New to the Forum - Crown Royal 7400MP

[jblnut]

Hello all from Central MN !!

I grew up heating with wood in a few different stoves over the years in the basement of my parents house and 18yrs after moving out I finally am burning wood again. We're heating a 54x72 farm shop, 8x16 well house and our newly finished 2500sq/ft house and garage.

I purchased a Crown Royal 7400MP for a few reasons but the main one is an overabundance of crappy quality wood to burn. We clean fence lines and field boundary's every spring after the snow is gone and before it's warm enough to begin planting. Lots of poplar, boxelder, ash and other junk wood to cut down and dispose of. Dad couldn't come close to burning it all though his basement stove so a lot of it got piled up to rot which seemed like a shame. I looked at gasser stoves but went this direction after some reading on here and talking to a few owners of gasser stoves. Everyone liked them a lot but they all feed them nice dry seasoned hardwood wood, which I do not have. The 7400MP is great for this as it'll eat anything that goes in !!

I've had a few learning curves so far this heating season and have come on here for advice a few times and appreciate it !!

I fired the stove up late September as I wanted to make sure it all worked before it got cold. Boiled it over when I left the ash cleanout door open .... struggled with not knowing the supply/return temps and having to hope it'd make it through the night on this crappy wood once it got cold. This stove is really simple with just an Aquastat that runs it all and that is one of the reasons I went this way instead of with a Central Boiler. Both have great dealer support around here but I liked the multipass and simple controls of the Crown Royal. It'll also burn coal as it comes from the factory so that'll possibly be nice if I ever go that route to supplement this crappy wood on the real cold nights.

I like pictures and hope y'all do too EDIT - this took a while to put together and I hope I'm not overstepping the boundaries of what a new member can do on here ....

Brought it home last February to get it before a price increase knowing it'd get installed over summer.

Miss Lily and her 9yr old self looks pretty small inside the firebox lol

It was decided to put the stove right here so it's in the middle of the house and shop. Only issue is there is a ditch that runs through here that drains a couple acres .....

Move some dirt ... extend a drain line .... install a new 18" Dual Wall pipe to drain surface water ....

Everyone I talked to that had a stove grumbled about dealing with dirt and mud so we decided to spend the $$$$ and pour a 24x24 pad. Hopefully one day we can build a building over it to keep the snow and rain off the pile ....

When we built the house I buried an 8" piece of drain tile from this point up into the mechanical room so we could bring the line up into the house without going surface mount through the garage at all. This worked very well but was a bugger to get the boiler pipe through it. I ended up using a 5gal pail of wire lube to get it to slide nicely. One I dumped that into the 8" line it almost pulled itself in lol. The blue water line now houses a fiber optic line that goes from the house to the dmark in the well house to bring internet into the house.

Three yrs ago when we built the farm shop I did the same thing and buried an 8" sleeve up into the mechanical room. I figured it was cheap insurance and a few others on here have posted saying they wish they would/could have done it so I figured why not. Sure glad I did !!

I purchased a GIANT Chinese finger trap deal meant for wire pulling and it made the install soooooo nice If anyone wants it let me know. I doubt I'll ever use it again.

I used the MiniHoe as a guide of sorts to keep the pipe moving smoothly. Worked well but needed another guy constantly shoving the pipe through the strap.

Pipe to the shop is closest, the far pipe goes to the well house and then on to the house.

Time to set it in place !! This was a looooong time in coming and I was stoked when it was finally sitting in it's home.

ECM Pumps and piping installed in the back of the boiler. It's all been wrapped with pipe insulation now. That alone added about 1F to the return temps. Crazy.

Tied it into the LP setup that was installed in the shop when it was built.

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The other loop comes into the well house and goes to the house first. The return line runs though the heater in here. This has all been pipe insulated as well ....

Up into the house

Over to the water heater side arm. I debated on doing a small plate exchanger here but we have pretty crappy well water so I wanted something that was easy to clean on the fly. I added a hose nipple on the blow off valve and there is a faucet down below that I can blow it all mostly backwards. Hindsight said I should have put a few more valves in here so I can isolate the side arm from the rest of the water heater to get it really clean. Maybe over summer when I shut it all down I can monkey with it. So far I haven't had to flush it out yet so we shall see how clean it stays.

On over to the tie into the LP system a few pictures up. I put an Aquastat on the line going to the forced air furnace so I can set it to use LP if the temp drops below a certain point just by intercepting the signal from the thermostat. Simple and it works great !! That is an idea I got from someone on here so thank you if it was you !!

Now we gather wood like beavers .... I decided to use my old farm shop as a wood shed.

Not sure how much wood is in here but it'll be nice and dry once it starts snowing ....

The first firing of the beast and it's living up to its nickname ... The Smoke Dragon. We built our house where there were a ton of old farm buildings that were well past their useful life so we cut the lumber up to run through a campfire, Dad's stove or this one. So I have somewhere near 25 IBC totes full of lumber scraps to go through. I've been tossing in a few handfuls with each loading so far and making it go away.

 

[jblnut]

We got a couple cord of wood home and cut up by the stove.

Hauling boxelder from a ditch we cleaned out and buried with a 24" pipe so we could farm over it. That's gonna be nice !! I think we hauled 18 or 19 like this home already with at least 6-7 more out there to bring home.

Word it out that I put in a stove and I got a call from a buddy saying he and his Pops cleared off 5 acres of pasture and I could have the wood if I wanted. Hey, it's Poplar but it'll burn

Five trips with the gooseneck and dump wagon and we had it all home. Good grief !!

After some searching online for a temp monitoring solution I once again ran into this site with a tip to use an InkBird BBQ temp monitor. It has four probes, WiFi and is really accurate. I can see reports and graphs PLUS get alerts when the temp goes out of a range I've set. All for $100. Not bad in my book

 

[jblnut]

You got automatic thermostats on all those zones, jblnut? If you have the firepower required to bring them back up to temperature in reasonable time, or program them to start pre-heating appropriately early, you could probably save a boatload of wood letting thigs drift down a few more degrees overnight, in the shop, office, etc. I'm doing something similar in the same sq.ft, although I'm only using wood for parts of it, with fossil fuels and electrons ruling in the shop and garage.

Brought this over here as even my previous post wasn't really wood shed related either .....

No I don't. I do in the house for the forced air furnace but that's it. I haven't found a decent WiFi thermostat capable of doing infloor heat and being able to work off only the floor stat or work off both like the ones that came with my IBC propane boilers. I don't remember what brand they are off the top of my head but I can look later.

I wouldn't mind if the shop and office cooled off a bit overnight and warmed back up during the day. I know the infloor isn't that responsive and that's fine but as it is now it runs quite a bit during the night and not much during the day. If I could set it to kick back up around 8am and run until 8pm that'd be great. Shift the main calls for heat into the day and let it idle more overnight. I work from home so loading it during the day is a lot nicer than getting up early in the morning.

I'm wide open to suggestions on WiFi thermostats that can work with infloor heat.

 

[jblnut]

Hello again !! It's been a while......

I purchased a new pickup so I thought I'd go do some wood gathering things with it and the skiddy 😄

Hauled four loads like this home yesterday. Mostly boxelder junk but it all burns !!

When I built the flatbed I didn't think about actually using it as a pickup so I built a holder deal today so things wouldn't slide off. More wood cutting today !!

Three guys with saws and two skid loaders moving wood and brush made for a really productive day !! A neighbor has a grove of trees he wants gone so we're working on making them gone. There should easily be a year's worth of wood on a pile when we get done.

I really like this truck !! I need a larger trailer now lol

Two big loads cut up and hauled home today. Also have been spending some time blocking the poplar and other stuff I hauled home last fall. I'm going to try my damndest to fill the boiler pad up this summer !!

 

[moresnow]

Do you rig the truck for being loaded? Should!

 

[brenndatomu]

Is that trailer a repurposed poo flinger?

 

[jblnut]

Do you rig the truck for being loaded? Should!

When I built the flatbed I was more focused on using it as a flatbed and built it as such. Looking back I wish I'd have put a hoist under it or purchased a small hook lift setup for it so I could use it with a flatbed, high sided box or whatever I could dream up.

Currently I'm gathering steel and stuff to make a skid that goes onto the flat bed that will dump to the side but that's likely a few years away yet .....

Is that trailer a repurposed poo flinger?

It is a Midsota farm dump wagon built here locally. We've had it for close to 20yrs and use it for everything from wood to gravel and rocks to hauling poo out of the barns to dump into my stacking slabs. It's a very handy trailer that will dump a rolling over the sides full load of dirt. It is limited to 25mph when loaded though as it doesn't have high speed bearings or tires.

Here is my poo flinger !!

Better shot of the business end. The beaters spin in opposite directions and it flings out a very nicely ground up layer of poo on the fields for the crops to use as fertilizer. Newest one I have of it happens to be stuck in the mud. It'll hold roughly 20 tons of poo so it's a boat anchor if it's a bit soft lol

 

[jblnut]

I ordered a wood splitter from Brigg Innovation a few months back and they got it built and it arrived yesterday !! There are two of them here, one for me and one for a buddy. I need to build a bracket for it that'll match up with my excavator. The white posts will get metal tubing sleeves that will be welded to a skid steer quick attach plate so I can use it on a skiddy or a mini-ex. I'm super stoked to put this thing to use

 

[jblnut]

Mama Bear, the Little People and I got the wood all stacked up we brought home the other day. There is a 12ish X 17ish space left to fill. Should be able to squeeze another 10 cord in here id think if I keep it 6' high and toss a few extra on top. That means that there is already 15 cord here which seems hard to believe but that'd be great !!

You folks interested in the stuff we do on the farm ? I've got lots of pictures of our daily adventures out here. I'm an open book so feel free to ask anything you can think of. We raise cattle, chickens, corn ,soybeans, oats, cereal rye and alfalfa on our roughly 800 acres. I also sell seed corn for Golden Harvest and do custom field drain tiling for anyone around here that needs it.

Like this orange hopper bin we moved last week ....

Picked it up, well mostly lol, with a John Deere 332G skiddy that a buddy brought over and drug it towards it's new home.

We got it close to it's finally spot and gave it a good shove with both our machines and it fell right into place !!

I plan to put oats in it to feed to my cattle. The grain bin that's already there holds grain corn for them. The eventual plan is to get the bin that holds the mineral pellet over here as well so I don't have to move my mixer to load each component anymore !!

 

[salecker]

Mama Bear, the Little People and I got the wood all stacked up we brought home the other day. There is a 12ish X 17ish space left to fill. Should be able to squeeze another 10 cord in here id think if I keep it 6' high and toss a few extra on top. That means that there is already 15 cord here which seems hard to believe but that'd be great !!
View attachment 313833


You folks interested in the stuff we do on the farm ? I've got lots of pictures of our daily adventures out here. I'm an open book so feel free to ask anything you can think of. We raise cattle, chickens, corn ,soybeans, oats, cereal rye and alfalfa on our roughly 800 acres. I also sell seed corn for Golden Harvest and do custom field drain tiling for anyone around here that needs it.

Like this orange hopper bin we moved last week ....
View attachment 313836

Picked it up, well mostly lol, with a John Deere 332G skiddy that a buddy brought over and drug it towards it's new home.
View attachment 313837

We got it close to it's finally spot and gave it a good shove with both our machines and it fell right into place !!
View attachment 313838

I plan to put oats in it to feed to my cattle. The grain bin that's already there holds grain corn for them. The eventual plan is to get the bin that holds the mineral pellet over here as well so I don't have to move my mixer to load each component anymore !!
View attachment 313839

I am assuming you measure by "face cords"

 

[jblnut]

I am assuming you measure by "face cords"

12x17x6' = 1,224cu/ft which is 9.5 cord if math is correct. A little extra tossed on top should get 10 cord more. The entire area wood is being stacked is 24x28 and the majority is 6' high. That's 4,032cu/ft so 15 cord there already may be on the lighter side.

I didn't keep track of things real close close last winter but I know the boiler was chewing through a cord a week in Jan - Feb because the rack I carried it up there with was 4x3x12 stacked pretty full. It is heating around 10,000ft/sq though ......

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@jblnut do run a plow or trencher? Dad and I used to tile, he still does some odd small jobs, we started years ago with pt12 vermeer, built one with mods basically the same as it, then bought a 300 super D buckeye, then a JEtco RT600, the a Hydramax 2800, would love to chat sometime, will pm my number

 

[jblnut]

@jblnut do run a plow or trencher? Dad and I used to tile, he still does some odd small jobs, we started years ago with pt12 vermeer, built one with mods basically the same as it, then bought a 300 super D buckeye, then a JEtco RT600, the a Hydramax 2800, would love to chat sometime, will pm my number

We run a Soilmax Golddigger Stealth ZD and love it !! Full RTK GPS setup so it's super easy to run and very accurate. In our area we have a terrible amount of rocks so I don't know how a trencher would preform. All the larger commercial companies run Wolf or Interdrain with Bron plows. Those things are sweet lol

When I get back home I'll toss some pictures up of us tiling. It's a riot of a good time !!

We got more wood cut today again. Should have the better part of a winters worth of wood on the ground here. Sweet !!

 

[jblnut]

Here's the Gold Digger plow, 9300 and Deere 750 dozer pulling in some 4" in some slimy stuff.

Plowing more 4" in around 40" deep.

Business end in the mud.

View from the cab !!

 

[hedge wood]

JBLnut I enjoy your pictures very much. Not a lot of tiling goes on in my area. Mostly done on terrace jobs to get away from water ways. I did have about forty acres in a couple different fields in the bottom on my home place that needed some tile. I chased four tilers around for three years to get it done. Its funny the guy with the least interest was the guy that finally called me back and came and did the job. He had a Wolf I think it was a model 250 plow. There were times he had to pull it some with a track hoe. I should have taken pictures. He did it Easter weekend that year.

 

[sloeffle]

@jblnut I see that you have a filter on your setup. I possibly have the same filter ( Ranco ) on my system. What kinds of "goodies" did you catch after you turned your pumps on for the first time ? Cheap insurance IMHO. I've read of a few instances on Facebook where peoples circulator give up the ghost and then clog their plate, or heat exchanger.

Small farm here. Have a few cattle running around that I sell for freezer beef. I'm jealous that you can raise and feed oats. Way too expensive to feed if you have to buy them in my neck of the woods. All of the oats at my local mill gets are imported from Canada. They said a lot of the locally grown oats have issues with disease.

 

[jblnut]

JBLnut I enjoy your pictures very much. Not a lot of tiling goes on in my area. Mostly done on terrace jobs to get away from water ways. I did have about forty acres in a couple different fields in the bottom on my home place that needed some tile. I chased four tilers around for three years to get it done. Its funny the guy with the least interest was the guy that finally called me back and came and did the job. He had a Wolf I think it was a model 250 plow. There were times he had to pull it some with a track hoe. I should have taken pictures. He did it Easter weekend that year.

We've had so many people ask about tiling that have been looking at the "big guys" to do their projects that we don't advertise at all. Word of mouth keeps us busier than we can handle.

We have that Deere dozer on the front of the 4wd tractor quite a bit in the spring when it's soggy but not often in the fall.

@jblnut I see that you have a filter on your setup. I possibly have the same filter ( Ranco ) on my system. What kinds of "goodies" did you catch after you turned your pumps on for the first time ? Cheap insurance IMHO. I've read of a few instances on Facebook where peoples circulator give up the ghost and then clog their plate, or heat exchanger.

Small farm here. Have a few cattle running around that I sell for freezer beef. I'm jealous that you can raise and feed oats. Way too expensive to feed if you have to buy them in my neck of the woods. All of the oats at my local mill gets are imported from Canada. They said a lot of the locally grown oats have issues with disease.

Yes it's a Ranco and yes it caught some nasty crap lol. I was going to put one in the shop before the plate exchange as well as an added protection to keep it happy.

We don't raise oats every year as we only need a few hundred bushels each year for the cattle. This year we raised rye and will begin combining it today !! I like to raise something like oats, rye or wheat because it allows us to haul manure in the summer before it gets really busy in the fall.

 

[jblnut]

I spread out my splitter pile and started sawing them up. Our old house used to be back there and a moving company took it a few months back. I can't leave an empty space empty for long so in go wood and "misc"

Oh boy this is a game changer !! Gotta get me a mini-ex with a thumb now

Pops combined the rye yesterday.

We only had 17 acres this year so it didn't take long lol. We will be getting it cleaned and will use it in the coming years as cover crop seed for us and a few neighbors.

When we got done combining I mixed a few loads of feed for the steers. The good ol' International 886 was purchased new by my Pops in 1981. It's got around 19,000hrs and just keeps on going

Thanks for stopping by !!

 

[jblnut]

Kiddos named the Freightliner Walter and it stuck so I guess it's Walter now 🤣

A neighbor dairy farms and uses 2,000ish small square straw bales for his calves each year. He asked if he could buy the straw and I said yup.

I hauled 10 loads yesterday with Walter and he makes a pretty good road tractor 🤣

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@jblnut at least have a few decent colored things on the farm, lol, I am not a green fan!

 

[jblnut]

@jblnut at least have a few decent colored things on the farm, lol, I am not a green fan!

Over the years we went from primarily Ford to almost all IH to almost all JD now. We've followed local dealer support mostly. The Ford dealer closed up in the 70's, the IH guys started being really dumb the last decade or so and thats pushed us green. We have nothing newer than a 7630 so nothing with govt juice to maintain.

This is my latest purchase. '03 9430 with 3200hrs when purchased this spring.

Well technically this is my most resent purchase. 1946 BF Avery Model A

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@jblnut the 4wd is pretty clean, that Avery is sweet, the old iron is my favorite! are you going to restore it or leave her in her work clothes?

 

[salecker]

I see it's been upgraded to 12 volt

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@salecker nice catch Thomas, I didn't notice that on my initial look!

 

[jblnut]

@jblnut the 4wd is pretty clean, that Avery is sweet, the old iron is my favorite!

The 4wd came into my life after a search for a few years for a 9420 with a 24sp and 710 duals. This one is weighted to around 42,000lbs and it pulls like a freight train !! It was a one owner machine and was sold new by the salesman we bought it from. Neat stuff.

It looks even better when it's all washed up

4 SCV's and a crap ton of weights back there !!

We traded our STX325 in on the 9420. I wanted a larger tractor without powershift. The powershift in the STX was jumpy and jerky and almost dangerous to use on the tile plow. I took a snowy pic on a hill the day I drove it to the dealership to bring home the 9420.

Rabbit hole .........

Tile carts with the fittings trailer behind that also has the 6" and 8" tile boots.

The whole crew ready to play

Dig a start hole to Tee into the already plowed in tile line ......

Drop the plow in and take off !!

are you going to restore it or leave her in her work clothes?

When I purchased it I was intending on using it to run my wood splitter. The H was my Cousins and he took it home so I clearly need another tractor to replace it !

This splitter was built by my Uncle nearly 50yrs ago and has split a tremendous amount of wood over the years.

Found the bottom of the rabbit hole but there's a tunnel leading away .....