Burn Out!!!

[LuckyDad]

Yowza! Last night when I was going to bed, the house was a chilly 66F upstairs, due to the past couple days of unseasonably cold temperatures. I pushed the heat level up from #3 to #4 and put some fans around the downstairs to try to channel air upstairs. Should have checked the weather report before falling asleep....

I woke up this morning to discover a warm front had descended... outside AND inside! It was 77F upstairs this morning! I turned the stove down, opened the attic door, tried a few other things. But man, it was sweltering. Which got me thinking...

It's clearly time for me to investigate running off of a thermostat. But I'm a little leery about trying to run a thermostat line from the upstairs hallway down to the room where the stove is. Does anybody know of wireless thermostats available for Breckwell Big-E's?

Next question... I got to thinking about how the thermostat would work. It will be able to increase and decrease the auger rate and the fan speed, since these are controlled via electronics. But the damper is a little plunger rod, controlled mechnanically and wouldn't be part of the electronic control system and thus, can't be handled by the automatic system (unless there's a servo motor in there somewhere I haven't noticed). This implies that the damper need not be adjusted when you change settings manually either. Is that correct? Is it a matter of getting the damper set right for any one setting, and all subsequent settings have the airflow scaled appropriately by the fan speed and I should be leaving the damper alone?

I ask this, because I move the damper out every time I change the heat setting manually. About 2/3 out for #4, about 1/2 out for #3 and about 1/3 out for #2. Something tells me I should be leaving that damper alone, eh? Again, this is a Brecwell Big-E.

Thanks.

 

[Lobstah]

That's basically the same setup as my Lopi, with it's "restrictor rod".

I think that when running hte Lopi on a thermostat, you pick the heat setting, fan setting, and restrictor setting and leave it alone. When the stove starts up, it burns at those settings, then shuts off when temp is reached.

Jim

 

[gw2kpro]

Skytech makes wireless thermostats (regular as well as programmable) that will work with your unit. They've had generally good reviews up here and I'm going to get the programmable one for my Enviro mini. You can find them on ebay and other stores online as well.

I have a Breckwell P2700 with the same type slide damper as your Big E and I run mine on a regular programmable wall thermostat. I have to set ithe damper just closed enough so that it won't burn itself out overnight when it's running on the low (1) setting, yes it will burn better on the higher settings with the damper wider open, but it's not set up to adjust itself.

 

[LuckyDad]

Thanks! I hadn't thought about that... it could theoretically burn itself out when running on the low setting. Hmm... maybe if I turned up the reset-trim function for the #1 setting, I could push the damper out a little bit more.

 

[tmielke]

I run mine on a thermostat that is near the stove. The temprature is reletive, if I keep it 73 near the stove the living room stays at 70. I step it back to 68 at night and the living room drops to 65. I was thinking of a wireless and a dealer talked me into this with the relative temprature argument. Didn't think about hiding the wire. When I get tired of looking at it, I will likely buy a wireless thermostat. I don't want to bother with running wires.

I am running mine on the Hi/Low setting. It switches between 1 and 4 right now. I set the dampner for the 4 setting. The trim setting is in the middle. I haven't had any problem with it burning out at the 1 setting.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Yowza! Last night when I was going to bed, the house was a chilly 66F upstairs, due to the past couple days of unseasonably cold temperatures. I pushed the heat level up from #3 to #4 and put some fans around the downstairs to try to channel air upstairs. Should have checked the weather report before falling asleep....

I woke up this morning to discover a warm front had descended... outside AND inside! It was 77F upstairs this morning! I turned the stove down, opened the attic door, tried a few other things. But man, it was sweltering. Which got me thinking...

It's clearly time for me to investigate running off of a thermostat. But I'm a little leery about trying to run a thermostat line from the upstairs hallway down to the room where the stove is. Does anybody know of wireless thermostats available for Breckwell Big-E's?

Next question... I got to thinking about how the thermostat would work. It will be able to increase and decrease the auger rate and the fan speed, since these are controlled via electronics. But the damper is a little plunger rod, controlled mechnanically and wouldn't be part of the electronic control system and thus, can't be handled by the automatic system (unless there's a servo motor in there somewhere I haven't noticed). This implies that the damper need not be adjusted when you change settings manually either. Is that correct? Is it a matter of getting the damper set right for any one setting, and all subsequent settings have the airflow scaled appropriately by the fan speed and I should be leaving the damper alone?

I ask this, because I move the damper out every time I change the heat setting manually. About 2/3 out for #4, about 1/2 out for #3 and about 1/3 out for #2. Something tells me I should be leaving that damper alone, eh? Again, this is a Brecwell Big-E.

Thanks.

Take a look back a few weeks or use the search engine on the site. These questions have been asked approx. 3-5 times in three weeks. Not crying but look back.

Eric