Updating a Warner

[twoodbury]

I'm in the process of 'upgrading' from one old stove to another. My current small non-airtight stove doesn't make quite enough heat to heat my house, and doesn't even come close to burning all night. This is my ONLY heat source currently, BTW.

I've been given an old Warner that's been sitting in storage for the last 20 years. It's a bit rusty so it'll get sand blasted and painted. I'm considering adding secondary burn tubes per the attached pic. The BLUE is box tube down each side of stove. The RED are cross tubes with 3/16" holes every inch or two. The PURPLE is where air is fed into each side of the stove into the box tube. There will be adjustable dampers here to adjust and completely disable the secondary burn tubes for all night burns as well as experimentation. Now the Q's

1. I see Warner was headed in the direction of a modern secondary burn stove with a baffle plate, secondary air stream through upper part of door, and preheating of both primary and secondary air in the door. Anybody know how effective this approach at secondary air/burn is? How does it compare to proper secondary burn tube designs?

2. Think it's worth the extra fab effort of the rearmost 'lower' tube, as opposed to just spreading the four tubes across the flat part of the baffle?

3. Should be the holes in the rear tube face down, or on a 45 degree angle to allow the air to flow directly across them? assume gases/flame are flowing on an angle here.

Yes, I know that installing a proper modern high efficiency stove will pay off in time, but I'm going through a nasty divorce and every dollar is being watched carefully. I can spend on fuel, but not on a new stove despite showing the supporting math. Logic and math don't apply here...

Other thoughts?

Thanks,

-Travis

 

[begreen]

I'd try it with 3 tubes, equally spaced along the flat area of the baffle.

 

[twoodbury]

OK, I'll try 3 tubes. Think I can get away with feeding them from one side, as opposed to feeding two tubes from left of stove and one from right of stove? Would save much work.

Also, I forgot a Q in my original post. All cross tubes seem to be made of round tube. Is there a reason not to use box tube? It's easier to drill MANY holes in box then in round tube. I just want to make sure there's no hidden gotcha here.

Thanks,

-Travis

 

[begreen]

I like round tube because you can tweak the alignment of the holes by rotating the tube. But square stock should work. What are you going to use for tube size, hole spacing and and size?

 

[twoodbury]

3/16" holes every inch or two is what I've read to work well. I'm open to suggestions. Not sure about materials yet. We'll see what the hardware stores have when I get there. Don't have a local steel shop that'll sell less then a 20' piece or that's open on the weekend Gotta take off work and drive and hour an a half to get small pieces with a good selection... Trying to avoid that!

I plan to weld the cross tubes right to the box tube and weld the box tube to the stove in one spot only, which is at the damper opening. This should be pretty sturdy and allow me to remove the whole thing if I don't like it with a single cut of a hole saw around the damper opening. Anyway, no adjusting the tubes once she's welded. Do you think the angle really matters much?

-Travis

 

[begreen]

3/16" holes every inch or two is what I've read to work well. I'm open to suggestions. Do you think the angle really matters much?

-Travis

I'm far from an expert here. Corie or Precaud would have a ton more knowledge than I. My thought with the holes and spacing is to have enough to match the intake area but not too many so that the air supply out of the holes is biased toward the intake side. You want a balanced, equal amount of air coming out of the holes. If roung pipe, I'd angle the holes downward, maybe 45 deg. to turbulate the wood gases with the secondary air and encourage better secondary combustion. If square stock I was wondering if it would be better to drill the bottom of the tubes for this reason.

 

[twoodbury]

Good point on balancing the hole area with the tube cross sectional area, or possibly even ensuring the hole area is less. Square tubes can be installed on an angle to, if that's what's best. No biggie. Hoping to have this all installed in my living room by Sunday night. I'm tired of being cold, and ready for a full nights sleep We'll see ....

-Travis

 

[twoodbury]

It ended up that I was unable to pick of the stove this past weekend. I did pick it up last night and was surprised to find it was a different model then I had expected. This stove was in my childhood home from early 80's to early 90's, and I lugged a lot of wood for it, but apparently forgot it had those funny vents in the side. I was initially disappointed to find that it was this odd model. However, I'm now quite pleased. What the designer intended as a 'super heated manifold' should be easily converted to a 'super heated secondary combustion system'. Plug the funny vents in the side, replace blower with a draft adjuster, drill holes in the bottom of the baffle/manifold and it's done. There is serious surface area to preheat the air, and with the air volume so large, it'll be moving slowly and will be heated to stove temp.

I am tempted to extend the baffle a few inches and install one secondary burn tube under it, but I'm feeling lazy. We'll see...

Am I missing anything?

-Travis