Shaver Improvement Forum

[ngzcaz]

Geez Ben, here I was trying to give you a thumbs up sorta and you stick your foot in your mouth again with a really weak excuse. My furnace was offloaded when I wasn't there in my driveway. A back hoe lifted it up a couple of inches to set on the pad. I wasn't going to stick my head underneath to look at whether or not it had insulation. In fact, I'd bet most guys were more worried getting it properly on the pad than to look underneath the furnace. And once its on the ground there is, in fact, a 1/2 to an inch clearance to the concrete. And yes, you do have to rip off the sheet metal to check anything once its in place.

The website doesn't have to explain where all the insulation is located.. it all plainly shown on the pictures

OK.. here we go.. something NO ONE is talking about. You stated a while back that the water routing was in essence, completely wrong and should flow exactly the opposite. The rep from Water Boiler Solutions told me the same thing when I called for my test kit. When were the customers notified that " forget our installation booklet/diagrams showing water flow, just reverse everything " ?? I, for one, haven't received anything yet. Since you seem to admit its wrong, just how much is it screwing things up ? Is it 5 percent ? 10 or more ?? Negligible ? Is it partly responsible for the wild swings in water temperature ? These are legitimate questions that any Shaver furnace owner should have answers for..

I have much more respect for an individual/company when they simply acknowledge where they are wrong. Billy Shaver seems to be a really decent person to deal with. You seem to take more of a politicians stance on things.
We bought them, they work, we are actually helping the company immensely
if they simply heed our suggestions and not fight us... Who doesn't want to have a unit that people say " wow, you have a Shaver ? "

opcorn:

 

[pipe76]

Shaver mislead all of you folks that invested with them, take it, or demand retribution. plain and simple.

 

[ShaverFurnace]

Compliments

Shaver mislead all of you folks that invested with them, take it, or demand retribution. plain and simple.

Everyone doesn't think so as these unsolicited e-mails tell you:

We purchased the Series 165. Thanks, the stove is working great!!! Don K. IN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you will accept my appoligy for my stupid comments.
I have your furnace up and running now,and regret that i did not listen to you before I opened my big mouth.
Your Shaver Furnace so far was well worth all of the frustration.
This Thing works better than we had anticipated,
We have been up and running for a week now and our gas has only come on 1 time because I did not put enough wood in the furnace.
I hope you will accept my apology.
I will and have highly recommended the Shaver
terry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is so great to not feel guilty about turning up the thermostat! My " ice queen" wife really loves it as well!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Later,
Dan H.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben,

Good morning! Hope all is well. I wanted to let you know that all is well with my new Shaver furnance. I have set the thermostat in my house to 80 and I ahve not looked back! I should have done this years ago...
Any luck on the catyltic converter?

Happy New Year!!!

Thanks,

Frank

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To whom it may concern,

I recently purchased one of your Shaver 165 furnaces. I recently fired it up on Dec. 22. So far I have been pleased with it's performance...

Thanks,
Chris

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben
I was visiting your website, looks like you are staying busy. Still love our furnace. I wish we would have gone the next size bigger!!!!

Thank you

Kevin D

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The stove has been working great. Thanks, Roy S

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...By the way the unit works great , I'm very happy with it , I get 10 - 12 hour burns . Stocking times are 6:00 a.m full load ; 4 to 5 peices of wood around 4:00 p.m and then a full load at 9: 00 p. m . This seams to be working for me , I hope that all of your customers are so fortunate .

Regards Duane S

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: Creade
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 3:02 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: coal 290


just to let you know,i bought a coal 290 to heat 3 houses it does terrific. a real good product. thanks creade

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


-----Original Message-----
From: dan b
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 9:02 PM
To: Ben
Subject: Stove operation question


Hi Ben,I finally got all the parts and the stove has been operational for about a week and a half...

So far, I really like the stove and it seems to be pretty efficient, (I'll have a good test this weekend as it is supposed to get down into the low 20's,) I'm just concerned about all the water and the potential for rust and corrosion.

Thanks Dan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----

All else aside I think you have a great product that is well made especially for the price. I hope you soon get cought up a few of my friends are weighting for there stoves.
Clinton

 

[ShaverFurnace]

Thumbs up?

Geez Ben, here I was trying to give you a thumbs up sorta and you stick your foot in your mouth again with a really weak excuse. My furnace was offloaded when I wasn't there in my driveway. A back hoe lifted it up a couple of inches to set on the pad. I wasn't going to stick my head underneath to look at whether or not it had insulation. In fact, I'd bet most guys were more worried getting it properly on the pad than to look underneath the furnace. And once its on the ground there is, in fact, a 1/2 to an inch clearance to the concrete. And yes, you do have to rip off the sheet metal to check anything once its in place.

The website doesn't have to explain where all the insulation is located.. it all plainly shown on the pictures

OK.. here we go.. something NO ONE is talking about. You stated a while back that the water routing was in essence, completely wrong and should flow exactly the opposite. The rep from Water Boiler Solutions told me the same thing when I called for my test kit. When were the customers notified that " forget our installation booklet/diagrams showing water flow, just reverse everything " ?? I, for one, haven't received anything yet. Since you seem to admit its wrong, just how much is it screwing things up ? Is it 5 percent ? 10 or more ?? Negligible ? Is it partly responsible for the wild swings in water temperature ? These are legitimate questions that any Shaver furnace owner should have answers for..

I have much more respect for an individual/company when they simply acknowledge where they are wrong. Billy Shaver seems to be a really decent person to deal with. You seem to take more of a politicians stance on things.
We bought them, they work, we are actually helping the company immensely
if they simply heed our suggestions and not fight us... Who doesn't want to have a unit that people say " wow, you have a Shaver ? "

opcorn:

In all fairness, Billy isn't here getting bashed every day, even though it is his company. This is hard on the soul! I'm doing it at my expense (of sanity) and time and if I wasn't telling him everything, he would never know.

I am the one always pushing for changes and improvements.

I get on the phone with him constantly about all of this and I take it personally - probably too much so.

My only comment to you NOT AN EXCUSE AT ALL (re-read it) was that most people see the bottoms when they are offloaded.

Yes, the pictures were a mistake and I'm sorry no one noticed the error - no one for a whole year! It was not intentional to mislead anyone.

Why did no one mention it in a whole year, if it was so obvious?

Yes, the company we hired has advised us that the change can resolve some steaming or water usage but that seems to have been resolved in other ways, right?

I have told Billy about this as has the rep. There is no percentage of "screw up". Only water usage is an issue, It doesn't hurt performance, that I know of. Now it's out of my hands. It's not my call, but I have put it in the last couple of revisions of the manual. It worked well for 35 years and it was the only way I ever knew!

If you had my job, your attitude may be worse. Just try getting bashed every day. I don't know why I do this.

Again, I am helping here too, so try not being so hard and critical of every little thing or comment I make.

People are so quick to attack...

 

[derwood91]

I'm sure glad I didn't't end up with the shaver............. My Nature's Comfort is a fine piece of machinery. I'm not sure what Ben is talking about with the insulated door completely wrapped losing heat. My door is completely wrapped and insulated and the face of it is COOL to the touch with the hottest fire. I also could not imagine loading through the 18" door. I do agree that this is a mighty long thread for improvements to a furnace that is 30 some years in the making. My hat is off to all of you who have tackled the shortcomings of the Shaver. I wish you well and I hope I never have to start a "Nature's Comfort improvement forum". So far I'm satisfied with my furnace as delivered.

-Derek

Shaver order canceled and Nature's Comfort smokin' out back!!!!

 

[fletcher0780]

I'm sure glad I didn't't end up with the shaver............. My Nature's Comfort is a fine piece of machinery. I'm not sure what Ben is talking about with the insulated door completely wrapped losing heat. My door is completely wrapped and insulated and the face of it is COOL to the touch with the hottest fire. I also could not imagine loading through the 18" door. I do agree that this is a mighty long thread for improvements to a furnace that is 30 some years in the making. My hat is off to all of you who have tackled the shortcomings of the Shaver. I wish you well and I hope I never have to start a "Nature's Comfort improvement forum". So far I'm satisfied with my furnace as delivered.

-Derek

Shaver order canceled and Nature's Comfort smokin' out back!!!!

Would you mind taking pictures of the door from different angles and posting them, maybe ours can be easily modified?

 

[ngzcaz]

Well Ben.. first off I do know where you are coming from, perhaps more than you know. I was a police officer for a quarter of a century and people ONLY called me if there was a domestic ( always a good time ) bar fight, assault, murder, rape, robbery, or better yet a death notification of a teen age kid. So I guess I have limited sympathy for someone behind a computer listening to legitimate complaints.

If some of these answers had been more forthcoming w/out pulling teeth, you wouldn't have as many frustrated customers. This is the first time I've heard that the routing of the water is probably responsible for the steaming/loss of water in the system. This answers a lot of questions why some people were having problems with water consumption. However, it shouldn't have been the responsibility of the customer to find the remedy.

You just don't seem to understand that most guys are setting their furnace
as their top priority, not looking underneath it, which by the way is not a good thing to do if it lets loose from the chain. Since you seem to think it was the customers responsibility to check out the insulation under the furnace, just how high up is this thing when its unloaded ? Even if the bottom was 5 ft high, you'd still have to bend over and look up at it. Thats why it wasn't mentioned for a whole year. Very few people saw it and if they did, they may not have known or realized what they were looking at. Just another dumb excuse IMHO.

The lack of understanding about door size is also interesting. For myself, I don't want to LOAD a 20 in diameter log, its just nice to have room when throwing them in the unit so you don't whack the sides and have it tumble back at you. A 10 or 12 in log doesn't have a lot of clearance on a standard door.

I think the light is at the end of the tunnel. Most problems have been taken care of by the ingenuity of the Shaver owners. Shaver seems to have taken care of warranty issues in a timely manner. The stove with all its shortcomings works well, and in all probability will work even better with the refinements that were contributed to this forum.

opcorn:

 

[david78]

I must have missed something along the way. Is it now the recommendation to pull supply water from the bottom of the furnace rather than the top? Is that the way all of you have yours plumbed? Is it working better? Ray at the Shaver factory told me the supply should come from the top where the water was hottest. He did say that when your pump is running there is enough circulation inside the furnace that it didn't really matter which was supply or return. On issue I wondered about: the Grundfos pump I'm using recommends minimum 3 feet of static head. Sure don't get that mounting the pump at the top of the furnace. I read somewhere that insufficient static head can lead to premature pump failure. Anyone know about that? I'm probably going to move ny pump into the house which would solve that particular problem. As you said, it would have been nice to know all this stuff ahead of time. Shaver ought to snag all the good stuff off this forum and add it to their manual.

 

[derwood91]

Pics.......

Hey Fletch, I'll try to get some pics this afternoon when I get home. Hopefully there is enough light and Visibility with the blowing snow.

-Derek

 

[fletcher0780]

Hey Fletch, I'll try to get some pics this afternoon when I get home. Hopefully there is enough light and Visibility with the blowing snow.

-Derek

Cool thanks. Snow huh, lucky!

 

[John D]

Ben, first off, I want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to reply to these posts and us customers.Not every company does.
Below is my issue with the insulation we actually got,and what your advertisement and photos suggest we would get. I seen the pictures of the firebox,and insulation that Fletcher posted,that is how I thought it was insulated, In conjunction with following Shavers statement I read in many places

( If you want to cut down on loading as often, you can go to the 250 model for $900 more than the 165, because the firebox is almost 50% bigger so it holds a whole lot more wood! (We don't make a dime more on the bigger models).

Ditto for the 290 over the 250. With 21% more volume, you don't have to put wood in the outside wood furnace as often. It's only $250 extra.

Bigger models do not burn any more wood because they are so well insulated - the extra water you are heating, doesn't lose it's heat!)


I got this off one of your dealers sites.Ben read the last sentence,so well insulated?A bare bottom,uninsulated door thats hot to the touch in 10 degree weather, and bare single wall chimney that sweats the roof inside,and steams it outside.
With both the picture,and the info,why would any potential customer believe anything other than that it is a well insulated unit.As for us being the first customers in 36 yrs to complain,I don't buy it,and times change,36 yrs ago,no one cared how well homes were insulated around here as fuel oil was .12 a gallon until Carter.
What I meant by 18x18" 1000 degree was a square piece of hi temp insulation for the door air gap,what could it cost in bulk?I never suggested boxing in the door,you did.I never even mentioned the rear of the boiler,which is hot to the touch as well.Clearly not insulated well either.
The manual shows a tstat cover,but it isnt with the furnace,it needs to be bought and homemade,such "boxes" are not UL approved covers,I had the UL inspector here,and guess what it FAILED.Thats why I say it isnt a finished product,I dont get it you supply a generic circulator,and light,but leave us to try to source,and fabricate an electrical box cover,something that should be done by you esp considering the safety and nature of it.To top it all off Shaver shows it as easy to install by the handyman homeowner.I didn't know we were all capable of building UL approved electrical covers,and wiring tracts! Shaver could have installed the stat in a $2 dollar work box with a UL tag on it,bushing hole,and cover,and saved $65 dollars on the circulator.
As for the door,it is too small,esp on the 290 and 340's.I can see it on the 165,since it isnt very deep.My 250 is hard to load the front fully,the thing you dont mention is you need to put more than one log in at one time,once a 10-12" round is in,or 2 or 3 along the bottom,it is hard to get another one in next to it or on top of it.If a single 15x30 would heat for a night I wouldnt complain,but again esp the 340,where you need to load in 24+" long wood,double deep,so its 48" deep,and fill it to the top to get an overnight burn on 6500 sq ft.Try doing that thru the 18" hole. I'd rather have the door opening at the top of the firebox,this way you could drop in a log,poke it where you want it,and then add another on top of it,with it in the center,you can't get the 3rd log on top of the bottom row,even though theres plenty of room inside the 36" firebox,if you could just get the log past the door.You know the problem isnt that I can't get a bigger log thru the door,its that you can't fill the firebox 2/3 full with anything bigger than small sticks with the door in the center ,it needs to be higher up or the door needs to be taller.
Your new manuals suggests laying down fiberglass,thats rediculous ,and dangerous to try to line up the boiler,and try to line up the insulation which will lay on the ground and get wet,thus becoming a conductor instead of an insulator.The insulation eeds to be up against the boilers water jacket,not on the ground below it,there also neds to be an air gap between the insulation and ground,so moisture doesnt wick from the cement to the fiberglass when it rains.To think someone would lay under the boiler and properly install it while its hanging from a chain is a suicide mission.It needs to be done at the factory.I recommend 2" blue R10 secured with 4 or 5 metal strips across the bottom.No one is going to damage it,and if they do,then they lose R value in that spot only.A .30 cent bright yellow warning tag on the boiler door with a note about the insulation and handling would fix that problem.I am wondering how it gets damaged,when the metal shipping pallet under it has 4 or 5 C channels crossing the boiler,to accept th pallet forks,my pallet forks never got near the bottom of the water jacket.It isn't getting damaged there in transit,and the final installer usually sets with a chain thru the chimney,how will that damage it?

 

[derwood91]

PICS of NCB Door.....

Would you mind taking pictures of the door from different angles and posting them, maybe ours can be easily modified?

Let me know if you need any more. The wrap looks to be a stamped piece and the weld seam must be under the door seal rope. Tapered and about 4 inches thick. Very heavy duty and never hot to the touch. Big A$$ opening too!!! I have no problem loading and playing "tetris" with the pieces. Couldn't help but toss in a pic of my wood hauler. Trimmed up some stuff around the field edge a couple of weeks ago.

-Derek

 

[fletcher0780]

Thanks a lot Derwood. You don't know what the door is insulated wit do you? Is it hollow inside? That looks like a nice boiler, does it hold temperature well? Have you had any issues with it? is the bottom of the water jacket insulated?

 

[Blazin]

Dang!! After readin thru this whole thing, I'm glad I did'nt buy one!!!

 

[derwood91]

I'm not sure what it's insulated with. I know there has to be something in there because it is cool to the touch. The boiler holds temp fine. I get more than 12 hours on a load whereas my brother gets 24 on his heatmore. I check it every 12 but there is always a good amount of wood left. I don't think my boiler would make it 24 hours most days. That heatmore holds quite a bit more wood though. The bottom of my boiler was NOT insulated. This surprised me because it's up on legs. I just used some 2" blueboard against the bottom and as a skirt around it. This extended my burn times on the really windy days. This is a much easier task when the boiler is 12" off the ground!! No issues yet. I could have had the heatmore for about 2700 more, but I decided to go the cheaper route with shaver originally but that obviously didn't work out so I have the NCB. All in all my whole system cost me less than just the boiler from Heatmore.
How hot is the Shaver door getting? Burn you hot? How long does a load last you?

 

[fletcher0780]

I've measured my door at 250* plus before I added insulation between the panels, now after the insulation I see about 150*. I can generally get 12 hours on a load when it's cold. I think more insulation will extend that a bit. Thanks again for your help.

 

[fletcher0780]

I've had unfaced fiberglass stuffed between mine for a month and it is holding up well. Now I just need to insulate to bottom of the water jacket (which I was led to believe was already insulated) and add better insulation around the entire unit. The Ranco digital aquastat and solenoid controlled damper door are working well though.

Does anyone else think these images indicates insulation below the water jacket, or am I interpreting them incorrectly:

Just so nobody thinks I'm crazy, since the images were corrected and these are direct links to the shaver page, here's what the original images looked like:

 

[trshmn]

Yea Fletch your right on about the insulation, And they show the grate going to the back of it but it does'nt, hell it only goes half way

 

[ngzcaz]

Speaking of the grate ( which is really down there in the list of prioritys ) was anyone else's facing sideways instead of the rebars going the long way toward the chimney ? On the 165 they can be turned either way so I guess its a matter of preference. I turned mine so when you use the poker you are going the long way with the rebars instead of the poker jumping over each grate. I doubt that it affects burn times but might cause more ash to build up instead of getting knocked down in the ash BIN ( couldn't help it )
Since I have my great factory aquastat set at slightly over 140 ( temp inside the oil burner aquastat shows a tad over 160 then goes down to slightly under 140 before kicking on again, my 165 door can be touched easily w/out burning my fingers. However more insulation can only help in the door and how cheap is that amount of unfaced fiberglas ?

:greenchainsaw:

 

[ShaverFurnace]

Adding chemicals

Here's a tip. If you need to add more chemicals after your DHW coil is sealed up, add them through the steam vent/ overflow tube.

Put a piece of 1" pex over the pipe with the curve upward. Insert a funnel and pour in the chemicals. Give it a couple cups of water for a chaser.

YES! I've been telling people the same thing and it was added to the last Shaver Manual update - as well as a way to add chemicals at an unused port in back, using an elbow, a straight piece of pipe and a cap..

Best regards,

Ben