Need advise: Johnson wood furnace. Moving, setup and operation

[Blackdog87]

Hi all, been a while since i logged in here. I finally found a used wood furnace at a price i could afford so I pulled the trigger and brought it home last Friday. First off, as i'm sure you all know, this baby is heavy. Im trying to figure out how i'm gonna get it in the basement. The stairs are to small to get an army of friends to help it down. Just no enough room to get more than two people on it. I'v got an idea in my head right now of using the electric winch off my snow plow and rigging it to the door frame to let the furnace down the stairs. Il put some 2x4's on the stairs for runners so it can just slide down. The winch has power out, an automatic holding brake, and is geared pretty low so im thinking it should work well. I'm open to ideas if anyone has a better solution.

Secondly, the furnace needs a few repairs or adjustments if you will... The PO informed me that the automatic damper in the loading door doesn't work right. I took the cover off the door and it apears as if everything is free and moving but im not sure it is put together correctly. It seems to me that as the coil heats and expands it is setup to open the draft flap. I would think it should do the opposite? I'm not sure, i'm new to all this. If anyone could explain to me how this is supposed to work or link me to some info thatd be great. The PO also ran this without a flue damper but i'm pretty sure it needs one right? Hoping you guys can get me on track here. Thanks

PS keep an eye on the would hauler thread il be posting my "new" hauler in a bit.

 

[loadthestove]

Good luck getting it down the steps.When I built my house (two story)several years ago it was what wife and I really wanted,,we thought.I hate stairscases, ours goes up nine and turns a corner then four more to second floor.it has proven to be a monster to get things up there.we generally use a furniture dolly and just muscle it one step at a time.at least you are going down hill so maybe that will help.

Try making furnace as lite as you can by removing,doors ,fire brick, grates,etc .You may even want to complelety disassemble it as much as possible to make it lighter.

Also I think your right about the draft control. as the temp comes up, the spring expands and closes the draft,when the temp drops it recoils and opens draft up. my grandparents had a combustioneer that was setup that way.

I run mine without a damper so I cannot offer any input on this but Im sure someone will be along that has more knowledege on this that I have .

 

[Blackdog87]

How do you get buy without running the damper? Are you running yours wide open or closed? I had thought of running mine closed and just using the screw type damper in the ashpan along with a flue damper. But i'm not sure how it all works together. Maybe I need the damper in the door to keep from pulling too much draft from up under the fire? IDK. Anyone know where I can get a instructions for furnace like mine? I believe its the same as the newer US stove/hotblast furnaces.

 

[brenndatomu]

Without actually seeing your setup, it sounds like you have a pretty good plan for gettin 'er down the stairs. Like previous reply, take as much weight off of it as you can.
One thing you may want to consider is to see if you could hire a local stove shop to take it down the stairs for you, most of them (stove dealers) use a battery powered dolly that actually "walks" down the stairs! Really slick! Makes it easy for 2 guys to move small, heavy things like stoves or wood/coal furnaces.
As for the damper, is it possible the coil is mounted backwards? Or maybe some missing linkage that would make the current setup actually close the damper on heat up?

 

[dave_dj1]

I once pulled a HS Tarm up a set of cellar bilco stairs with a tractor. I think your plan will work, not sure about the winch though. You may want to use a vehicle instead, just drive forward slowly. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[loadthestove]

How do you get buy without running the damper? Are you running yours wide open or closed? I had thought of running mine closed and just using the screw type damper in the ashpan along with a flue damper. But i'm not sure how it all works together. Maybe I need the damper in the door to keep from pulling too much draft from up under the fire? IDK. Anyone know where I can get a instructions for furnace like mine? I believe its the same as the newer US stove/hotblast furnaces.

We may be talking about two different things,I was refering to a damper that is installed in the pipe.
I have a hotblast and all I use on it is the screw type air control in the ash door.do a search on the site for hotblast furnace .IIRC there was a discussion on them a little while back.
Be sure and hook everything up to code or better and fire it up and play with it to you get what you need

 

[Blackdog87]

Without actually seeing your setup, it sounds like you have a pretty good plan for gettin 'er down the stairs. Like previous reply, take as much weight off of it as you can.
One thing you may want to consider is to see if you could hire a local stove shop to take it down the stairs for you, most of them (stove dealers) use a battery powered dolly that actually "walks" down the stairs! Really slick! Makes it easy for 2 guys to move small, heavy things like stoves or wood/coal furnaces.
As for the damper, is it possible the coil is mounted backwards? Or maybe some missing linkage that would make the current setup actually close the damper on heat up?

No stove shops in my neck of the woods. Only places i know of that sells em is TSC, Orscheln's, Menards ETC. I'd rather not pay somone to do it for me anyway. That powered stair climbing dolly would be something to see though. As for the coil, I also thought maybe it was on backwards but i cant figure out how the thing comes out of there to flip it around. I'll have to mess with it some more i guess. It does apear to be all there and not missing any linkages.

 

[Blackdog87]

I once pulled a HS Tarm up a set of cellar bilco stairs with a tractor. I think your plan will work, not sure about the winch though. You may want to use a vehicle instead, just drive forward slowly. Good luck and keep us posted.

No way, no how to get a line from the stairs to a vehicle. I tried to line it up through the garage door but its not a staight shot so i don't think itl pan out. I got the winch braced up in the doorway on a 4x4 across the door frame, held up on both sides by 2x4's. Gonna strap the contraption to something inside the basement door so it cant move on me while im letting the furnace down. Just need to come up with some runners to lay on the stairs. I'l have to go scrounge through dads junk piles tommor. I can't find anything long enough here.

 

[Blackdog87]

I finally got the furnace down the basement stairs. Now i'm getting ready to hook it all up. I'v got an existing chimney but it needs a liner. The flue on the furnace is 7" i cant seem to find any 7" pipe so can I run 6"? I could run 8" down the chimney but I don't have room for an 8" elbow at the bottom without knocking some bricks out. I'm open to suggestions here. The chimney is on the west side of the house and is pretty exposed so it seems to have a pretty good draft. I aslo need to know what my clearances need to be. I'v got a few electric lines and an LP line that im sure need moved.