While I see the glass door as a luxury, its a big part of the design and performance of the furnace. I don't have any returns nor supply ducts in our basement. In the dead of winter, our basement stays in the low to mid 60's. Now i've been in homes where they don't heat their basement, and it stays in the 60's, but their home isn't a mid 19th century home with large boulder and mortar foundation that leaks like a seive. Its nice to be able to heat the basement, and allow the rest of the heat produced from the furnace to heat the 2 floors above.
I wasn't trying to bust your chops spider, its what you said on your last post. We heated with a old wood furnace that was a simple firebox, shaker grates and baffle. The thing was extremely easy to use, put out tons of heat and was forgiving of the chimney. When we installed our new furnace, which the old one was in this house for over 20 years, it was an experience. Less heat, cooler home, poor performance all around. I realized the furnace needed a liner especially after testing with a manometer over the season. Our draft requirements were .04-.06", with our old setup the draft would go from .02" on a firebox of coals to almost .20" on a high fire. Once that load of wood burned down (Quickly, High Draft), there wasn't enough heat in the coal bed to sustain draft. Even opening the draft all the way didn't help, at that point it would take forever to burn down coals. There wasn't enough draft to keep those coals hot, which heat output was less than par. I kept telling myself, its the furnace because the old furnace did just fine and there was more than enough draft. Well the old furnace put a ton of heat up the flue, which helped the large oversize chimney to maintain draft, our Caddy on the otherhand had flue temps so low, that they were exiting the chimney at under a hundred degrees. Many mornings, we woke to dead black coals in the rear of our firebox.
When we lined the chimney, things changed. Our draft went from .01-.02" on a coal bed to .05"(or wherever we set it), as well as high fire where it was set. This allowed the furnace to burn properly, heat output increased, burn times increased, and the accumulating coal bed dissapeared. The furnace ran cleaner, and the condensation that was produced before in the chimney dissapeared. I was suprised, and all these posts I had read about lining were true.
We started burning wood that was properly seasoned, not what would burn in the old furnace. The manufacturer put all the information in their manual for a reason. That of having a specific draft requirement as well a properly sized flue.
Like I say, I wasn't trying to bust your chops. These stoves and even our furnace need specific requirements to run properly. I'm 100% sure you will be happy with your Daka. It will be less forgiving on your setup, with its simple design. That and it has everything you want or need. It sounds as though you have a decent heating load, and the Daka should take care of that with no problems.
