First time stove burner

[Englander]

While growing up I laid many a fire as we had a open fireplace, I grew up with a daily chore of having to clean the ash and lay the fire for the evening. Fast forward 20 years I now find my self with a family and a new home with a wood stove but I feel a little out of my death with it and feel I have a lot of good reading ahead of me but still many questions.

After removing about 10 dead birds and cleaning both the chimney and grate I laid and set my first fire. The stove is hidden away in the garage with a single out let in the main living area, I am still a little in awe as how much heat the stove put out and was able to heat the live area much better than our HVAC system but I have a number of questions.

First I appear to have a Englander wood stove I have looked for a model or name plate but could not find one does any one know what model this might be ? as I wanted to read the manual.

It appears to have 3 dampers ? 2 on the stove door and one on the grate door. This of cause controls the amount of air but I wanted to find peoples recommendation on how to use this correctly (and hence trying to find a manual)

My other questions are related more to worry, The stove pipe at the back has rusted a little and is not mechanically festered to other the stove or the chimney flue (Apart from the bale wire). I was thinking of replacing it and maybe using a double lined pipe ?

My other worry is that you might see a PVC pipe running behind the stove this is a drain line going to the HVAC it is about 18" away but should I try and protect it in any way ?

Thanks for your help and for the support and look forward to now staying much warmer with your help.

 

[BrotherBart]

Mike the customer support manager for Englander should be along to give more info. But that looks like an early version of what is now the 28-3500 wood and coal furnace. The knobs on the door are for controlling the air with wood burning and the one on the ash pan door below is for providing under fire air for burning coal.

 

[BrotherBart]

Moving it over to the boiler room where the central unit experts reside.

 

[stee6043]

Welcome! I can't really comment on the Englander specific questions but I would recommend you rework that chimney. Do you have any Menards or TSC stores nearby? Black pipe is very affordable and I think you could easily improve your flue connection at the back of the stove for $20 +/-. You do not need double lined SS chimney pipe in this location. I'd actually suggest you buy a properly sized "Tee" to attach to the vertical flue pipe in your photo and then a single 90 elbow and perhaps some straight section will get you from your stove to the flue and also give you a place to clean from.

That PVC drain is probably too close if it's considered a "combustible". It does have quite a droop in it behind the stove which probably means it's getting hot and it also may not be draining properly anymore with that drop in the line. This could cause a problem for your furnace/AC eventually. PVC is cheap. If this were my rig I'd spend a day and replumb it with higher temp pipe and perhaps shield it around the boiler making sure to have an air gap between the "shield" material and the pipe.

 

[Englander]

Thank you brother bart and stee6043, The pvc is about 5" away from the unit I am not sure if the bend is from the cow boy who installed it or the heat but will look in to it.

The manual calls for a double lined pipe but not sure if it'd referencing the chimney, I was thinking of doing the T on the upright so I could clean it as well like you said stee6043.

The Englander does not seem to have any way of bolting the stove pipe to the back of it would I use chimney cement to attach it to try and seal it ?

 

[BoilerMan]

When the new black pipe is installed, drill some holes and use screws or get some self tapping screws for this purpose. All the black pipe must be secured together. If there ever were a chimney fire and the violent pulsations need to be contained and the pipe needs to be secure.

TS

 

[Englander]

Ok new stove pipe installed I put a T on and a place I where I can unbolt and clean the chimney.

All pipe joints have 3 screws ,the pipe going in to the to stove I used chimney cement it now all feels rock solid.

But to be able to join the T to the main chimney I had to drill the outer chimney pipe to get to the inner pipe to be able screw the 2 inner connecting pipes, (the bail wire in the original pic was the only thing holding the pipe up) from the above picyou should just be able to see what appear as 3 black dots on the silver outer chimney will this be ok?

Next Job is to work on the inside as about 10 fire bricks are cracked, the rails for the fire brick seemed to have bucked can I do any thing about this ? or are there any other problems that people can see ?

Thanks again for everyone's tips

 

[laynes69]

Good god, that things been abused. Because it is a furnace and it's ducted into the house, I would remove the panels and inspect the furnace. When paint is burnt off the jacket, there's been serious heat. If there's any splits, cracks, holes, etc. in the firebox, the blower can either pump air into the firebox, or pull products of combustion into the home. Either thing can be dangerous. Its amazing what that air jacket can hide, and I bet it's pretty nasty under there. Better safe than sorry.

 

[mustash29]

x 2

I would be afraid to fire that unit in that condition. You need new brick supports, new brick and new grates to hold the floor bricks. Check the Englander web site parts section but in my opinion you would be better off just going with a new unit. They can be had at Home Depot for 1200. Plus the new ones have the glass door so it's super easy to adjust your fire.

I replaced all 4 brick supports (angle iron) in my old stove. The 2 outers (that held the side wall bricks) when I first acquired it when it was 5-6 years old and the 2 inners (that held the roof bricks) 8 years later (about 2 years ago) and it was not fun. I did all the prep work, cutting, grinding, etc and had a welder / mechanic friend from my work (trash to energy power plant) do the welding for me. It was not fun at all.

I was looking at having to replace all 4 again soon, buy a new stove, etc. I went with a new 28-3500 instead, because I did not really feel like dropping $$$ on a Froling boiler, despite how awesome they are.

 

[Englander]

Thanks guys for the safety advise it has been in use for the last week and has been keeping the main house pretty warm, no smell of smoke in main house but will take your advise and take the sides off and take some photos and report back here.

At the back of the furnace where the outer case screws on I don't think the screws are very tight and I feel quite a bit of heat is lost. Any recommendation on how to seal this a little better or replace the screws to pull in the gap a little. ( I noticed the top jacket does not go over the sides you can see the what i mean at the bottom of the photo I think on the new version the top over laps the sides and forms a better seal)

 

[mustash29]

High temp RTV, flat gasket material (like you would use for a door glass, maybe 3/4 wide) or furnace cement along with some fatter screws that hold tight would help out that tin jacket. You could maybe just tape them with foil backed duct tape as well since it is the externals of the air jacket / box.

 

[mustash29]

This was my delima:

The firebox of the old stove suffered some stress cracking due to my other half loading it a few times and not having the door latched properly along with a worn door gasket, so it overfired a few times. I ground them out in a V and my friend from work beefed them up for me. Then I repainted the whole stove and installed a new door gasket.

The roof bricks tend to sag over time so I replace them every few years before they get too bad and re-use the old roof bricks to replace the floor bricks that get gouged up from the poker. When I went to do this I had warping on the brick supports that I had already replaced years ago (see posts above). I attempted to heat the angle irons with an actelene torch and smash them back into place but had no room inside to swing a BFH and nearly burnt myself a few times trying to use a large C clamp. As a band-aid to the warping I cut 1.5" strips of 1" thick K-wool (2500 deg ceramic wool blanket insulation) and placed that on top of the slightly warped angle irons, then re-installed the roof bricks. It worked since the K-wool allowed for a smooth surface for the roof brick to rest on, but the stove was a late '94 model and had been fired rather hard over the years, so I upgraded to the 28-3500.

 

[Englander]

Thanks for the advise guys, I took the tin jacket off this morning,

This is before I cleaned it, you can't tell from the photo but the side does bow out a little where you can see the main heat has been

Here is the side it wiped down clean most of the dust came off and appears to be the remains of the paint.

Here is the top you can see the paint peeling

Here is the bottom this was where most of the rust was and a light bit of dirt. You can see the rear fan at the back (appears to be missing a screw)

I will go out and get some bigger screws and then use the cement I used for the stove pipe install.

Getting some thing else is not in the budget due to the new house and a baby but after the cold weather has past I will look to try and redo the inside. but will also look at the future and see whats out there to maybe replace this in a few years.

 

[agcowvet]

To seal the jacket. Aluminum duct tape. http://www.lowes.com/pd_237724-5613...currentURL=?Ntt=aluminum+duct+tape&facetInfo=

Hopefully that link will come thru OK. The tape is thin aluminum, with a strong adhesive backing. Has wax paper that you peel off to expose the adhesive, otherwise you could never unroll it.