Making Room for Surdiac Gotha 513

Well what do you know about that! I moved that dial down when I 1st did the stove over, and forgot about it being that high. I never stripped the paint off of the stoves sheetmetal, and it must've been under there all this time. Good find Tim, and Ross's info was very usefull. Now rather than stating numbers such as "point seven", (.7) and 2 1/2, you'll be saying , "2.7 to 4 1/2". Hopefully she'll be making more heat up that high.
(I'll bet I hold the record for "top of the page" posts. Kinda like all my intersection lights are red.)

Joe,

Yeah I never noticed it either until I ran my hand on the side of the stove and felt it and looked closely at it and compared it with Ross's image. Learn new things everyday.

Hope the G111 build is going good.

Tim

Good evening everyone,

I did some work on the Surdiac yesterday. I noticed the damper on the back of the stove was nearly open all the way when set at the 1 on the dial and the heat exchanger read around 350 degrees. From discussions with Joe and reading about the Surdiac stoves I thought this was questionable. I also noticed that when I turned the dial passed 1 I heard/felt a pop and the damper would spring wide open.

So I dug into the box of extra parts Joe gave me when I purchased the stove and found a spare damper and swapped it out. When I turn the dial from 0 to 8 the damper does not bottom out until about 6 and it doesn't pop any more. I will be relighing the stove tomorrow and will report how the damper works.

Tim

Hi Tim, the damper was working fine. It didn't get whacked or anything in transit, did it? But you're right in that it shouldn't be wide open at the number 1 position. Is there a way to adjust it back down? I remember the transmission housing had a cover on it. See if there's an adjustment inside.

Joe,

I am not sure if it got damaged in transit or I broke something inside the transmission box. I could turn it down to near 0 and it would start to close but when I would turn it back towards 1 it would "pop" and open all the way again. I am glad I had a spare on hand to swap and test before winter arrives.

Tim

Hi everyone,

I took a quick video to show what the old dampener was doing. as you can see in the video at a certain point it pops and it caused the dampener to open wide.



I relighted the Surdiac tonight as temps are weather forecast calls for temps to be in the 40s and 30s this weekend and my wife likes it warm

Hope all is well and everyone's installs/light ups are going as planned.

Tim

ElCamMan515 wrote:Hi everyone,

I took a quick video to show what the old dampener was doing. as you can see in the video at a certain point it pops and it caused the dampener to open wide.



I relighted the Surdiac tonight as temps are weather forecast calls for temps to be in the 40s and 30s this weekend and my wife likes it warm

Hope all is well and everyone's installs/light ups are going as planned.

Tim

One of the problems with thermostats is that they tend to flutter when the set temperature is reached. A snap action might be perfectly normal as a way to overcome that. Hitzer uses a magnet for that reason. Franco Belge uses a small flap within the larger flap. Yours I think is not a bi-metal but works on expanding fluid. I would test it by perhaps using a hair dryer on the sensing tube. It might just be out of calibration.

Franco,

The "new" dampener mechanism I installed on the stove moves fluidly and does not snap back when turned open, It seemed/felt like the old one was skipping teeth on one of the gears inside the housing. I have not taken the old one apart yet to confirm this, but plan to this weekend.

Tim

ElCamMan515 wrote:Franco,

The "new" dampener mechanism I installed on the stove moves fluidly and does not snap back when turned open, It seemed/felt like the old one was skipping teeth on one of the gears inside the housing. I have not taken the old one apart yet to confirm this, but plan to this weekend.

Tim

That should tell the tale and maybe you can fix as a spare.

As I mentioned before Tim, the dial when in use, only requires a few degrees of movement to work from a cooler setting, to a wide open blistering hot fire. In your video, it's tough to tell how much your finger is turning the cable. But it does appear to be binding at some point. If it were mine, I'ld pull the cover of the housing, and check out the gearing. It's all mechanical, so it should be obvious.

Little update for everyone,

I started the Surdiac up last night and set the dial to 1 and it idled throughout the night and woke up to a warm house of 73 degrees. When I went to fill the hopper it was still 3/4 full. With the old dampener the hopper would be nearly empty and I was going through 40#s of coal in 24 hours when OATs were 50s-60s degrees.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback!

Tim

Nice!

Got home from work at 5:45pm, I opened the ash pan for about 10 minutes, riddled the stove, closed everything down and this is what the stove looked like about 5 minutes later. Love seeing the blue ladies dance.

You're killing me Tim.

ElCamMan515 wrote:Got home from work at 5:45pm, I opened the ash pan for about 10 minutes, riddled the stove, closed everything down and this is what the stove looked like about 5 minutes later. Love seeing the blue ladies dance.

isn't it excellent when it all comes together ?

good work,
steve