us stove 1557m , 1537g

is anyone familiar with the 1557m and the 1537g from us stove ? the only diff from what i gather is the 1557m has a manual air draft control and the 1537g has an auto (bi-metalic) spring damper control . Does anyone know if the auto damper on the 1537g works good enough to rate it better then using a manual damper as on the 1557m ? Or is it just a preference thing ? I plan on purchasing one of these stoves but am now stuck on as to which draft may be better .

We have used a USSC Warm Blast 1500 for the last 12 years. The first year we tried using the "automatic damper". That ended up causing a lot of bad language to be used through out the winter. After that we just use the manual damper on the ash door and life got a lot calmer. I have several friends that have the same stove and they are doing the same thing.

hi junkfxr thanks for the response . i kinda of suspected that the auto draft didnt work as well as intended . in the past i have burned coal in another stove that had the auto draft and it worked very well , but , just a hunch was telling me that this auto draft on the 1537g wasnt gonna cut it . a question for you tho , or for anyone else reading and wishing to respond , does operating the stove with only the ash door draft ,as the sole draft , make the stove burn as one would want for it to burn ? , maintaining a pretty constant temp ? i plan on burning wood in the 1557m/1537g i purchase .

P.S. would you mind explaining breifly , what kind of probs you ran into with the auto draft ?

The biggest problem with the auto draft is that it is in the feed door and the feed door is above or part of the way up the wood. When it does open, it lets air in above the flame and wood doesn't burn very well like that. with using the manual draft in the ash door, air comes in through the grates and under the flame so it gets a hotter and more complete burn. With the auto damper, I never could get it adjusted right and when shut, the wood would just smolder, making a lot of smoke and creosote, the creosote would actually glue the damper flap shut so that it wouldn't open on it's own. Ours is in the basement and tied into the main header of the ductwork. I had originally had the thermostat for the blowers set to come on at 180 and off at 160, WAY too hot. Most of the time the blowers wouldn't cut off because the stove wouldn't cool off enough. I finally ended up with setting the thermostat for on at 130 and off at 110. Unless it's really cold outside or I'm trying to warm the house up in a hurry, we leave the blowers unplugged and let the heat thermosiphon up throught the ductwork, works extremely well for us. The house doesn't stay at a perfect constant temperature, but more like burning a regular wood stove. We have to work to keep the house below 80 degerees but I'm real cold natured and don't mind walking around inside in my shorts in January. It's not unusual to see some of our windows cracked in the winter. I have thought about putting an automatic draft in the ash door and tying it and the blowers and to a thermostat upstairs but that's an awful lot of work to fix something that's working just fine.

it all makes sense now junkfxr . actually i was thinking of the same thing as i was looking at the 1557m in tractor supply , and of rigging up some kind of auto draft , and if nesessary , making the draft intake hole larger , but making it myself and installing it on the ash door intake . would make a whole lot more sense as opposed to having it on the feed door . ok , issue solved thanks for your response . next saturday i will go to tsc and pick up my new 1557m then , just to be sure i get one that is in stock . i would suspect having to wait for an ordered one could take a bit longer then one might want to wait for . i want to have everything all set up and some trials in before the snow flies , thanks again .

I put in a 1557m two years ago now, for the price its a nice unit.
I would replace all the nuts and bolts on the fire door latch asap as there prone to come loose. Pick up some nice stainless bolts and if you can some metal locknuts or what we call pinch nuts, as the nyloc nuts just melt off after a few weeks.

Also be sure to empty the ash pan at least twice a day its not very deep and the gates will warp (Yeah I know Duh! but it was my first time with a wood burner) BTW if you happen to do this very same thing US stove will send you a set with in the first year of purchuse lol.

Other than that shes been a nice unit so far, just started mine up tonight to get the new fire bricks ready and burn out any birds that found thier way down the chimne

All In all best damn 700 Dollars I've ever spent.

Kilroy said:

I put in a 1557m two years ago now, for the price its a nice unit.
I would replace all the nuts and bolts on the fire door latch asap as there prone to come loose. Pick up some nice stainless bolts and if you can some metal locknuts or what we call pinch nuts, as the nyloc nuts just melt off after a few weeks.

Also be sure to empty the ash pan at least twice a day its not very deep and the gates will warp (Yeah I know Duh! but it was my first time with a wood burner) BTW if you happen to do this very same thing US stove will send you a set with in the first year of purchuse lol.

Other than that shes been a nice unit so far, just started mine up tonight to get the new fire bricks ready and burn out any birds that found thier way down the chimne

All In all best damn 700 Dollars I've ever spent.

Click to expand...

boy you said it.... almost like you've been using my stove! and BTW put hi-temp never sieze on the door hinges when they squeak... and keep a close eye on your rope seals to keep unwanted air leaks away. but overall not a bad stove for the money

Oh yeah, forgot about the seals I replaced the ash door one this past winter it got a little to much tar built up on it.

Kilroy said:

I put in a 1557m two years ago now, for the price its a nice unit.
All In all best damn 700 Dollars I've ever spent.

Click to expand...

My main issue with my 1557 hot blast is the air leaks around the door (they aren't to bad, just the damper leaks). Can make choking the fire down a little annoying. Though that little furnace sure can put out the heat; I had it choked down a couple years ago, burning well seasoned slab oak, it was 10F outside and I had a window open, because it was 85F in the house

The blowers I think shut off for probably a maximum of about 60 - 90 seconds before starting up again. At that point, I decided it was time to mix in some rather large pine logs and other lower btu wood, kept it burning but also let the place cool down

One of the guys I used to work with that lives just up the road commented on Monday morning, "Damn! How hot do you keep that place? The snow on your roof is pretty melted!" LOL

Tes

Tesen said:

One of the guys I used to work with that lives just up the road commented on Monday morning, "Damn! How hot do you keep that place? The snow on your roof is pretty melted!" LOL

Tes

Click to expand...

HA HA yea I'm in the NO SNO ROOF CLUB too!

its nice to know i will be wearing shorts in february then . i just picked mine up yesterday , maybe get it put together today . gotta install a chimney sometime soon i guess , heard ya need one of those with this type of equipment . any of you guys install a thermostat for the blowers instead of using the factory thermo disc , im kinda thinking i may wanna be able to have some control over the blower cycles . if you have , what kind of thermostat did you use and how did you configure it ?

bryan6301 said:

its nice to know i will be wearing shorts in february then . i just picked mine up yesterday , maybe get it put together today . gotta install a chimney sometime soon i guess , heard ya need one of those with this type of equipment . any of you guys install a thermostat for the blowers instead of using the factory thermo disc , im kinda thinking i may wanna be able to have some control over the blower cycles . if you have , what kind of thermostat did you use and how did you configure it ?

Click to expand...

Um, don't replace the thermodiscs, they are there for a reason. You have a minimum temp and max operating temp. You may need to adjust it to get the right fan cycle times for yourself, to low and you will just blow cold air, to high and the fans will shut off early and you will get constant cycling. Note, READ the manual and operating instructions, there are warnings and recommendations, I would say not to adjust to much outside of their recommendations (especially for max firebox temp).

Now, maybe you are talking about installing a draft induction fan, if so...

On my 1557, I got the draft induction fan for it, I also bought a cheap $25 digital thermostat (it comes with an analog one though). To be honest, it was a waste of money (atleast for me ). I had some chimney drafting issues, and I bought the draft induction fan as a cheaper option to an Exhausto, it didn't do :censored: for me. I did more research and discovered I had an extreme stack effect going on, so other than building a separate furnance room, or ripping out every window in my house and doing major sealing the Exhausto was a better option at the moment (slowly working on tightening up the house, but it is going a room at a time, est completion time, 5 years ).

We set our thermostat for the 1557 to 67F, but if we are burning good wood, the draft fan never turns on because we generally sit higher than that temp. A turn or two on the ash door, generally keeps the house at a good temp, but I guess if the temp drops low enough where my manual adjustment needs tweaking, the draft fan can help keep the house at temp (albeit, at a quicker burn rate). Mostly though, around here in NE Ohio, I've found the times when the temps drop enough that my ash door damper setting doesn't do it, is late at night/early hours of the morning when I am cozied up against my wife and cats. My son's room has a baseboard heater to keep it at 68F, plus the gas furnace kicks on at 60F, so I have protection for the house, and atleast a min temp. Though I usually get up once a night to take a whizz, so one of my routines is to head down stairs and do the whole fire maintenance thing if I need to

If you are a paranoid type, get the draft fan. If you hate spending money you do not need, run a season and see if you need it, worst case you buy one mid season or early on. When I installed mine, I ended up moving the gas furnace thermostat to the otherside of the room (away from the front door drafts, previous owners were idiots ) and ran the new thermostat wire for the new thermostat, all in all wiring, installation took about a couple hours. Only downside was letting the fire go out and the thing cool down, so I did not get third degree burns, also opening the plug with a burning fire is not a very advisible thing to do

Tes

I agree with the forced draft, waste of money. We never used ours, the house always stayed warmer than the thermostat was set. If you do want control over your thermodisc, then replace the thermodisc with a honeywell limit/control for your blowers. This way you can set your on/off for when you want it. And believe me different temp settings make a huge difference on the home heating. One thing you can do is if the forced draft plug is in the back, remove it. Operate it this way, I do and I only put my ash pan damper about 1 1/2 turns open, and I get secondary combustion from the air entering the back. I believe this year though, I am retireing this furnace and upgrading to the 1950 by usstove.

I get the impression that most, if not all, of you did your own installation. While I consider myself somewhat handy, this is a project that I would not be comfortable doing myself. I am looking at a furnace plus ductwork. Is this something that most HVAC contractors can/will do?

Not around here. They say that its too much liability when it comes to a wood furnace/appliance. Plus half of the hvac people had no idea how to put a woodfurnace with a standard furnace.

laynes69 said:

I agree with the forced draft, waste of money. We never used ours, the house always stayed warmer than the thermostat was set. If you do want control over your thermodisc, then replace the thermodisc with a honeywell limit/control for your blowers. This way you can set your on/off for when you want it. And believe me different temp settings make a huge difference on the home heating. One thing you can do is if the forced draft plug is in the back, remove it. Operate it this way, I do and I only put my ash pan damper about 1 1/2 turns open, and I get secondary combustion from the air entering the back. I believe this year though, I am retireing this furnace and upgrading to the 1950 by usstove.

Click to expand...

You know what, I said thermodisc when I meant to say adjust the limit controls for the blower. Ugh what was I thinking! Dude thanks for kicking my brain in to gear and using the right equipment names

Tes

hmmm .... unless im overlooking something , i dont seem to be able to adjust my thermodisk for the blowers ( not the draft induction. as i dont have the draft induction thermostat or blower ). my thermodisk seems to be a sealed unit. i read where to keep the forced draft plug not installed to allow for secondary combustion , cool .

duhhh.......the things ya miss the first time reading something , haaa ok i see now where the honeywell limit/control is what i would need if i decided to control my blowers myself. at what temps did you decide to go with on your honeywell controller ? and how far away are they from the thermodisk settings ? also , you mounted the honeywell where the thermodisk used to be then ?

Mines on the back upper left of the furnace. I have my on setting at 95 and off at 140. When its burning, it never shuts off. I have kept our 2400 square foot victorian 76 average all winter long, both downstairs and upstairs.