From OWB to EFM520 Installed in Truck Box

Time for you to get a fit-bit.

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Tue. Nov. 07, 2017 11:28 am

Time for you to get a fit-bit.

I had no clue..
Goggle says it is a fitness tracker.... but the price !!!!
My bathroom scale works good.

6 teeth & about 5.75 air is still doing the job,had lots of wind yesterday with 18* for the low, 25* for the high,14* this am ,winds were near 20 mph,high only made it to 22*. I added 240# yesterday & 220 # today (less wind)...I am also averaging about 40#/day in my hand fed stove in my house.
Forecast is for 11* tomorrow am, a low of 6* for the 1st of 2018. I am planning to see if 6 teeth will handle that low,it was not able in the past.

But... i replaced my 1972 range hood with a new hood & found the old unit had no damper/flaps on the hood or in the roof vent.... that was a hole of 3.25" x 10" from the range right up into the atmosphere.

I am thinking this change may mean less BTU consumption for my house.

After a bit over 3 yrs heating with this unit,i certainly am enjoying the ease of heating with coal. Going with this coal set up has been 1 of the better choices i have made in life.

windyhill4.2 wrote: ↑

Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 8:34 pm

6 teeth & about 5.75 air is still doing the job,had lots of wind yesterday with 18* for the low, 25* for the high,14* this am ,winds were near 20 mph,high only made it to 22*. I added 240# yesterday & 220 # today (less wind)...I am also averaging about 40#/day in my hand fed stove in my house.
Forecast is for 11* tomorrow am, a low of 6* for the 1st of 2018. I am planning to see if 6 teeth will handle that low,it was not able in the past.

But... i replaced my 1972 range hood with a new hood & found the old unit had no damper/flaps on the hood or in the roof vent.... that was a hole of 3.25" x 10" from the range right up into the atmosphere.

I am thinking this change may mean less BTU consumption for my house.

After a bit over 3 yrs heating with this unit,i certainly am enjoying the ease of heating with coal. Going with this coal set up has been 1 of the better choices i have made in life.

For all that you're heating, I think I may benefit from switching to a 520? Love your thread!

swyman wrote: ↑

Thu. Dec. 28, 2017 7:45 am

For all that you're heating, I think I may benefit from switching to a 520? Love your thread!

swyman, Thank you

The forecast low of 11* for this morning , became a reality of 6* ... lite winds 10-15 mph.

The 6 teeth setting carried the load with ease,nice length hot shower included.
I even cut my handfed stove back a bit b4 going to bed last nite.The hand fed heat keeps the front part of the house warm enough that the t-stat is satisfied. The result of that is a cold bedroom & bathroom which are at the opposite end from the stove. Cutting the hand fed back lets the temp drop more where the t-stat is & the heat exchanger runs more often helping to keep all the house temp moderated.

IF.... a few ifs,a few when's ... maybe i will switch to hot water radiators/baseboard ?? not now, but sometime in the future.

Before you spend any money on radiators, I think you would be better off tightening the envelope. Replacing even a few windows on the side that sees the most wind would improve your comfort level quite a bit.

When I first installed my EFM it would run flat out on 5 teeth for hours at a time. Since that time I have replaced the two worst windows in the house (both on the West side), added some insulation to the sill and attic, and spend a lot of time sealing up small drafts. For less than $1000, I went from 8-9 tons of coal to 6-7...and that was with adding two kids to the DHW load at the same time.

Rob, I was mainly thinking radiators to replace the hand fed stove to cut down on chores each am & pm. In the future,do a whole house hot water system so i could better regulate each room temp.

If i was 70 yrs old or older & retired, doing all these chores would not be as big an issue. I am 60 yrs old,still full-time business + i gotta do all outside property chores + do inside house chores..... it gets old .

Installing windows....
Windows are costly to buy... then one has to install them.....
My worst air infiltration is thru the w/n/w end wall of the trailer, i need to rebuild the entire wall & then install new windows.
Things to consider for this project...
$$$$ are not available to pay someone to do the work...
Time is limited for me to do the work....
My carpentry skills are limited... i hope to find a retired or kind carpenter who will give some direction as to the correct way to do some of this project... if not, i will think,think,think & plan & do it totally myself... the end result will be what it turns out to be.
I am painfully aware that every window... all 17 of them, need to be replaced.... that will require some serious $$.

I understand all of it. I hired my windows out and the payback was still quick. Just sharing how it went for me.

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Sat. Dec. 30, 2017 4:44 pm

I understand all of it. I hired my windows out and the payback was still quick. Just sharing how it went for me.

With having this COLD concrete floor in the living room,likely as many or more BTU's are lost there than with loose windows. So it is doubtful that tons will be saved with just the windows. None of the windows will be very beneficial to replace if it is just pull the old windows & stick new in.Siding should come off & put insulation in the walls ,install new windows & reside... Little $, = little work,but.... little by little.
3.25" x 10" hole from kitchen to atmosphere is now history...
Next beneficial project .... ??? Time will tell.

None of the windows will be very beneficial to replace if it is just pull the old windows & stick new in.

It was for me. Insulation is just an air filter if you do not have good air sealing. I have not added one piece of insulation to the walls of my house since I moved in here, and the insulation I added to my attic had no noticeable effect. Once you get to a minimum amount of insulation, it becomes much more cost effective to pursue the air leaks.

One other thing, I do not know if this would even be possible in your place, but I figured it would share it. Around 1990 the front living room in my house was remodeled, and the owner wanted to add insulation...without getting into the 100 yr old walls (which contain rockwool, and were drafty). He put 3/4" foil faced foam on the walls, taped the seams really well, and sheetrocked over it. It is the warmest room in my house. He was kind enough to give me some pictures of the work they did on the house - see below.

My trailer has 2 x 3 wall studs,some have zero insulation,some have little insulation.
Most windows are designed to fit a 2 x 4 or bigger stud cavity. The current junk vinyl windows were boxed on the exterior of the siding with aluminum flashing. I don't want to install new windows,pay to have them boxed with aluminum & then in a few yrs. tear the aluminum off to remove the siding,install stud cavity insulation & foil board on the outside. I would then have a stud cavity more than 4 inches to install new windows.

Meanwhile, the 520 is burning an average of 250#/day during this cold spell & doing that at 6 teeth/5.75 air.

WH...would it be possible to use foam insulation board and sleepers or laminate over the concrete to isolate that cold from the room? You would need to trim the doors to match the new floor height, but if that concrete floor is the main cold sink as you suspect that update could have a big impact.

titleist1 wrote: ↑

Sat. Dec. 30, 2017 10:27 pm

WH...would it be possible to use foam insulation board and sleepers or laminate over the concrete to isolate that cold from the room? You would need to trim the doors to match the new floor height, but if that concrete floor is the main cold sink as you suspect that update could have a big impact.

Yes,that would help some... just like patching rust holes in the floor of a truck when the frame brackets are almost rusted off.

The "slab" sits up on top of 3 courses of block,so the cold can come thru the blocks up into the "slab"..... then there is 8" of the "slab" sticking out past where the wall was mounted..... this "slab" is also 15" lower than the trailer.
Some day i want to build a new wall on the edge of the "slab",then build a floor at the same height as the trailer. That also means lifting the ceiling & the doors.
There is no decent,"easy" ,$500 "fix". When this project gets started,it will morph into a BIG project......Someday.

When my wife died, my son & I soon found that we HAD to have a dishwasher. Neither of us could fit this job into our packed schedules.Since this 1972 trailer never had a dishwasher... where do i put 1 ?? Since the kitchen cabinets were original 1972,they were also needing replacement. The vinyl flooring was vintage 1972... it needed replaced.When my wife was still alive, we had talked about redoing the layout when redoing the cabinets. I found a used cabinet set for $500,bought a new Maytag dishwasher,new stainless steel sink,new Formica counter tops,new range hood,decent used range... We removed the old cabinets & found some floor that needed replaced,we also removed the carpet in the next room as the "new" kitchen layout required part of the adjoining room. We laid luan,new vinyl square flooring, the used cabinets with new Formica counters,installed the new sink.Some rewiring was needed to have receptacles in the additional kitchen area. Part of the floor in the additional room had a street sign as a patch,we removed it,installed new flooring along with an additional 2 x 6 in that area. I built a wall to separate the kitchen cabinets from the hall. There are many things to "finish yet with this unfinished project,& even tho i have never b4 installed cabinets or counter tops, i now have a fairly usable kitchen. We just recently redid the range hood & cabinet & as noted earlier in this thread,we found the old hood was an open hole of 3.25" x 10" from the hood to the atmosphere.. no flaps/dampers at all. The kitchen remodel is not over yet,it needs to move into the dining area,but that also means i need to redo the end wall in order to correctly complete the job. I also want to relocate the hot air floor vent that is stupidly located under the dining table for chair legs to catch,i want it out against the wall that needs to be replaced. This wall has a bay? window setup that along with the entire wall is in bad shape,thus a completely new wall needs to be framed... from the floor joists to the trailer roof. This means framing window holes into the wall,more stuff i have never done.

SO, no EASY button to push project....
Doing 1 thing leads to 25 other things.

For those who have never had their spouse die.. it may be hard to understand that to move on with the "normal" everyday life is not a simple thing to do.
Those who have studied widows & widowers have written.... "If the surviving spouse gets out of bed in the morning,gets dressed & eats... they have done well ".

Doing remodel projects is now a bittersweet event.. it is nice to have the newly improved kitchen... but without my wife or even a new wife to work alongside of thru the whole project,it just becomes another job to try doing as best as i can. You see.. i am 1 of those weird men that loves to do things that make my wife happy & watch her happy reactions as the project move along. I find great contentment in that.

Maybe this will help others to understand why i keep adding coal to the hopper & expect my EFM to burn it & make hot water so i have warm buildings & hot showers.

I am slowly doing some improvements while trying to maintain a normal work schedule + the added household chores that now are mine to do & deal with the loneliness of a 39.5 yr marriage ended by death.

Now as i finish typing,i will go eat a cold meal ... by myself & then i will go out to remove snow from my vehicles ,my equipment trailer & again plow the driveway which has again blown shut. Sometime this afternoon, i will fill the hopper for the EFM with around 250 # as that is the average during this brutal cold so far. I expect that figure to go up as the temps go down & the wind speed goes up tonite & tomorrow.

Added 270# to the hopper today, i suspect that coal usage will go even higher in the next few days as the temps are forecast to drop even lower.