Shaver steaming and water level solution...

[Dan-o]

insulation

I went ahead and pulled the metal off the inside of the door and insulated it, just thought it might help. Only took a few minutes to remove the top cap of the door and pull the metal off. I would have thought they would have insulated that from the factory. I put a thermometer in there the other night when it was 23* outside and it was 72* behind the door!

 

[fletcher0780]

What did you insulate it with, regular R14 without paper?

 

[Dan-o]

r-11

I had some r-11 with paper left in my barn, so I used that.

 

[fletcher0780]

I had some r-11 with paper left in my barn, so I used that.

nice, I'll do that this weekend. How is your thermostat working?

 

[Dan-o]

t-stat

installed it the other night out in the rain/sleet, took a bit to figure out how to program it, but figured it out. I couldn't get an accurate reading on the probe it kept saying it was 60* when it was in the 30's outside, then if I held it in my hand it said it was 20*. Never thought that I had the red and white wire backwards. The red is actually negative on this setup. I just went with the speaker setup red = +. So since I couldn't figure it out and it was raining I disconnected it and hooked up the old junky t-stat.

So I figured I would work on it this weekend when it is light out!

Talking to their tech service at dwyer is kind of a joke, each person I talk to gives me a different answer. It turns out the probes aren't water proof, ( I should have known that) and they say it comes with a probe, It doesn't. Their customer service says no shipping on the switch, bill came with $10 shipping fee.

I will let you know when it is done.

 

[fletcher0780]

My Ranco is working fine, I'm going to move the well to a better spot (hot water feed to the house). Here is a pic of it, it is mounted inside the rear door:

I still need to do some cleaning up and insulating on the rear of the boiler, but I have a few more adjustments to make first.

Here is my steam fix, I keep the water at about halfway up the pipe so I can track any level changes. My vent use to steam nonstop, but no more.

My next project is to modify my blower damper to operate like the natures comfort and Hardy OWB. They use a solenoid to cover and uncover the blower inlet when the fan is on/off. Here is a pic I borrowed from fellow member (derwood91, thanks for the pic):

originally I was going to redrill my blower flange, but after looking at my available space (pic below) I won't be able to do that because I don't want to mess with moving my electrical conduit

Now, I'm thinking of freeing up the pivot point of my damper and tacking an eye on to it, so I can pivot it open with the solenoid. I think I'll also need to add a bit of ballast or a return spring to pivot it back down when the solenoid shuts off. Does anyone have any other ideas how I could do this?

My thoughts for doing this are to reduce recovery time in heating water by allowing full airflow, and reduce wood usage and potential for boil over by limiting draft when water temp is above set point. For those of you not familiar the shaver blower has a flap that pivots and they recommend leaving it 1/4 open for best results. It works well, but as you can tell, I'm always tinkering.

 

[ngzcaz]

Insulating the back door is a thought I had ( I would have injected foam in the ridges ) but dropping another piece of solarguard on the back door was much easier. Now there is solarguard close to back to back, one dropping from the boiler and the other from the rear door. You guys might want to resist the urge of dropping the insulation all the way to the floor. The fan needs air to pull in to feed the fire. Of course one could just cut a hole in the rear door the same height as the fan, put in a plastic tube and run it directly to the fan. Cold air injection, that way you could insulate to your hearts content. Just make sure the snow isnt higher than the inlet. But we may be overdoing it a bit. If anyone is interested I sort of used Shavers suggestion with the solarguard by wrapping my pipes. First I put on regular foam insulation R 3 or so, then wrapped the solarguard in between the two pipes, then rolling the whole thing twice around. Taped the ends and length with SS tape. It hasn't really been cold enough for a definitive test but on a 30ft run to the house, an IR reading was within the same degree. We'll see when it hits in the teens for a prolonged period of time. Please tell me SOMEONE has come up with a better idea than wasting a tube of expensive black caulk to seal the hot water steel removable slide dohicky. Rope caulk ? mortise weather stripping ? Geez, if you have to add chemicals or manually check the water level you could go thru a lot of caulk in a year. Something heat resistant, pliable and reuseable has to be in the offing..
Keep' um coming..

 

[urhstry]

My Shaver should be here soon. I am watching these threads with great interest. Keep the pictures coming. Sometimes I get confused on what I will be looking at since I don't have one (yet) to go off of. This is a great site!

 

[projectsho89]

My Shaver should be here soon....

With all the order cancellations, you might get one sooner than you think....or probably not.....

 

[hedgecutter]

Shaver Issues

I have a Shaver 165 and have been trying to control the draft air. I have tried setting the manual draft flap in different positions, but with a change in ambient temp or wind velocity my Shaver still tends to want to boil and require more make up water. I replaced the simple little snap disk t-stat which cycles the draft fan with a Ranco Temperature Controller and that helped a bunch. However I do not like the the manual air damper on the stock Shaver draft fan. I like the idea of when the fan cycles on that the damper can be opened fully for faster water temperature recovery. Is any body out there using a solenoid activated damper? How do they work on other brands of OWF's? When the flap is in the closed position for any length of time will it snuff out the fire? Any comments are appreciated.

 

[ShaverFurnace]

Cancellations? Not many!

With all the order cancellations, you might get one sooner than you think....or probably not.....

There have been VERY few cancellations and those only came as a result of my e-mail offering a full refund to those who couldn't wait BUY 1/2 of those people came back and said we want your furnace. We don't want our money back!

A couple of dealers are offering Nature's comfort and customers are calling me saying they didn't do all that research to be pushed on another brand, that is unknown. SO many ending up ordering factory direct (reinstating their order) because the dealer cancelled their order without consulting the customer...

 

[Windwalker7]

Before I got the Domestic hot water hooked up, I refilled the furnace by putting a piece of 1" pex over the overflow/steam vent. I then used a funnel inserted into the pex and refilled water.

My DHW is now connected so all that isn't necessary now. I'll still use this method as a way to add more chemicals as needed though. It's easier than recaulking the DHW coil plate every time.

I've been having the opposite problem with my blower. I would open it 1/4 to 1/3 and had the fire go out a couple times. There are times when I go out to check the fire and the blower is blowing but when I open the furnace door it is full of smoke with some coals glowing. After a few seconds with the door open, the fire perks up.

I have tried opening the blower vent all the way up and the fire will be roaring when I check the fire inside, when the blower is on. I've only experimented with this while outside with the furnace. I didn't want to risk a boil over so I haven't let it go like this very long.


I usually run with the blower door half open. I run my pump 24/7. It just seems that I have the opposite problem you guys have. It seems I don't get enough air.

I don't know. I'm still in the learning curve with this furnace. Any thoughts?

 

[ngzcaz]

that is strange.. I've been thinking of closing my flap to about 1/4 instead of its present position which is about a third. Its also hard to believe you're burning more junky wood than I am ( knock on wood ) the only thing that comes to mind if you're really well insulated and the furnace is actually oversized and it simply calls for to be reheated so little that the fire goes out instead..

 

[Windwalker7]

Here's a question. Does your furnace get a roaring fire inside when your blower is on and it is closed that far?

 

[Windwalker7]

I wanted to add, I run my thermostat at 155*

 

[fletcher0780]

I have a Shaver 165 and have been trying to control the draft air. I have tried setting the manual draft flap in different positions, but with a change in ambient temp or wind velocity my Shaver still tends to want to boil and require more make up water. I replaced the simple little snap disk t-stat which cycles the draft fan with a Ranco Temperature Controller and that helped a bunch. However I do not like the the manual air damper on the stock Shaver draft fan. I like the idea of when the fan cycles on that the damper can be opened fully for faster water temperature recovery. Is any body out there using a solenoid activated damper? How do they work on other brands of OWF's? When the flap is in the closed position for any length of time will it snuff out the fire? Any comments are appreciated.

I'm about to change my manual draft to auto, and as you can tell I also use the ranco. Where did you put your temperature sensor. On page 2 of this thread I posted pics of natures comfort solution, Hardy is very similar.

 

[projectsho89]

There have been VERY few cancellations and those only came as a result of my e-mail offering a full refund to those who couldn't wait BUY 1/2 of those people came back and said we want your furnace. We don't want our money back!

A couple of dealers are offering Nature's comfort and customers are calling me saying they didn't do all that research to be pushed on another brand, that is unknown. SO many ending up ordering factory direct (reinstating their order) because the dealer cancelled their order without consulting the customer...

Ben,

I canceled mine because I couldn't get a straight answer from anyone and it seemed that although I was trying to get in touch with you multiple times, no reply was forthcoming. I even posed possible reasons, giving you the greatest benefit of the doubt. Still, I never received an response from you and it SHOULD have been obvious to you (or anyone) that additional measures were needed to ensure that communications were getting through...

Silence....crickets.....silence....Screw it!

I moved on. Good luck shilling this company, they need it.

Still haven't even received any confirmation of my cancellation......

Profoundly disappointed with you and your company.

 

[hedgecutter]

I'm about to change my manual draft to auto, and as you can tell I also use the ranco. Where did you put your temperature sensor. On page 2 of this thread I posted pics of natures comfort solution, Hardy is very similar.

I drilled a hole through the top of the water jacket approximately 14" in from the back and 4" in from the side. Next I cut a 12" piece of 1/4" copper tubing and soldered a cap on one end. Then I slid the copper tubing through the hole and flared the uncapped end so it would hang down into the water jacket. I sealed between the hole and flared tube end with some silicone to make a water resistant dry well to put the temp sensor into. It seems to work very well. The dry well is in the general vicinity of where the pump takes suction to send water to the house. I run my temp set point at 180F with a differential of 10 degrees. The Shaver does a very nice job heating my house and hot water. Just need to control the air damper a little better. I think I will install a solenoid activated damper control. If anybody has any ideas here please advise. Hope that helps.

 

[urhstry]

Hedgecutter, how is that mod working out for you since you have had it done for a few weeks? Sounds like a good way to go.

And what kind of caulk is everyone using to seal off their DHW cover?

 

[hedgecutter]

Hedgecutter, how is that mod working out for you since you have had it done for a few weeks? Sounds like a good way to go.

And what kind of caulk is everyone using to seal off their DHW cover?

Mounting the Ranco temp probe in the copper tube dry well as I described is working nicely. It controls the draft fan on/off control better than the stock snap disk T-stat control for more consistent water temp control. The stock t-stat worked, but I did not trust the accuracy and wanted more temp control. The Ranco also gives you digital display of your jacket water temp. I like it a lot!

To seal down my DHW I used about 3/4 tube of RTV Silicone I purchased from a local auto parts store. I already had this sealant on hand as I initially bought it to repair the silicone seal on my fire box door. It works pretty well. The stuff I used is Black RTV Silicone is rated up to 600 F and 5000psi. I paid $10 for a 10.3 oz tube which fit right into my hand caulk gun. Hope that helps.