Baker Fireside Insert - blower air restriction Problem

[JGMann67]

Hello -

I'm a noob on the board here. Have been burning coal in my Baker Fireside insert for the last 8 years. The unit is an older one, manufactured in the early 80's, but in really good shape. You probably know that Baker is a local company here in northern York County. I tried searching for this answer before posting up a new thread, but got no love...

The blower motor on it is about a 70 cfm. I replaced the fan about three years ago and, it's running fine - got that typical "wahwahwahwahwah" sound and when detached from the stove seems to move a good amount of air. But, when it's attached to the stove, the airflow through the tubes is... well, nominal at best. I went out and got a new 140 cfm fan with the speed adjust and it's only marginally better on airflow through the tubes than the 70. That tells me it's something else.

I'm thinking that it might just be an accumulation of ash dust pushed into the collector at the base of the stove, restricting the air flow through the heating chamber (if that's what it's called) and out the tubes at the top front of the stove.

To check, I'm going to let my coal fire go out over the Christmas weekend, and jam a flex vaccum tube in there and see what comes out.

Any other ideas of what it might be and how to fix it??

Any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[JGMann67]

Wow - no replies whatsoever...

Bummer. Guess I'll see if there's another forum around for coal stoves.

 

[ansehnlich1]

I had a baker coal stove and I think the blower air tubes are the same in all their stoves. Matter of fact, I bought the stove from Baker, near Ski Roundtop, and live around 15 miles from there. I don't see how you'd get ash from the fire in those air tubes, if you did, it would mean the barrier between the firebox and the blower air tubes has been compromised, leading to a potentially deadly situation.

I had my blower off my coal stove annually for a cleaning of the blower itself, it would always over time get lots of crud in the blower housing and in the fins of the blower fan itself.

There should be no reason you have clogged air pipes in that coal stove, it makes no sense.

 

[JGMann67]

Sorry - lemme clarify...

Mine came from Baker's too... I live about 15-20 from there (SE for me, looks like SW for you). I've talked to Nancy Baker a few times, not about this issue, but when doing maintenance before (replacing firebrick, paint, etc). Good people.

Their designs are the same internally from what I can tell. I've been back in the work area where they put 'em together and the only thing that's different is the size of the box. And, I don't see any visible signs of problems with the box or internals. Haven't pulled the box out of the fireplace in about 5 years, but these things are pretty rugged and I doubt that I've got any corruption in there.

What I'm thinking is this. I have to open the lower box to shake the ash down (the newer ones have the shaker on the outside of the box, mine uses a long 'key' of sorts that hooks into the shaker under the grates). I didn't mean the ash per se, but that the dust that comes out, gets sucked into the fan and may have accumulated over the years at the base of the intake before it blows up into the heater box that leads to the tubes. It just feels like there's a restriction somewhere.

When I get back from going 'over the river 'n thru the woods' this weekend and the stove is cold, I'm going to block the heat exhaust tubes and see what happens... If the air pushes back at the blower, then I know that I don't have any cracks in the air tubes or heating chamber. I get a little bit of blow back into the fan right now, and blocking the tubes would just make that worse, wouldn't it?

It's too hot to do right now. Since the box seals up really well and I don't get any sulfer-ish foul odor out of the air tubes, I don't think it's cracked (or at least not cracked on the side facing inwards towards the stove box.

Is there something that I can use to do some maintenance on the interals?

 

[ansehnlich1]

Well my bet is you are right, and if you pull that blower fan off there, you'll find all sort and manner of stuff gunked up in there, I always cleaned my blower once a year, and as far into the air tubes as I could get. You got an air compressor hook that bad boy up and blow that crap out, just beware it comes out those air tubes in front and can make a heluva mess My blower housing and blower wheel would always be gunked up too.

If you don't have any sulfur odor you should be fine. Those blower tubes are heavy duty. My brother is still using my old Baker coal stove, and it's been in service without repair for probably 12 years or so.

If you don't have a carbon monoxide detector make sure to get at least one and get it plugged in!

 

[JGMann67]

Dude - Air compressor... WHY didn't I think of that!? I was thinking about reversing the shopvac, but, I could go from the opposite direction with my buddy's compressor and maybe put a bag at the intake where the blower motor mounts up.

THANK YOU!

I check the mouth where the fan mounts up for excess dust, not much to speak of... but further down the chamber I'd bet it's pretty bad after almost 30 years of use.

My Baker was used regularly by the family that had it installed in the House in the early 80's... it was neglected from the early 90's till 97' (two interim home owners) then we bought the place. And, I've been using it ever since. Wertz's delivers on a week's notice and I can't complain about heating most of the house for the cost of two tons of coal a year (give or take, depends on how cold it gets).

Do you know how those tubes are set up?? Are they like the header on a car or motorcylcle exhaust - with five tubes that run the length of the back of the stove in to a single 'pipe' (mebbe you don't see that kinda thing on yer Harley, just what I'm used to with my I-4 Suz)?? Or do these five air tubes run to a box chamber that's fed from the intake?? Tubes would be easier to deal with, I'd think.

We've got the CO detector, too - never went off in 10 years, thankfully.

 

[ansehnlich1]

I ain't sure how those tubes are put together. My stove was a freestanding unit and gave no clue in the back to what that looked like. My blower bolted to a flange in back of the stove, and I always assumed somewhere in there that opened up into the 4 or 5 air tubes you see out front of the stove.

If you've been running that Baker for all them years, and you blow it out with air, and it still aint right, maybe you could run a snake up through there, but if you got any weak spots in them air tubes that could rupture 'em you know. Just go easy with it. I bet ya get lint, hair, dust, dead mice, gunk, maybe a couple cheerios, who knows, match box cars, hard to tell what's been sucked up in there by that blower over the years.

I love Baker coal stoves, good company, good product, heavy duty heat. Like I said, my brother's still using my old one. That little sucker would heat 1200 to 2000 sq. feet easy.

 

[JGMann67]

Well, I got back from Christmas and before starting the stove back up, I broke out the shop vac, wall snake and compressor. After a couple of hours and WHOLE lotta dust, I got a bit of stuff out of the heat tubes. Still not entirely thrilled with what I'm getting out of the stove, but it's much much better.

I'm going shopping for one of those brushes to push thru the heating tubes. We'll see what else comes out.

 

[kd460]

Jimmy rig a piece of plastic tubing or copper tubing to an air compressor air blaster attatchment. Fish the tubing into the insert tubes and blast away. Works well. KD