Pleasant Hearth WS-2417 install/challenges/questions/observations

[Das Jugghead]

Today I finally got around to finishing up the secondary tubes. I found stainless steel nuts at my local Lowe's and they fit perfectly. Taking my time and performing other random chores as I went it took me just about an hour to do.

Here are the nuts with information:



Since they were only .020 larger in diameter than the inner diameter of the secondary burn tube I decided not to file the corners of the nuts. I did not have to heat the tubes to get them in either. Using a small hammer I carefully tapped each nut in by standing the tube on my bench vice and tapping each nut home.



Here is one of the nuts installed:



This was the only hitch I encountered. Less than a minute with a round file had this flashing all cleaned up:



When I reinstalled the tubes I put the cotter pins in from the top without bending the ends so that they would be easier to remove. The cotter pins were pretty bent up so I used my vice and a small hammer to form them back straight again.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Had our first fire on Thursday night and another Friday night. Thursday was only a small load of broken up pallet runners and solely for the purpose of taking the evening chill off the inside of the house. Friday night's load was wood we cut and seasoned earlier in the year - mostly maple along with some ash. I loaded the stove at 10 pm and ended up opening windows at a little after midnight because it was too hot in the house. The temperature in the room with the stove was 80 degrees. When I came downstairs Saturday morning at 7:30 the stove still had coals in it and registered a STT of 131 degrees. The temperature in the room was 68 degrees.

Considering that last year initially our burn times were something on the order of 3-4 hours I must say I am most pleased with the improvement. The true test will be when we get into actual winter temperatures. As it were, temperatures here were in the 40's on the nights that we built fires. I attribute the improvement mostly to better wood in that it is all seasoned hardwood ranging 10-15% MC, correct length for more efficient loading, and larger splits. Last year I re-split all the wood into smaller splits to help it burn since it was not properly seasoned. The addition of the stainless steel nuts into the ends of secondary burn tubes has definitely helped to slow down the intake velocity and has made for a more even burn.

I still need to fabricate the fresh air intake for the stove and may see about incorporating a thermostatically regulated flapper to experiment with. It may be that regulating in the intake flow beyond what I have already done will be approaching the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Average burn time with modifications and better wood is now 10+ hours with decent sized wood pieces still burning. I still need to get the outside air intake fabricated but I have several weeks before I close the landscaping season so no time until then. At this point the firebox is filled to perhaps 80% capacity. This is a nice change from last season when I would stuff it as full and as tightly as possible only to get 3-4 hours of heat from it. Now it's four or five splits and 10 hours of heat.

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Das, Here is the start of my OAI. It will give you an idea of what I plan to do. I built the air box out of flat ductwork purchased from Menards. Cut, bent, then rivited together.
I used 4" ductwork elbows and tubing. I have one run going out the back for outside air. The run coming out the left side will allow for me to use inside air if I chose . I have blast gates in the runs so that I can turn on and off the air flow. The 4" blast gates fit nicely in 4" ducts or PVC drainage pipe.

I am not done yet and won't be for a few weeks as I have other things to do.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Das, Here is the start of my OAI. It will give you an idea of what I plan to do. View attachment 249078View attachment 249079I built the air box out of flat ductwork purchased from Menards. Cut, bent, then rivited together.
I used 4" ductwork elbows and tubing. I have one run going out the back for outside air. The run coming out the left side will allow for me to use inside air if I chose . I have blast gates in the runs so that I can turn on and off the air flow. The 4" blast gates fit nicely in 4" ducts or PVC drainage pipe.

I am not done yet and won't be for a few weeks as I have other things to do.

Hey Tom interesting stuff there, thank for posting up. I was planning to make my intake box out of aluminum with a bi-metallic thermostat to control in the primary intake air. I am leaning toward using 2" gas pipe for the intake tube along with some fins to tumble the incoming air to increase exposure time and mixing - it probably won't help a ton but I think every little bit helps.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Eleven hours so far and still 72 in the house.

 

[moresnow]

Eleven hours so far and still 72 in the house.

Impressive. It would be interesting to know if the well seasoned wood or the stove modification has the most impact on the long burn. Guessing the installation of a stock set of tubes would result in a much shorter burn time. Either way it looks to be a much more pleasant experience this season! Enjoy.

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Any chance you could post a picture of a freshly loaded stove then one of it 10 - 11 hours later? I would like to see how much wood you placed in your stove to get that long of a burn.

Thanks.

Or if you are really ambitious, make a video of you loading the stove. Be sure to measure and weigh each piece. An EXCEL document of the statistics would be sufficient. Be sure to include wood type, length, circumference and diameter of each piece. Oh heck you might as well toss in moisture content of each piece.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Impressive. It would be interesting to know if the well seasoned wood or the stove modification has the most impact on the long burn. Guessing the installation of a stock set of tubes would result in a much shorter burn time. Either way it looks to be a much more pleasant experience this season! Enjoy.

I would say the longer burns can be mostly attributed to the seasoned firewood.

Any chance you could post a picture of a freshly loaded stove then one of it 10 - 11 hours later? I would like to see how much wood you placed in your stove to get that long of a burn.

Thanks.

Or if you are really ambitious, make a video of you loading the stove. Be sure to measure and weigh each piece. An EXCEL document of the statistics would be sufficient. Be sure to include wood type, length, circumference and diameter of each piece. Oh heck you might as well toss in moisture content of each piece.

Only ran 8 hours last night before reloading this morning. Here are pictures of the wood, MC readings on each piece, and a picture of the stove when I loaded it.




Left side front to back is Maple, Walnut? , and Ash. Right side front to back is Maple branch and Oak.





Maple



Walnut?



Ash



Oak



Maple branch



Stove loaded to 80% capacity



Time of loading


STT at 6:30 this morning


I took a picture of the coals but it didn't turn out so I did not post it. Enough coals to get the stove going again when I put wood in it.

 

[begreen]

The wood needs to be resplit right before testing so that one is testing on a fresh face of the inside wood. And the probes need to be pushed in firmly for a proper reading.

 

[Das Jugghead]

The wood needs to be resplit right before testing so that one is testing on a fresh face of the inside wood. And the probes need to be pushed in firmly for a proper reading.

Copy that - I'll see about spitting and testing a load the next time around.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Das, Here is the start of my OAI. It will give you an idea of what I plan to do. View attachment 249078View attachment 249079I built the air box out of flat ductwork purchased from Menards. Cut, bent, then rivited together.
I used 4" ductwork elbows and tubing. I have one run going out the back for outside air. The run coming out the left side will allow for me to use inside air if I chose . I have blast gates in the runs so that I can turn on and off the air flow. The 4" blast gates fit nicely in 4" ducts or PVC drainage pipe.

I am not done yet and won't be for a few weeks as I have other things to do.

Hey Tom I finally got a day to work on my outside air intake. The landscaping season is semi-officially closed with the exception of tree work so I took the opportunity today to fabricate an outside air intake for the stove.

Over the past few days with temperatures in the single digits overnight I have really noticed the cold air infiltrating through the compromised window seals and travelling across the floors of my house. Last summer we had the house painted and part of the painting process involved power washing the house. The guy who did the power washing broke the seal the on every window. By the time we figured out what had happened it was too late to be able to prove the damage was a result of their power washing - but I digress.

In order to fit my stove into the fireplace I had cut the legs down which resulted in less space beneath the stove to work with. This made the process of retro-fitting the outside air intake a little more challenging - it would have been better done before the stove was installed. Depending on the performance of this set-up I may pull the stove in the spring and redo the intake. To build the air intake I used a 24" x 24" sheet of aluminum and a 3" diameter flexible aluminum tube from Lowes. I drew up a pattern and bent up a box to go under the stove. I used rivets to connect the corners of the box once it was under the stove which was quite difficult given the tight working tolerances under the stove. The seams were sealed using stove gasket cement. One thing in my favor was the warmer temperatures today so I let the stove burn out which made working in close proximity to it a little easier.

I ran the flexible aluminum tubing through the original ash door in the fireplace and outside. It is insulated with rock wool and where it meets the exterior of the chimney is it foamed with Great Stuff. Tomorrow I will install some type of cover for it.

My hope is that this will eliminate the cold air travelling across my floors and assist the stove in keeping the house comfortable. My thoughts are that all that cold air finding its way into my house via whatever avenues it finds entry through is mixing with the air in the house and bringing the overall house temperatures down.

Here are some pictures of the process:


Cutting and bending the box


Test fitting the box


Test fitting the flexible aluminum tube



Aluminum tube installed into box



Foamed the outside of the intake - will install cover tomorrow



Fired back up and running

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Das, This is how my intake ended up. I have been using it for about 4 weeks now. There is a big difference between the air entering from my bathroom last year and this year. I do still feel a bit of air moving down the hallway from the bedroom leading to the living room where the stove is located. I attribute this to the difference in temperature in the sections of the house located away from the stove.

I painted it black. There are steel washers under the air box to keep it snug up against the stove. The four inch round HVAC duct tubing has a blast gate at the end. This allows me to use inside air if I want. I have not used it yet.

In the back I have a four inch round duct HVAC tubing connected to a blast gate that is snug against the wall. The tubing is covered in a plastic sleeve, then two inches of insulation, then a seven inch round HVAC duct tube. I wanted to protect against condensation forming on the four inch tubing (warm air on a cold surface) and any heat from the stove effecting the intake. I also placed a 'heat shield' to protect the blast gate.

The intake runs through the wall and into my garage. I used four inch PVC pipe through the wall, I have another blast gate there and a screen cover to protect against insects, and anything else that might try to enter. At one time I had a 90 degree elbow, then 2 feet of PVC pipe, then another 90 degree elbow. This seemed to hamper my air intake, and draft. I ended up making it as short as I could.

I wish I had a bit more draft. I almost always run the stove vent wide open. I leave the door cracked open various amount when I add wood. Once I get good flames then I slowly close it up. I am thinking about opening up the "V" shaped air opening in the bottom of the stove. This is the narrowest point and would be where the air is restricted. I will probaly run it all winter this way, then make any modifications in the summer.

I hope your works well for you.

 

[begreen]

I wish I had a bit more draft. I almost always run the stove vent wide open. I leave the door cracked open various amount when I add wood. Once I get good flames then I slowly close it up. I am thinking about opening up the "V" shaped air opening in the bottom of the stove. This is the narrowest point and would be where the air is restricted. I will probaly run it all winter this way, then make any modifications in the summer.

How tall is the flue system on the stove from stovetop to chimney cap?

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Begreen,

13 feet from top of stove to top of last stove pipe section. Chimney rain cap is extra. (Stove top to living room ceiling = 5Ft.; Chimney sections = 3' plus 3' plus 2' plus rain cap) = 13 ' I added the two foot section last late winter. It helped. If I add anymore, I will have to add a chimney support.

From bottom of stove to top of chimney is about 15 feet.

 

[begreen]

This stove likes a good draft to pull air through the secondaries. I think another 3ft. will make quite a difference. If you want to test that theory, get a 3' length of cheap 6" round warm air duct pipe. On a calm day, remove the chimney cap and insert the duct pipe, then fire up the stove. If that makes a nice improvement, then add 3' chimney pipe and a brace.

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

This stove likes good draft to pull air through the secondaries. I think another 3ft. will make quite a difference. If you want to test that theory, get a 3' length of cheap 6" round warm air duct pipe. On a calm day, remove the chimney cap and insert the duct pipe, then fire up the stove. If that makes a nice difference, then add 3' chimney pipe and a brace.

Good thought. I'll try that. I have a piece laying around. I'll post the results.

Thanks!!

 

[Das Jugghead]

Das, This is how my intake ended up. I have been using it for about 4 weeks now. There is a big difference between the air entering from my bathroom last year and this year. I do still feel a bit of air moving down the hallway from the bedroom leading to the living room where the stove is located. I attribute this to the difference in temperature in the sections of the house located away from the stove.

I painted it black. There are steel washers under the air box to keep it snug up against the stove. The four inch round HVAC duct tubing has a blast gate at the end. This allows me to use inside air if I want. I have not used it yet.

In the back I have a four inch round duct HVAC tubing connected to a blast gate that is snug against the wall. The tubing is covered in a plastic sleeve, then two inches of insulation, then a seven inch round HVAC duct tube. I wanted to protect against condensation forming on the four inch tubing (warm air on a cold surface) and any heat from the stove effecting the intake. I also placed a 'heat shield' to protect the blast gate.

The intake runs through the wall and into my garage. I used four inch PVC pipe through the wall, I have another blast gate there and a screen cover to protect against insects, and anything else that might try to enter. At one time I had a 90 degree elbow, then 2 feet of PVC pipe, then another 90 degree elbow. This seemed to hamper my air intake, and draft. I ended up making it as short as I could.

I wish I had a bit more draft. I almost always run the stove vent wide open. I leave the door cracked open various amount when I add wood. Once I get good flames then I slowly close it up. I am thinking about opening up the "V" shaped air opening in the bottom of the stove. This is the narrowest point and would be where the air is restricted. I will probaly run it all winter this way, then make any modifications in the summer.

I hope your works well for you.

Hey Tom I have noticed a significant decrease in the cold air that used to migrate through my leaky windows and across the floors. I am already planning Version II for whenever I can find the time to fabricate it up. This new version will have a better design and will be better sealed to the bottom of the stove using rockwool along all the mating surfaces. I also plan to install several baffles in the intake box to tumble the air and help warm it up before it enters the primary intake and secondary intake.

As far as draft I actually have a very strong draft as my chimney is close to 30' of insulated stainless steel. It used to draft so hard before I modded the primary intake, the secondary intake, and the secondary tubes that the stove would burn through a load of wood in a matter of hours. I would echo begreen's recommendation to temporarily install another 3' section of flue pipe to see how that helps your drafting situation.

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Here is a picture from right now. I have secondary burn flames dancing across the top of the fire box without any real flames coming off the wood itself. It sure is pretty!

 

[Das Jugghead]

Here is a picture from right now. I have secondary burn flames dancing across the top of the fire box without any real flames coming off the wood itself. It sure is pretty!

It sure is a nice feeling to see those secondaries kick in. Mine pour liquid flame waterfalls for a couple of hours. Then the flames disappear to be replaced by pop-up thunderstorms of blue cloud/flames that materialize in the top of the fire box and dance/roll from one side to the other before disappearing. I am very curious to see if by preheating the incoming air even more if I can extend the burn time or at least enter secondary combustion sooner.

 

[begreen]

Here is a picture from right now. I have secondary burn flames dancing across the top of the fire box without any real flames coming off the wood itself. It sure is pretty!

Is that with the temporary extension added?

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Is that with the temporary extension added?

No, it is not. I need a calm day for the extension experiment. The picture was taken Friday. It was very windy that day. 20 -25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Transferred from the RSF Opel 2 secondary air questions/story kind of long thread

So I thought myself that if it was pointing more into the actual fire box itself it would help push the smoke back into the hot bricks and hel ignite. I pulled the pin holding this air tube, rotated it at a 60 degree angle down into back of stove. I also removed the removed factory steel baffle from the stove and replaced it with 4 firebricks to help keep it hot and insulated where I'm blowing the secondary air into. I just tried it out and I'm seeing some crazy blue secondary swirling flames. Seemed to burn hot for the amount of wood I put into it. But it's not too cold here yet overnight lows 45. I'll put some bigger peices in now for a better test and update . Any one even still burning out if these stoves?

Kudos to you good sir for such a great idea. Since temperatures here are hovering around ten degrees I thought no better day than to mess with the stove. I rotated the secondary tubes in my stove to test this out. There are three secondary tubes in my stove. The back one and middle one now face straight down, the front one faces back a little below horizontal. I ran a test load at 9:30 this morning and Holy Mother of God the stove went flat out nuclear. I ran two fans on it and temperatures in this room hit 83 degrees - this with outdoor temperatures at 9 degrees. I was so impressed I pulled the secondary tubes at 3:30 pm with a bed of coals an inch thick (arm hair is sooo overrated - yeah I burned the everlasting you-fill-in-the-blank out myself) and redrilled the holes for the retaining cotter pins.

I just reinstalled the secondary tubes with the above-described orientation and reloaded the stove at 4:00 pm. Within ten minutes the stove was cooking away. Stove loaded 80% of capacity with walnut. I will report back with the results but based on what I am seeing now I am pretty sure I am going to have to rework my intake box to slow down the incoming air.

 

[Das Jugghead]

Transferred from the RSF Opel 2 secondary air questions/story kind of long thread

Kudos to you good sir for such a great idea. Since temperatures here are hovering around ten degrees I thought no better day than to mess with the stove. I rotated the secondary tubes in my stove to test this out. There are three secondary tubes in my stove. The back one and middle one now face straight down, the front one faces back a little below horizontal. I ran a test load at 9:30 this morning and Holy Mother of God the stove went flat out nuclear. I ran two fans on it and temperatures in this room hit 83 degrees - this with outdoor temperatures at 9 degrees. I was so impressed I pulled the secondary tubes at 3:30 pm with a bed of coals an inch thick (arm hair is sooo overrated - yeah I burned the everlasting you-fill-in-the-blank out myself) and redrilled the holes for the retaining cotter pins.

I just reinstalled the secondary tubes with the above-described orientation and reloaded the stove at 4:00 pm. Within ten minutes the stove was cooking away. Stove loaded 80% of capacity with walnut. I will report back with the results but based on what I am seeing now I am pretty sure I am going to have to rework my intake box to slow down the incoming air.

Well after less than twenty-four hours of burning I have made another modification. The holes on the rear secondary tube still points down but the middle and front secondary tubes have been returned their stock position pointing forward. While producing an enormous amount of heat I was running though a load about every four hours. Currently I am about two hours in using this latest configuration and house temperatures are holding steady at 73 degrees.

All walnut on top of a coal bed


Time to fully light the load


Load ignited, door closed, and damper pushed in


After about two hours

 

[Das Jugghead]

I have always had a large coaling log along the back wall of the firebox . . . that is until I rotated the rear secondary burn tube to face down. Now I get a more complete burn along with some beautiful flame waterfalls.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies