real thinking about taking out my drolet heatmax

bedrock1 said:

never got my new kit to relocate the thermodisc.

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That's too bad, did they just not ship it?

I'm not completely familiar with whether the relocation is absolutely required anyways, and I believe your system needs additional improvements beyond the snap disk, so I think you will still benefit from your efforts to test your system and be happy that you did.

I suspect that if you try your furnace again it will work better. Often its the outside temp that will make one feel their furnace, stove, boiler etc. not hacking it. With warmer temps the heat load to have a home at 70-75 is much less. Could be the Tundra is more than enough heat except for when temps get to say -20 etc. Then you will need to run extra sources of heat.

bedrock1 said:

hi do u have a tundra

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No but im looking at them my old furnace has cracks in the fire box (Fox Fire bought new in 1987 worked great and doesn't owe me a thing but company is no more) So it burns the wood lickity split and you can't damper it down or it smokes. Cracks in firebox don't cause smoke but turn your furnace into a mini blast furnace (hot and fast burn)
What I like about them secondary burn longer burns. What I don't like Secondary burn, no more going from the woods to the truck to the basement which is how I burn in shoulder season. Save the stacks for Dec, Jan, Feb when snows often are too deep to cut, just go to the stacks then.
Drolet problems door handle on right side to me thats for a lefty, prefer on right side and ash pan door is a joke, also no grate most say use shovel and skip ash pan. The first stove I ever bought was a Franklin stove sucked had to shovel ashs and fire only lasted like 4hrs. Also don't like full size window will prob get broke someday when I try to shoehorn in a 24" piece into a 22" firebox. (Fire Fox was, is 28" and have fit 30" at a angle) I would prob be happier with a Englander ha ha, but the Drolet wood savings might make it worth while say 3 cords a yr saved that is 50 cords in 15 yrs thats lot less wood to cut, buy etc.

jdogg said:

What I don't like Secondary burn, no more going from the woods to the truck to the basement which is how I burn in shoulder season.

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Well, you can do this with a Tundra, you just have to burn with the damper open, small loads to avoid overheating, wood at least partially dried, and of course smokey and shorter burns. But in a pinch...

jdogg said:

No but im looking at them my old furnace has cracks in the fire box (Fox Fire bought new in 1987 worked great and doesn't owe me a thing but company is no more)

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Well, 28 years is fantastic, some guys are only getting 1 year out of their Tundra's before they crack.

STIHLY DAN said:

Your ductwork is terrible, an oil furnace attached to that would not work. Do you only have 1, 8 inch cold air intake? Can't push out more than you pull. You need an HVAC guy, there is a reason you need to go to school to be one.

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I agree. First thing I'd do is unhook the cold air return just to see if it made a difference.
If it's only getting 8" ,,, it sure wont push 2- 8"

You will need to get a piece of metal tubing to put into the stove pipe, a foot or two will do. Attach the rubber tubing that came with the Dwyer to the metal tubing (inside or out, whatever works) Put oil in the meter, mount it level and zero it. Attach the rubber tube to the low side of the meter, so that when checking draft, the oil will be pulled to the right (more range that way). The high side is left unhooked. You will have very low draft when the chimney is cold, but it will build as the fire brings the firebox up to operating temp. Check the draft after the fire is good and hot and the intake damper has been open for a while. The baro should be set so that the draft never goes over -.06" WC (or the sixth mark right of zero) Once the damper has been closed for a while and the fire has settled into "cruise" mode, the draft should remain above -.04" WC until more toward the end of the fire, at that point the draft will drift back toward zero as the fire burns out and the chimney cools.
As for checking static pressure, I have never done it, but maybe one of the others can elaborate on that, or look it up online, I see there are lots of pages come up. Looks like plenty of info on You-tube too...

brenndatomu said:

You will need to get a piece of metal tubing to put into the stove pipe, a foot or two will do. Attach the rubber tubing that came with the Dwyer to the metal tubing (inside or out, whatever works) Put oil in the meter, mount it level and zero it. Attach the rubber tube to the low side of the meter, so that when checking draft, the oil will be pulled to the right (more range that way). The high side is left unhooked. You will have very low draft when the chimney is cold, but it will build as the fire brings the firebox up to operating temp. Check the draft after the fire is good and hot and the intake damper has been open for a while. The baro should be set so that the draft never goes over -.06" WC (or the sixth mark right of zero) Once the damper has been closed for a while and the fire has settled into "cruise" mode, the draft should remain above -.04" WC until more toward the end of the fire, at that point the draft will drift back toward zero as the fire burns out and the chimney cools.
As for checking static pressure, I have never done it, but maybe one of the others can elaborate on that, or look it up online, I see there are lots of pages come up. Looks like plenty of info on You-tube too...

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Static pressure is done the same way. You drill a hole into the plenum of your other furnace if you have one and take the reading there. If your running the round duct work around the house you'd take the reading in each round. I believe its 18" down the line. You take the reading when the blower is blowing.

Could you tell how much draft you have by how your stove runs?
Provided your chimney is not clogged of course. Im just asking cause I have two wood burners, a add-on furnace in the basement going into a centrally located chimney. (7-8" square tile liner about 20' in height) This unit always smokes when I open the door so I add wood as fast as possible.
Now in my gazeebo I have a old BoxWood stove that I might run sometimes when friends come over to drink beer etc. On this unit I can run it with the door wide open with no smoke coming out the door. It is just triple wall pipe ran up through a thimble in the roof. (6" pipe about 10' high)
To me it seems like the smaller pipe chimney is getting way better draft.

jdogg said:

Could you tell how much draft you have by how your stove runs?
Provided your chimney is not clogged of course. Im just asking cause I have two wood burners, a add-on furnace in the basement going into a centrally located chimney. (7-8" square tile liner about 20' in height) This unit always smokes when I open the door so I add wood as fast as possible.
Now in my gazeebo I have a old BoxWood stove that I might run sometimes when friends come over to drink beer etc. On this unit I can run it with the door wide open with no smoke coming out the door. It is just triple wall pipe ran up through a thimble in the roof. (6" pipe about 10' high)
To me it seems like the smaller pipe chimney is getting way better draft.

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Two COMPLETLY different animals here. The boxwood has no baffles and a straight up chimney, no reason to have smoke roll-out. Plus it is drawing combustion air from the same pressure zone that it is exhausting into, perfect conditions.
Now the furnace in the basement likely has baffles, and 90* turn(s) in the stovepipe and chimney. Also, it is very likely pulling combustion air from a different pressure zone than what the chimney is exhausting into (basement VS outdoors) unless you have an outdoor air kit installed near the furnace. (leaky basements/houses can sometimes, but not always, count as "outdoor air")
You should be able to prevent smoke roll-out from the basement furnace with as low as -.03" WC draft if everything else is optimal.