Added a baffle to Grandma Bear Fisher Stove (updated with 2ndary burn idea)

For those of you interested........

Been 4 weeks burning the stove with the baffle installed.

The results as far as additional heat output, extended burn time, and overall being more controllable, and using less wood have been outstanding. I have seen improvement in every way possible.

So far that baffle seems to be holding up to the stresses of living inside the firebox. No wear is visible.

The last item to determine would be the cleanliness of my chimney.

Being that I have a short to medium height and exterior brick / terracotta lined chimney, I decide that it is best that I clean it every 4 weeks (the old standard for my smoke dragon era stove and chimney). I burn appropriately seasoned beech, hard maple, cherry and ash.

Stove burns nearly 24/7. Some days it is a near cold start when getting home from work.

After burning this month I have essentially the same build up as I always do. About 1 quart of the medium flaky, dusty, med - dark colored, typical creosote for my style of chimney.

With that said, the baffle is staying in the stove. Using the stove the past month has been more enjoyable than ever due to the increased predictability of the stove. I no longer am using my chimney damper and find very little difference in the quality of the burn because of varied weather and/or temperature. This was not the case before. Previously, the stove could be a little bit surprising at times in its reactions to adjustments and loading. That is not the case now.

Life is about as good as it gets for one of these old girls (shy of adding secondaries that is).

Because of the chimney being about as clean as normal, I am not going to mess around with adding secondaries at this time. Perhaps this summer when the stove isn't in daily use I'll get the itch to mess with it.

I wouldn't want to put the old girl up against many of your new stoves in terms of efficiency, but I can guarantee that this baffle has greatly increased the amount of usable heat that the stove produces per load.

Thanks again to everyone for their support and suggestions.

Happy burning,

pen

Surprisingly, the settings of my dampers are the same as they were before. What I am finding is that the only difference is that it stays hotter, longer.

Here is my strategy.

My "max" heat setting for a high burn is when I set my drafts at 1 1/4 turn open each.

For a normal "I am home and it's chilly out" burn, I open the drafts 1 turn each. This usually results in about a 6 hour burn using hardwoods.

For overnight I close it no more than 3/4 of a turn open on each. This will let me go up to about 9 hours while leaving me ample coals to restart from using standard sized splits.

These obviously are dependent upon the force of my chimney draft, how tight my basement is, the type of wood I am burning, the size of my splits, etc, etc. Most anyone else in the universe's results will vary

It was extremely cold the other night (I wish I had borrowed my buddies infrared temp gun) and i wanted to get a maximum setting idea to give to the Mrs. (I have a thermometer on the slanted step between the lower and upper shelf's of the stove and another on the single wall stove pipe). The lady likes numbers to work with (and I am a bit of a geek as well).

I found that at 1 and 1/2 turns open on each draft I could reach about 650 degrees on the thermometer as measured right of center on this slanted step portion. (not the hottest part of the stove but is the most convenient location. I am going for consistency here, not a max stove-top temp) At this temp, I began to get a very dull "red glow" in an area about the size of 2 packs of cigarettes on the back of the stove. This could only be seen with all the lights turned off and eyes given a minute or two to adjust. When looking at the stove with nearly 30 years of burning on her, this is apparently the traditional hot spot as is evidenced by an ever so slight "bow" outward and a lighter color than the rest of the stove.

Also, with the thermometer here, I can reload perfectly every time when the temp gets down to about 175. At that temp, I have just enough coals to relight things without using kindling.

Nothing like being an analytical dweeb I like measurements. Does that make me a bad person?

pen

I would still like to know why some of these stoves and inserts came with a smoke shelf and others did not.


pen

yamahaurl has the honey bear and says she has a smoke shelf.

When seeing them in the past, I really hadn't paid too close attention. If i remember correctly, they were pretty much entirely contained in the upper shelf of the stove correct?

I asked yamahaurl for a pic of hers but she might not have seen the request or might not be able to.

I am curious to get the standard dimensions from the manufacturer for what they used and what was UL approved (for some of the later models).

Mine unfortunately is not UL approved. This actually works out to my advantage however for modification. I had to search for a homeowners insurance company that would allow me having a non-UL stove.

pen

Outstanding!

I agree, looks factory too me.

Those are perfect pics! (Healthy sized log you have there BTW)

Thanks for sharing that and sacrificing your camera for the purpose of good BS!

pen

looks to me like a piece of boiler plate with a lip on the front facing down.

Also looks like the 2in area that I left above my baffle they left in-front of theirs.

pen