Baffle?

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Indianawood

Member
Nov 28, 2019
138
Northern Indiana
Does adding a baffle help much? I have the perfect piece of steel laying around to add a baffle to my hardy h2. Wouldn't cost me anything but a little time. Anyone had luck doing this?
 
From what i have read on Hearth...
That is a tough old water heater,inefficient,loves to eat wood.
There are probably very few Hardy users left on Hearth.
There are a few x users that have posted their experiences with them.
If it is already hooked up and working then why not try anything to make a difference.
Upgrading to a modern unit is the only way you will find much relief from cutting wood and feeding the firebox on that unit.
 
I haven't run a Hardy and tried what you describe, but I've seen it talked about on a forum. Don't remember if it was hearth or another one. That was years ago.
 
Does adding a baffle help much? I have the perfect piece of steel laying around to add a baffle to my hardy h2. Wouldn't cost me anything but a little time. Anyone had luck doing this?

Unless this baffle is water cooled I doubt it will have much if any difference.

Only way I can see you improving your efficiency is having a better heat exchanger on the exhaust... from the Harty diagram they look like a straight shot out through the middle of the boiler. Pretty much only relying on the firebox alone for heat transfer which is proven to be terribly inefficient. One positive I have observed is its 304SS which long as you don't run your boiler low on water you will not have to worry about corrosion.

Hopfully this is a boiler to just get your feet wet or you plan on doing major modifications which I promote as an option if you have a good idea how to achieve this goal.

There are many people here who built home made boilers but you will have to be willing to learn how everything works and put the time into fabrication to make this an effective unit.
 
Had a boiler like this in the early 80's we called it the pig it burned 22 cords in its first year , a good gasification boiler with a 1000 gallons of storage burns only 4 cords doing the same job , got a feeling your Hardy is not much different!
 

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Adding a baffle sure can't hurt...unless maybe you get things too restricted and it smokes out the door when loading (even more than now?) or maybe you limit the firewood capacity too much for your needs in January. I know many people have good results adding baffles to some old school stoves (like the old Fishers)...they were pretty much a "campfire in a steel box" before too...only not water cooled.
 
What I've seen on the Hardy stoves is they have plenty of air (to the point of flame out the chimney), just minimal contact with the water going out the chimney. So some turbulence would help. Either way it's not making a huge difference, the unit is what it is.