Chronicles of the Clayton

That’s great Lee! I need to get me a larger viewing glass, I love it!
Merry Christmas!!!

Great quality too Lee. Beautiful color, and nice and crisp. And the window is perfect too. I can't remember if you used mica on it, or some other type of glass.

Thank you for all the kind words fellas and Merry Christmas! We have so much to do today. Big family gathering tonight, at least 20 people. I'll be putting Ashley in idle mode since the bodies and crock pots will be plenty to keep the house warm lol.

joeq wrote: ↑

Sun. Dec. 24, 2017 9:53 am

I can't remember if you used mica on it, or some other type of glass.

I think it's called neoceram, it's quite heavy duty stuff, 3/16 inch thick if I remember correct.

Hey Lee, or anybody. With these cold temps single digits to subzero temps what is your temp above the load door? Normally for me down to about mid teens my stove runs about 280-300 above the door, well last night it was -1 and the load door temp was 450 and sometimes pushing 500.
I was just curious why it was running hotter now, maybe cause I hooked it up to the thermostat upstairs or Maybe this is just normal. It’s been a couple years since it has been this cold, so maybe I just don’t remember the temps getting this high.

Since its colder out your heat calls are longer which gives the furnace an opportunity to get hotter. I've been seeing hotter over the load door also, but it's been staying under 400 degrees. I can force it to run hotter during heat calls if I set the baro for stronger draft pressure but haven't needed to yet.

Are you using a baro and draft gage? Try running it with less draft pressure and more "steady" primary combustion air for a higher steady heat output BETWEEN heat calls.

I'll explain, what I attempt to do is open the stationary primary air control to keep the house barely underneath what it takes to keep the thermostat happy. That way, heat calls are not as frequent and don't need to run as long when the fire is asked to put out just a few more BTUs.

Does that make sense?

Yes I understand that part, but when you say less pressure do you mean adjust it to where it opens less or opens more??

Dieselpowerf350 wrote: ↑

Thu. Dec. 28, 2017 1:45 pm

Yes I understand that part, but when you say less pressure do you mean adjust it to where it opens less or opens more??

In reference to the baro door? Adjusting it so it opens more would make a weaker draft pressure and adjusting it to open less would make a stronger draft pressure. Are you using the Field Controls model RC?

Yes type RC.

So if I remember correctly, you are using a combustion blower that cycles on/off by thermostat command. The blower has an adjustable window for combustion air? So if you open that more for a higher heat output between thermostat calls, it's also going to give a bigger boost once the combustion blower turns on. So maybe that whole thing won't work out like I first expected. Hmmm

The difference with mine is that the manual primary air control is independent from the thermostat controlled primary air control.

Has anybody that you know of added a bigger circulation blower? Our HOTBLAST has twin 550 cfms. I would like to put a larger blower like a regular size furnace blower something like 2000 cfm’s

Dieselpowerf350 wrote: ↑

Thu. Dec. 28, 2017 8:36 pm

Has anybody that you know of added a bigger circulation blower? Our HOTBLAST has twin 550 cfms. I would like to put a larger blower like a regular size furnace blower something like 2000 cfm’s

I don't know of anyone putting in a larger blower. I've thought about doing that too. Just not sure how necessary it is for my application. I'd like to run a couple warm air supply ducts upstairs but I would want a bigger blower for that also. I've also added a third 8 inch outlet on top the furnace. I would wanna modify that again and cut a big square to fit a plenum.

I think I’m gonna look into doing that this summer. Right now once my plenum gets hot enough my main furnace blower kicks on and circulates which is fine, but it pushes the heat towards the back of the house because of where I have the HOTBLAST setup.

"Ashley" did good last night keeping the house warm with -4 OAT. The average temp for yesterday was 0 degrees, total coal loaded in was 94 pounds between two tendings.
Last night I had the manual primary air set with the pointer at 12 inches from the floor which is a pretty hefty burn rate, I normally set it between 9-10 inches. Secondary air is set at almost it's lowest setting.

The pic of the monitoring station is from this morning directly following a heat call.
396 over the load
261 stove pipe
136 water coil
124.8 warm air supply
-.0325 draft

The baro is nearly wide open, it's struggling a bit to hold the draft at -.03 during bitter cold and high burn rates. It did settle at -.03 after the heat call. I also reset the pointer to 11 inches about an hour ago since we should gain almost 20 degrees outside today, with a high around 15 degrees.
Current pic of the fire, last tending about 12 hours ago

Damn boy! You got a heck of a setup. I like the meter station.