Wood stove mods

Gday all, now the weather is warm here in Aus I want to try and get some more go out of my new wood stove. Brought it just before winter this year and was very disappointed.

I got this type because it had the secondary burn (didn’t know what that was till I started looking around then come on here) and a nice size fire box but it does not work at all. The secondary burn is a square tube (you cab see the square hole in my drawing) that runs from one side to the other just in front of the baffle with about 20 holes in it. Even when I got this thing really hot after leaving both air controls open then shutting them closed all I could see was little pockets of air blowing into the flames coming around the baffles, then as it died down and started to smoke ...nothing.

I can also only get 7 hours burn time with dry hard wood. I have modded the air controls so I can shut it down more than factory, still no good

After doing a fair bit of searching and reading I have come up with this.

The stuff in green is what I want to add.

It has 7 and a half 4.5" x 9" x 1" fire bricks in the bottom. I want to add another 15 bricks in there, along the back and around both sides also remove the steel baffle and but the rest of the bricks up there, to add some mass and hopefully reflect some of the heat back into the fire.

With the secondary burn I want to use the existing holes and run the preheat pipe along the side, half way along the back, do a "U" turn head back folowing the same path then come out to the middle of the fire box just below the new brick baffle. The other side will be a mirror image.

Question are should I just mount the new fire brick baffle on the same angle as the steel one was (the easy way) or weld on a new frame to make it level like in my drawing? also should I make the new baffle longer (extending towards the front more) so the smoke have a longer parth to travel?

and finally do u think the tubes will be long enough to work? each side will be about 52" long and all of it will be right up the top where all the heat should be.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated
Thanks Shane

Thanks for the reply’s

Its made locally, about 50km away, It was good to go and pick something up with out paying any postage for once. heres a link http://www.thefireplace.com.au/imag...le/jarrahdale_jumbo_innovator_wood_heater.htm

Dan I had some very dry wood, dry wood and some half dry hard wood, red gum and jarrah. The very dry stuff was some still standing dead trees that were ring barked between the 50s and 60s when clearing bush for grazing. This wood was solid rock hard and very heavy, burned extremely hot and for several hours, I would only but 1 piece of this in at a time where the others I would put 3 or 4 in and still got less heat.

With the baffle should I make it flat (which would be better as i could get more wood in) or leave it on the angle? If I had to leave it on the angle would extending the flue down into that area a 1" or 2" make a worth while difference in the way of trapping more heat up there?? Making the baffle out of something light would be better for me as I would not have to make up a new frame to hold the bricks.

JV Thimble Its gone cold here now we have had about a week of 75degf during the day and dropping down to 60degf at night, very strange weather for December. It should be averaging around 95 days and 80 nights, The cool weather does make it easier to sleep at night though.

Another thing the fire box is 24" wide 15" deep and 13" in height is that big enough to get a 10h burn?

Thanks Alot Shane

I have no doubt that we are behind you guys in design and efficiency, the 61% is probably right.

Based on other stoves you have seen or read about do you think I should Have 1 burn tube at the back and one at the front that are not linked together, or run maybe 3 tubes and link them all together. By linking together I mean having a manifold down each side of the firebox and the tubes run between the 2??

Thanks Shane

Like this, What do you recommend? 1 or 2??

Thanks for that. The baffle in it now is on a angle from factory(which makes it a pain to try and get large pieces of wood up the back), but I see alot of the US stoves have a flat baffle, would making mine flat as well improve the secondary burn?

Thanks