|
|
Post by etownandrew on Dec 1, 2018 14:51:31 GMT -8
Is the basement getting excessively warm? No. The basement was cozy warm before I added the sheet metal. After the sheet metal addition, it is comfortable. I need to add a thermometer down here so I can give a more definite answer. I think the majority of the heat goes up. |
|
|
|
Post by Orange on Dec 2, 2018 11:37:47 GMT -8
- The red bricks I used had holes in them which reduces their cost but ends up consuming a lot of sand/clay mortar. I could have used a solid brick but it cost twice as much. So using more sand ultimately cost less than buying a more expensive brick.
Brick with holes are a bit insulative and have less mass so you'd probably need less full bricks for the same effect.
So you filled up all holes with clay mortar? Or sand?
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Dec 2, 2018 14:12:53 GMT -8
I didn't intentionally fill the holes. However, a fair amount of clay mortar did fall into them as I was putting mortar onto the bricks and then leveling the bricks.
|
|
|
|
Post by satamax on Dec 2, 2018 23:32:38 GMT -8
This is the kind of case where a metal bell top would ne beneficial.
|
|
kpl
New Member
Posts: 47 
|
Post by kpl on Dec 3, 2018 0:10:28 GMT -8
Incidentally, just today I installed a corrugated steel shield behind my heater. There's about 4" of space behind the heater and the wall but the plasterboard wall behind it did get worrying warm last winter. Now with the shield in place, the heater is as warm as before but the shield is barely handwarm. The air streaming up behind it is keeping the wall cool. Zinc-coated steel is extremely effective this way. I have old doors from telephone switch racks installed behind my temporary heater. They consist of two skins with about 15mm between them, both perforated with quite big holes. Those shields do not get even warm, while brick wall was getting quite hot before. |
|
|
|
Post by coastalrocketeer on Dec 3, 2018 1:38:25 GMT -8
One thing I found to keep the heat in in an old leaky house was to seal everything from the top down, upper floors first... I sealed the holes in my can lights with foil tape and caulking for smaller ones, sealed the joint with the drywall behind the cover trim with caulk.
Did the same for my ceiling fixtures and hard wired smoke detector boxes. Pulled the wires out where I could get my fingers with caulk in and sealed holes in metal boxes and around where wires come in on all boxes. Sealed box edges to drywall with caulk. Sealed around the wires coming in.
Opened up the bathroom ceiling fan and cleaned every surface and sealed extra holes with caulk.
Working my way down, so haven’t gotten to wall outlets down by the floor yet.
The difference for my place was quite noticeable, especially in the open floor plan, two story high kitchen/dining/living room space with all the can lights.
The intent was to make my house into more of a heat bell than the heat chimney it was.
The same stack effect that makes our heaters work, causes our warm air to exit at the topmost areas of the house, pulling in cold through penetrations down low in the structure...
So by closing off the spots for warm air going out the top, one can ensure less air being pulled in down low in the room, or on lower floors in a multi floor building, without even finishing the “down low stuff”
The higher in your space the “air leak” is, the more air it will “suck” for it’s size.
The reason I discovered I needed to seal my can lights was that the highest one in the living room, was melting the rare 1 inch of coastal snow we’d recently gotten, in a straight line up from it... only spot on the whole roof doing that. My GF noticed that was the only spot of melted snow on either side of the roof... Took us a bit to figure out why.
|
|
|
|
Post by Orange on Dec 4, 2018 10:59:33 GMT -8
I didn't intentionally fill the holes. However, a fair amount of clay mortar did fall into them as I was putting mortar onto the bricks and then leveling the bricks. probably the easiest and cheapest method is to fill them with small sand.
and shiny surfaces have high heat reflectivity and low emissivity, thats why they're good for bouncing heat.
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Dec 25, 2018 2:47:32 GMT -8
Last weekend I installed a couple thermocouples and a meter to read them. One is in the roof over the riser exit. It drops down several inches below the roof. The second is in the stove pipe exit just before it goes into the chimney. Of course, this does not provide as much information as a full combustion instrument set but it still indicated that the temperatures I was getting were much cooler than expected. My initial readings showed a maximum riser temp of 425F which was very low. So I started playing with the air opening sizes. I have settled on the conditions that seem to give the hottest temp for the longest time. So I now am typically over 1000F and often over 1200F with occasional spikes up to 1400F for a minute. To get there I did the following. 1) I closed off the open area under my firebox. I noticed smoke going under the firebox when an ember dropped out onto the floor. 2) I also closed off the secondary air. The secondary air consistently dropped my riser temperature by about 200F so it was just cooling and not adding to combustion. Obviously, this points to something being wrong with my build. 3) I reduced the size of my primary air opening. I suspect that I have leaks around the side of the door. In the picture below you can see the glowing of the fire and there are some small gaps through the braided stove gasket.  At this point, I am happy with the exit temp that is typically over 300F. I had been thinking that the 95 square feet interior size was too much but my exit temps seem to be in the recommended range to not accumulate creosote. |
|
|
|
Post by johnjorgensen on Jan 24, 2019 9:29:25 GMT -8
Nice work ;-) Interesting that closing off the sec air brings up temp. Did you try to block only part of sec air? Im building with floor channel, hope it doesnt cool the rocket...
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Jan 26, 2019 13:30:34 GMT -8
Nice work ;-) Interesting that closing off the sec air brings up temp. Did you try to block only part of sec air? Im building with floor channel, hope it doesnt cool the rocket... I did try to block about a third of the channel but that did change the burn temp. It could be that I might have been able to find a sweet spot with further playing with it. What did help was blocking all of the secondary air channel. That seemed to give me the highest temp in combination with reducing the primary air opening. |
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Jan 26, 2019 13:36:13 GMT -8
At this point, I am planning to tear down most of this stove to rebuild it in the spring. It has three problems.
1) I did not fill the holes in the bricks and I think that is insulating things and not transferring the heat captured to the exterior brick surface.
2) I am going to add a 55 gallon steel barrel to get faster initial heat. But I will still be maintaining a 95SF surface area and so the brick bell will get much smaller.
3) I need to reset the bricks on the face of the fire box door face to be more flat overall. My door does not seal properly all the way around due to this.
|
|
