Switching to an EPA stove?

[greendohn]

Bone dry warm wood is one of the most important parts of my EPA stove. The second is the shape of pieces you're feeding it. Mine likes 2-3"X6-8" flat pieces stacked to fill the box, maybe a couple smaller under it pending coals. All those triangle shaped pieces may be more efficient to split, but just don't maximize(or do the job) for my stove. It'll take some time to learn your new stove.

YEP!! What he said. I've convinced a couple of my buddies that splitting wood into "blocks" rather than "wedges" is the go-to-bomb. Kind of a trick when splitting with great returns at the stove. A guy can pack his fire box like he's laying blocks,,no wasted space,,longer burns.

I've seen what Whitespider means in reference to a deep bed of coals preventing more wood being loaded..I dunno, I don't own one,, I'm around a couple of these newer stoves quite a bit and it seems to be a problem. The monster deep bed of coals prevents the stove being topped off before bed and they don't throw heat the way a full load of burning wood does. My one pal is still working on his learning curve and I'm rite in there with him 'cause I talked him into wood heat and the EPA stove,,plus my next garage stove will be one of these newfangled thingamajigs..one-o-these days,,

 

[ancy]

Where are you getting your combustion air? I would agree maybe you’re asking it to do what it’s not designed for, of course you can mod it to work its best but maybe it’s just time to buy a wood furnace and be set for the rest of your life and the next family that lives in the house. It's not like it won't get used and pay for itself?

 

[Marc]

It's also not the moisture in the wood that robs BTUs. Red Oak loses 1500# in the process of seasoning, has 27M BTUs in that cord. It takes 1100 BTUs to boil off one pound of water -- 1500 * 1100 = 1.65M BTUs or only about 1/8th of the energy in that cord. Trivial.

The real losses come from the amount of air the older types of woodstoves shove up the chimney. That's probably 50% or more of the heat, vs. 15% difference whether it's seasoned or not.

One point of contention there, Dal, is that you don't only loose heat in the conversion of liquid water to vapor, you lose combustion efficiency as well by comustion temperature reduction. Red oak may have 27M potential BTUs per cord, but only if you get 100% combustion efficiency, which necessitates high temperature combustion. All the burn time it takes to convert that liquid water you're also killing your efficiency and sending loads of perfectly good, energy containing volatiles up the flue. The exact numbers I'm sure vary a lot, but I imagine it accounts for a lot of the lost heat.

 

[slowp]

In 1979, we rented a house with a Franklin stove. I think it had a grate. In 1982, I bought a used Earth Stove--no grate. 1985, a Fischer Stove--no grate. Then a few years without wood heat and then another Fischer Stove--no grate. All had brick bottoms. I burned the same type of wood, except the pine I burned in the Earth Stove. Now I've got a Quadrafire Millenium, EPA and Warshington State approved, and it actually seems to get a fire going in the same amount of time. The difference is if I use kindling that has been stored in the house for a couple of days, or if it is split and brought right in from the woodshed. Our climate is damp, and that matters.

I believe it has now been about 30 minutes, and I should mosey over and turn it down a bit, and turn on the ceiling fan.

I do not run it all day and night unless we are having a cold snap, which in our mild climate, is 20 and 30 degree temps--but it is a damp cold.

My firewood is stored outside, uncovered during any dry weather, and then covered with a leaky tarp during wet times. The second year, it is moved inside a dry woodshed and used. (I just got up and turned down the draft on the Quadrafire--after about a half hour. Ceiling fan is on) This is a smaller stove, and will not hold a lot of wood. I don't want it to hold tightly packed wood because no wood stove I've ever had--see above, has burned well with wood stuffed to the gills in it. That causes it to smolder, and causes chimney problems, and is bad for the neighbor's lungs.

Oh, and since the stove is now burning well, and heating there will be no visible smoke coming out the chimney.

I do not have hot coals for very long because my wood burns down to ash. I'm burning a hemlock, maple, Doug-fir mix. Perhaps it is different with the hardwoods elsewhere.

Today, we will maybe get to 50 degrees outside. Looks like the strange bright orb that we rarely see this time of year is making an appearance. The fire will go out, the house will be comfie and not a sauna, and I'll light another one in the late afternoon and let it go out. Repeat the next day.

This is winter number 4 with the Quadrafire. I think I have it figured out for my comfort level. I've made no modifications.

Oh, a friend thought that their new EPA stove was no good. She found out that their chimney was the problem. They had to put a liner in, and now it draws better and burns well. They had a Kent stove before the EPA stove and it had no grate.

I also forgot, the rental house I had before here had a Fisher? insert in the fireplace. It had no grate either.

 

[mellow]

All I gotta say is there is some work to be done around here with all this old school thinking of how a wood stove should operate.

Whitespider, I hope your woodstove never burns down your house, with that plenum shield you have around that PE your homeowners insurance will drop you like a rock.

 

[Whitespider]

There is a big difference between having a grate standing in a stove and having the combustion air enter the stove below the grate.

The main combustion air enters the firebox from the lower front, just like every other one I've had... the difference is that air cannot get under the fire.
None have had the air enter from the "floor", always the lower "front"... but the grates have always put the fire just above where the air enters enters the firebox (not below the intake on the outside of the firebox), or at least a portion of the air enters below (rather than under, to be more technical) the grate .

That you are unhappy with an EPA woodstove was 100% predictable from your previous postings about anything EPA. Now of course you are going to show the EPA and make mods to a stove to try to get it to do what it was not designed to do........and of course.......it's the EPA's fault that your stove doesn't function correctly!

I never said the firebox didn't "function correctly", it does exactly what it was designed to do... reduce emissions! That's what the "EPA" defines as "efficient". Like I said, when the secondary ignites the "emissions" are reduced and there is a boost in heat output... but that increased, and relatively short lived "efficiency" isn't enough to offset the loss of "efficiency" in terms of "peak heating" time (not burn time), mostly because of the inefficient use of the potential heat from the coal bed (because no air can get under it).

I know some of the (newer?) EPA stoves do in fact burn on a grate... and maybe they are actually more efficient overall, but I can only speak to the one I have experience with. Yeah, I'm gonna' modify it, I really couldn't care any less what it was designed to do, I want it to make heat first... the amount of emissions is way down my list of priorities (heck, it ain't even on the list). Removing the firebrick from the floor and installing a grate is not a permanent modification, neither is disconnecting the secondary air supply control from the main... I'm smarter than that, no modification will be of a permanent nature without first verifying its worth.

No, it ain't "the EPA's fault" that I chose to use this firebox... I could have built my firebox from scratch like I've done before. But that doesn't mean I have to live with the one I have exactly as it was designed.

 

[iowa]

After reading this entire thread I've come to the conclusion that you have highly modified a STOVE to be a furnace with a heat plenum and ductwork etc. I'm guessing the stove isn't rated for the BTU's your old Iowa farm house needs to keep it at a certain temp. Probably has a small fire box and you're used to a box 3x that big. It's not rocket science that 1/3 of the size of fuel isn't going to keep your house warm. Use the STOVE as it was intended to be used. If you need a FURNACE buy a good epa rated furnace. Like the Vaporfire 100, Caddy 2, or several others that are out there.

To me it's like trying to use a chainsaw as a jackhammer to bust up rock..

Someone else told me to buy an Englander stove to heat my 3000 sq ft walk out basement house!!! It has a blower but its intended to be used in a single story home to heat one 1500sq. ft or less home. I would need 2 of these. One for the basement and one for upstairs to keep my house properly warm. I need a large Furnace to get the job done. That is why I ordered a Kuuma VAporfire 100. Yes. Pricey. But buy 2 stoves to relocate to the center of my home and add flue piping??? Then have to feed 2 stoves??? And drag wood upstairs. NO.. I'm money ahead by buying a Furnace that was intended to heat my home.

 

[greendohn]

In 1979, we rented a house with a Franklin stove. I think it had a grate. In 1982, I bought a used Earth Stove--no grate. 1985, a Fischer Stove--no grate. Then a few years without wood heat and then another Fischer Stove--no grate. All had brick bottoms. I burned the same type of wood, except the pine I burned in the Earth Stove. Now I've got a Quadrafire Millenium, EPA and Warshington State approved, and it actually seems to get a fire going in the same amount of time. The difference is if I use kindling that has been stored in the house for a couple of days, or if it is split and brought right in from the woodshed. Our climate is damp, and that matters.

I believe it has now been about 30 minutes, and I should mosey over and turn it down a bit, and turn on the ceiling fan.

I do not run it all day and night unless we are having a cold snap, which in our mild climate, is 20 and 30 degree temps--but it is a damp cold.

My firewood is stored outside, uncovered during any dry weather, and then covered with a leaky tarp during wet times. The second year, it is moved inside a dry woodshed and used. (I just got up and turned down the draft on the Quadrafire--after about a half hour. Ceiling fan is on) This is a smaller stove, and will not hold a lot of wood. I don't want it to hold tightly packed wood because no wood stove I've ever had--see above, has burned well with wood stuffed to the gills in it. That causes it to smolder, and causes chimney problems, and is bad for the neighbor's lungs.

Oh, and since the stove is now burning well, and heating there will be no visible smoke coming out the chimney.

I do not have hot coals for very long because my wood burns down to ash. I'm burning a hemlock, maple, Doug-fir mix. Perhaps it is different with the hardwoods elsewhere.

Today, we will maybe get to 50 degrees outside. Looks like the strange bright orb that we rarely see this time of year is making an appearance. The fire will go out, the house will be comfie and not a sauna, and I'll light another one in the late afternoon and let it go out. Repeat the next day.

This is winter number 4 with the Quadrafire. I think I have it figured out for my comfort level. I've made no modifications.

Oh, a friend thought that their new EPA stove was no good. She found out that their chimney was the problem. They had to put a liner in, and now it draws better and burns well. They had a Kent stove before the EPA stove and it had no grate.

I also forgot, the rental house I had before here had a Fisher? insert in the fireplace. It had no grate either.

Sounds good, Slowp,,know of any land fer sale out yer way?? Been thinkin' bout re-locatin'!!LOL

 

[brenndatomu]

There is a big difference between having a grate standing in a stove and having the combustion air enter the stove below the grate. How about some names of the stoves that had combustion air enter below a grate? I'm not saying they weren't any........but I think I know why they aren't around any longer.



Maybe you should sell that stove while it still has value before you muck it up so bad it's not of any use to anybody and get one designed for your application, or build one.



Another misconception you have is that in an EPA stove you pack it as full as you can, light it off and leave it be for 10 or twelve hours. If you want quick heat in an EPA stove you start a smaller hot fire and then add wood after an hour or so.

That you are unhappy with an EPA woodstove was 100% predictable from your previous postings about anything EPA. Now of course you are going to show the EPA and make mods to a stove to try to get it to do what it was not designed to do........and of course.......it's the EPA's fault that your stove doesn't function correctly!

Maybe a used motor oil dripper system is all in needs to heat the place up?

I know you guys are talkin "stoves" here, but whatever, potato-pahtahto. My Yukon Husky "furnace" brings about 80% of the combustion air in under the grates, works pretty well, and, lets see here, ah, yup still a sponsor here so, must still be in business. Call 'em @ 1-800-358-0060, they still make the EXACT same model I have, you can get one too! Just sayin...

Edit: Oh yeah, and between all the steel and fire brick holding heat, and the burning coals, it does keep the house warm for hours after any obvious active flames have disappeared. Again, just sayin...

 

[brenndatomu]

Interesting.

Let me quess that in the event of a power failure your furnace is desigend to 'fail safe' and close down the combustion air and in normal 'power on' mode combustion air is thermostatically controlled. (Combustion air is probably electric/fan driven)

In power failure the "80%" lower combustion air draft door closes, (natural draft only, no fan) 20% secondary burn air (manual adjustment) maintains combustion. As a matter of a fact, last night I put a little too much wood in, (3 good size splits) it ran 1 "high burn" cycle that got the secondary burn going...'bout ran us outta the house! And the draft door never opened again after that first time...smoldering fire my butt!!! BTW, 'stat was set on 71 at 10pm, this AM, still 71 and furnace just had some ashes and a few hot coals left in it.
EDIT: FYI, overnite low of 27* here, 2000 sq. ft. 70 Y.O. house with just OK insulation.

 

[Arbonaut]

How many million acres burned this year? Did that hurt you precious atmosphere? Leakin' nuclear plants?? Oh they don't do that? Hahaha. Wood stove make pollution? Give it some oxygen not bureaucracy and smoke up my ... If you want to be a fireman, you gonna have to shave off your beard so the respirator fits. If you don't like it, you can't drive no firetruck. So then what? Sue someone for making you shave? Did you want to be a fireman or a hippy? Don't shoot the messenger with your ambulance chasin'. If you want to burn wood , it needs air.

 

[brenndatomu]

I can't feel my toes!

Drop your apple peeler on them? :hmm3grin2orange: :msp_biggrin:

WS, as soon as you mentioned that you weren't happy with the new stovace and that you were burning directly on the bricks, I knew you was gonna do a mod! Good luck, It'll be interesting to hear the results. Give 'er heck spidey!

 

[Marc]

BTW, did you look into how pyrocrete(I believe that is what the glass is in the door of your stove)

You're thinkin of "pyroceram" I think.

 

[Arbonaut]

I can't feel my toes!

That's called light in the loafers. :msp_sneaky: Hehe.

 

[cmsmoke]

What! Bricks in a wood stove? I can't believe someone actually talked you into one of those. Your right. Unload that thing as fast as you can. Go get your old stove back or something you may like. You sound like a broken record. Let it go all ready.

 

[Whitespider]

I hope your woodstove never burns down your house, with that plenum shield you have around that PE your homeowners insurance will drop you like a rock.

I get a kick out’s all the insurance experts here…
Insurance companies are regulated by the State… what they can, or cannot do in one State ain’t the same in the next. Yet, how many times have I read on here something like, “I know this guy, who worked with this guy, who had a brother-in-law, who’s uncle burned his house down and the insurance company dropped him because…”. The insurance “guy” came around this spring taking pictures and whatnot, he barely looked at my wood burner… but was really concerned about all the gunpowder I had at the other end of the basement (which is regulated by the Feds). I had to dig out Federal regulations on storing gunpowder before he’d let it go… and then he walked right by the wood burner again as he left the basement.

After reading this entire thread I've come to the conclusion that you have highly modified a STOVE to be a furnace with a heat plenum and ductwork etc. I'm guessing the stove isn't rated for the BTU's your old Iowa farm house needs to keep it at a certain temp.

Highly modified??
I simply removed the steel trim panels already around the firebox and put different ones on it.
BTU’s??
I already admitted this one makes more heat than the previous one (when it's heating)… that ain’t the complaint. The complaint was how long it takes to get up to temp, and how long it stays there.

…you misunderstand how your woodstove functions and was designed to function.
Your stove is designed to operate to slowly radiate the heat from the long burning coal bed into the room in which it is placed.

That’s crap. There ain’t anything “slow” about the radiant heat coming out that clear ceramic front door when the fire is burning… but it sure does diminish when the fire degrades to a bed of coals. If the coal bed was properly fed air it would continue to radiate heat at the same high rate.

BTW, did you look into how pyrocrete(I believe that is what the glass is in the door of your stove) functions when used at the higher temperatures that result from its being inside a metal shroud? If you were to have a power failure when the stove was at full burn would it fail causing an uncontroled air/burn situation

The door ain’t enclosed inside a metal shroud… the front ain’t enclosed at all. A power failure would not be an issue of any sort, convection would simply carry the heat up and away into the metal ductwork, and the surrounding metal plenum would radiate the heat into the basement just like the original metal trim panels would… in fact, my plenum has a lot more space between it and the firebox than the metal trim panels originally did. There is a lift-off aluminum reflector hanging in front of the clear ceramic door, about two inches from it… air freely flows up through it to keep the ceramic from overheating, it simply reflects radiant heat back into the firebox where it can help heat the brick and steel mass. The surface of the ceramic itself gets no hotter than before (because it’s transparent to radiant heat)… and before you ask, it’s a simple matter of opening the door (so it’s away from the fire) and measuring the temperature using a surface contacting thermometer with and without the reflector being used (I ain’t no fool, didn’t want it exploding in the middle of the night).



Yeah, the firebox is smaller than the old one… so if it’s smaller, why doesn’t it heat up faster than the old one? Shouldn’t it require less heat to get it hot?
If it’s so damn efficient, why won’t a deep bed of coals keep it hot longer than the old one? Why can I lay my hand on the bare steel front, glass door and flue pipe when there’s still 3-4 inches of coals in the bottom?
Well I’ll tell you why… ‘cause it’s designed to meet EPA standards first (necessarily), make and maintain heat second. There ain't no free lunch in this world and everything is a trade-off. If you thing there ain't a trade-off for reduced emissions... well, then you're the one believing you can have your cake and eat it too, not me. I'm actually startin' to believe they started putting those ceramic doors in 'em just to fool ya' into believing they're better than they really are.

 

[slowp]

How many million acres burned this year? Did that hurt you precious atmosphere? Leakin' nuclear plants?? Oh they don't do that? Hahaha. Wood stove make pollution? Give it some oxygen not bureaucracy and smoke up my ... If you want to be a fireman, you gonna have to shave off your beard so the respirator fits. If you don't like it, you can't drive no firetruck. So then what? Sue someone for making you shave? Did you want to be a fireman or a hippy? Don't shoot the messenger with your ambulance chasin'. If you want to burn wood , it needs air.

The smoke from the forest fires was very annoying. It was extremely horrible in the Wenatchee Valley.
We had it on east wind days, I was glad to take a trip and get out of it.

Wildland firefighters do not wear respirators. Many have beards, and few drive engines.

We hope that the smoke made some people reconsider their opinion of leaving the forest alone. Unfortunately, Seattle didn't get much of the smoke.

 

[Arbonaut]

The smoke from the forest fires was very annoying. It was extremely horrible in the Wenatchee Valley.
We had it on east wind days, I was glad to take a trip and get out of it.

Wildland firefighters do not wear respirators. Many have beards, and few drive engines.

We hope that the smoke made some people reconsider their opinion of leaving the forest alone. Unfortunately, Seattle didn't get much of the smoke.

The smoke in Washington State is about to get alot more annoying.

 

[Arbonaut]

Walter FITZPATRICK, Wayne E. Hall, William J. Hutchinson,
Thomas Jones, Darryl J. Levette, Miguelito Marcelli, Andre
D. Mitchell, Dennis Bernard Thomas, Melvin Whitehead,
Gregory Wilkinson, Alfonzo L. Williams, and Elton M. Worthy,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
CITY OF ATLANTA, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 92-8306.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 27, 1993.

This suit was brought against the City of Atlanta ("the City") by several African-American firefighters employed by the Atlanta Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Fire Services ("the Fire Department") who suffer from a medical condition on account of which they cannot shave their faces. Plaintiffs challenge a fire department regulation that requires all firefighters to be clean-shaven. They allege (1) that this "no-beard" rule has a discriminatory disparate impact on African-Americans in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq.; (2) that the no-beard rule was adopted for racially discriminatory reasons in violation of Title VII; (3) that the rule discriminates against the handicapped in violation of Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 794(a); and (4) that the rule infringes the firefighters' constitutional right to substantive due process of law.1 The City defends the policy, contending that the respirator masks used by firefighters cannot safely be worn by bearded men. The district court granted summary judgment for the City and the firefighters have appealed. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

Wait til you see USDA ammendment 8 !!!

 

[Whitespider]

Sad the way this thead is a rant against EPA stoves...
The modern EPA stoves are more efficient and also have reduced emissions. It's fact and testing has proved it for over 20 years now.

It didn't start out as any sort of "rant", just a list of observations. Maybe you should go back and read the original post... heck, I didn't even make one complaint in it. But then... oh yeah, people started reading between the lines and making assumptions about what "I" was doing wrong.

And by-the-way... Who's been doing this testing for twenty years? Under what conditions? I've read how those test are conducted, and the specific conditions they use for them. Sorry, but burning kiln dried pine 2x4's in a lab ain't anything like the real world. Besides, like I said, they define "efficient" as less emissions per BTU output... oh, and then they add as a side note that the secondary burn makes a hotter burn, more BTU's at the time. Funny thing, I've never seen anything relating to the ratio of total BTU output over length of time.... hmmmmm... wonder why that is?

The time to read between the lines is when you read the results of those tests...
Heck, I could make the test come out to near any result your little heart desires.