Baro damper on 28-3500?

[Bootstrap]

I come from many years of wood burning in traditional wood stoves. For a while that worked out but since I switched to a wood furnace, life has been much better. I hooked up the furnace to an existing chimney that was once used to run a wood stove in my basement. And, the stove pipe I used was from the wood stove with a manual pipe damper already in it. Up till about a few days ago, I have always ran the furnace with the damper wide open as I didn't think it would benefit this unit. I never opened the bottom knob, and most of the time I ran the top air slide almost all the way closed. That seemed to work ok, but sometimes the furnace would smoke a lot, especially after a reload. But most of the time, the smoke wasn't too bad.

Well I got a small education on more higher end furnaces the other day, and it appears that most of those guys run baro dampers. So I decided to play around with the manual damper and see how things go.
I have been closing the damper down. Its not completely flat in the pipe, maybe a 30 degree angle or so. It definitely seems to push out more heat now, and the stack temp has gone up. I am assuming that is because its slowing down things and allowing some kind of reburn to take place. Wood also seems to last a bit longer too. And it still smokes, but definitely not as much.

The install manual doesn't mention anything about dampers. But it does say that you should not hook the furnace to a chimney that pulls more than .05 inches water column.
To me, that obviously means a damper of sorts is required on some installs.
What is everyones thought on a baro damper on an Englander 28-3500?
I do not have a manometer....yet.

 

[maple1]

Pretty well depends on your chimney & how it pulls, I think.

Some even run a key damper & a baro - the key is set at a certain spot to get the draft right for normal conditions if there is a good chimney with some pulling power, but then if a big change in draft happens (like, a windy overnight storm or something like that), then the baro would get pulled open so you wouldn't have draft spikes.

I don't have experience with a 28-3500 though.

I have a 30' stainless chimney, straight up through the house. It will pull over 0.1" pretty consistently with a normal burn & normal weather outside. With the wind blowing, it can spike to the 0.3" area. When I had the old wood/oil combo boiler, I had both a key & baro - key on the wood side, and baro on both.

 

[Bootstrap]

My chimney is the triple layer insulated stainless steel simpson duravent. I haven't measured, but its straight through the house and probably over 15' tall then another 5 feet of black pipe at a 45 degree angle.
I just re-read the latest owners manual online. It does say not to hook to a chimney that pulls greater than .05 inches water column, but it says not to install a pipe damper.... I would bet big money that my chimney pulls way harder than .05.
Why would they not want a manual damper??

 

[maple1]

Likely because it would require regular manual operation, which might not always happen, and could still give varying draft that might be in & out of spec, varying with weather & wind etc.. My manual damper also sometimes got moved around a bit by wind gusts - a big one might pull it shut some, then when the wind died down the boiler didn't have enough draft which might lead to smoke spillage.

 

[velvetfoot]

I have a 30' stainless chimney, straight up through the house. It will pull over 0.1" pretty consistently with a normal burn & normal weather outside. With the wind blowing, it can spike to the 0.3" area. When I had the old wood/oil combo boiler, I had both a key & baro - key on the wood side, and baro on both.

So, you have a baro on your current setup?

 

[maple1]

Yes.

 

[velvetfoot]

Bootstrap: I was setting up my oil boiler the other day and bought this draft gauge. It's a classic.
If you get one, make sure you get the right range.
https://www.mybacharach.com/product-view/draftrite/

 

[STIHLY DAN]

I come from many years of wood burning in traditional wood stoves. For a while that worked out but since I switched to a wood furnace, life has been much better. I hooked up the furnace to an existing chimney that was once used to run a wood stove in my basement. And, the stove pipe I used was from the wood stove with a manual pipe damper already in it. Up till about a few days ago, I have always ran the furnace with the damper wide open as I didn't think it would benefit this unit. I never opened the bottom knob, and most of the time I ran the top air slide almost all the way closed. That seemed to work ok, but sometimes the furnace would smoke a lot, especially after a reload. But most of the time, the smoke wasn't too bad.

Well I got a small education on more higher end furnaces the other day, and it appears that most of those guys run baro dampers. So I decided to play around with the manual damper and see how things go.
I have been closing the damper down. Its not completely flat in the pipe, maybe a 30 degree angle or so. It definitely seems to push out more heat now, and the stack temp has gone up. I am assuming that is because its slowing down things and allowing some kind of reburn to take place. Wood also seems to last a bit longer too. And it still smokes, but definitely not as much.

The install manual doesn't mention anything about dampers. But it does say that you should not hook the furnace to a chimney that pulls more than .05 inches water column.
To me, that obviously means a damper of sorts is required on some installs.
What is everyones thought on a baro damper on an Englander 28-3500?
I do not have a manometer....yet.

Get the dwyer mark II from @brenndatomu for real cheap. Then install a Baro, and set it up at -.05 from then on you can see that it stays there. Sometimes crap can stick to the baro and send it out of calibration.

 

[brenndatomu]

Get the dwyer mark II from @brenndatomu for real cheap. Then install a Baro, and set it up at -.05 from then on you can see that it stays there. Sometimes crap can stick to the baro and send it out of calibration.

Yup, the Dwyer Mark II works slicker than greased lightning for this...and I still have some so...

 

[mustash29]

My old wood stoves air control adjusted the primary & secondary air simultaneously, so they always stayed balanced with each other. It was a sliding plate that covered the two air inlet holes. I ran full open for startups and full to medium open for reloads until fire caught good and the stove was up to temp. 95% of the time it was fully shut for a good long hot clean burn. The problem was that full shut was still about 20-25% open. Adding a key damper slowed it down so that 6-8 hour burns turned into 8-10, still burning hot & clean. As the stove & pipe cooled off the draft would drop which conserved the coal bed. I could usually relight from coals at the 12 hr mark.

I have about 27' of triple wall Simpson Duravent going up through the center of the house. When I switched from the stove to the Englander I had to move my wall thimble up 3' to accommodate for the taller 28-3500. The main air control on my 28-3500 slides a total of 1 7/8". The air slot is 2" long. So when fully shut it is choking it off to roughly 6%. I normally run with it open 3/8". I actually have 2 key dampers in my connecting pipe, but never use them. When I did try to use them I had to adjust the furnace differently and then my other half would forget to open the damper and smoke out the house.

Sometimes on a really windy night I will cut back on the air slightly to 5/16". 1/4" or less and it smokes like crazy and burns dirty. I'm pretty much burning 2.5 - 3 year oak.

 

[Bootstrap]

Well so far the manual damper is proving to be a good thing for the 28-3500. Burns are lasting longer, and it doesn't smoke as much so long as I let the new load catch before I choke it down.
I loaded the stove at 8pm last night. At 530 this morning, the house was still 72 degrees and the blower was kicking on about every 5 minutes for a couple minutes or so. I had lots of mostly burn wood and coals left over to easily start the next load.
I'm going to consider a baro. But with a non EPA furnace like this, I have my doubts. It still smokes, that means theres still going to be some build up in the chimney. I usually clean the chimney twice per season, once in the beginning, and once at the end of December.

 

[brenndatomu]

I have my doubts. It still smokes, that means theres still going to be some build up in the chimney.

I think you are right

 

[mustash29]

I started using my 28-3500 4 years ago. Before lighting the first fire I added some extra bricks and a steel plate to the bottom. Details about the mods are here. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/englander-28-3500-furnace-install-mods.102100/

The angle irons and extra bricks are awesome. They have not moved since day one, except for removing them for cleaning.

The ash plate is a love / hate thing. It works great to hold a thicker ash & ember bed in the furnace. Right now the slots are about 1/4" but could be a little bigger. It works awesome to protect the floor bricks. I'm entering the 4th season now and they look like brand new. It is 1/4" carbon plate and has warped a bit side to side and front to back. I flattened it out one time on the hydraulic press at work and another time by driving a 7000# forklift with solid rubber tires over it. If I had to do over again I would make it out of 1/4" stainless.