unit is sucking air from my basement through the furnace and up into my house. Traditionaly my house is always a few deg warmer upstairs ( Like most I think ) but since I put the furnace in its the opoosite. Do you think this is because the return is not set up and the furnace is sucking air into the basement instead of letting it go upstairs?? My goal for this untit is to only fill it twice a day and have it fullfill my heating needs which I believe is very obtainable.
 
Why did you run separate supply's? Ideally you would want a closed loop for the furnace, both supply and returns tied into the main duct system. Do you have any supply ducts upstairs tied to the furnace? With the small opening of the 200, it may be difficult to push alot of air into the home.
 
I ran seperate supplys for two reasons 1- my furnace is 20ft from my oil furnace. 2- even if they were close there is not a way to make the 8in air duct from the kumma go into my oil furnaces plenum. So what i did was I ran about 15 ft of 8 in coming from my kumma down the middle of my house and reduced it to 6in for about 10ft. off the 8in pipe i have two 4in pipes feeding two registers and two 4 inch pipes feeding two registers off the 6in. And the return is sucking from the basement.
 
Ok I have had some time to take some pics. IMG_0022.jpgView attachment 81363
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0031.jpg
    IMG_0031.jpg
    89.6 KB · Views: 624
  • IMG_0034.jpg
    IMG_0034.jpg
    102.1 KB · Views: 431
  • IMG_0037.jpg
    IMG_0037.jpg
    90.2 KB · Views: 480
  • IMG_0028.jpg
    IMG_0028.jpg
    87.1 KB · Views: 481
That first pic is just to show how small the fire box is. I think its about 2 cubic feet. It holds about 15in wide and 18in high worth of wood without iit getting hard to cram more in. The pic of the fire working is a pretty good indication of how the wood burns. There is no fire at all when you first open the door. That little bit on the left just flared up at the last second because the door was open and a lot of air rushed in. Normally everything in there is just glowing with no visible flames. My stovepipe that connects my chimney to my furnace never goes above 150 -170 and I have about 10-15 min of smoke in the beginning of each load. so thats 30 min of the lightest smoke you can imagine every 24 hours. I have it dialed in pretty good and have learned that the way you place the wood is key and can make up to an hour or so longer burn. That pic of my chimney is after 12min of reloading a full load. ( Yes I stood out there like a jackass with a stop watch ). I was loading three small loads a day but realized that if I just stack it to the brim I can load it at 12 and 12 and my house stays at 73 for about 8 - 9 hours and drops about a degree an hour till it hits about 68 when I reload it. Mind you this is with crappy multi length pieces of wood, uninsulated ductwork, no return set up, and only three registers that are far from the furnace. I am ducting in two more registers that will be closer to the furnace which will give me more heat into the upstairs do to the great temp difference from the air in my duct work close to the furnace compared to where the registers are. My goals are to raise the temp a few deg with the improvements to the system that I just mentioned and to get 10-11 hours next year once i start using wood cut to exactly 17in and is all locust and oak. You guys think that the improvements to my system that i have not made yet will give me a few deg more once completed or a waist of time???? DID I MENTION THAT I HAVE USED NO OIL YET!!!!!!! This time last year 800.00 in the hole already!
 
Any thoughts on my question?
 
As long as you have enough fan power to move the heated air, I think you'll get the extra degrees you are looking for.
 
Im hoping Im all about this thing My oil gauge has not moved since my fill up in the beginning of the season
 
Status
Not open for further replies.