CARE DURING CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSE:

Transcription

1 In addition, your heater is equipped with a sliding shut off damper with a wooden handle, as well as a by-pass channel with a pivoting weighted handle. OWNER MANUAL ALBIECORE HEATER OPERATING AND MAINTENANCE INSTRUCTIONS Finally, if your installation called for it, you may have a cast iron pivoting ash dump located on the floor of the ash box. CLEANOUTS AND SOOT DOORS: The Maine Wood Heat Company has been designing and building masonry heaters for nearly 30 years. We have been an integral part of the development of masonry heaters in the United States from the beginning and are very pleased to still be a part of this very significant technology today. We welcome you into this ever-growing family of heater owners. We are grateful to have played a role in the new heart of your home and we offer the following information to help you become familiar with your heater s operation and care. Your new heater should serve and warm you for many years to come. Warm Regards, Albie, Cheryl, and Scott Barden GETTING TO KNOW YOUR HEATER: Your heater is equipped with one or two sets of loading doors each of which have primary draft slides. You also have an ash box door with a draft slide and if you chose to have a bake oven, you will have a bake oven door with a screw out draft control. In the basement, your wood heater flue typically has an 8 x 8 cast iron soot door at the base of the chimney. It should be kept tightly closed except when inspecting or cleaning the chimney. You also have an 8 x 8 cleanout door mounted on the second or third course of the heater s block foundation. Its purpose is to give you access for annual or biannual ash removal from the heater above. If you have a second flue on the chimney it too is equipped with an 8 x 8 cast iron clean out and a 6 or 7 galvanized thimble to service a gas or oil fired appliance. CARE DURING CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSE: It is very important to understand that your heater should not be used by anyone but yourselves. If anyone fills the heater with trash or kindling or construction scraps, the firebox could over heat and cause stress cracking. While the house is being completed the bench and heater cap should be covered with plywood and workers should not be allowed to use the bench as a ladder, storage area or workbench. The same should apply to the cap area. 1

2 Do not wrap the heater with plastic. This will hold in moisture, not allow the heater to breath and cure, and will cause the metal doors to rust. BREAK IN BURN OR CURING FIRE: A small fire is about a 10 lb. fire. When I do cures with a new heater, I put in 5-10 lbs. of dry kindling and start a fire. I keep the fire going at about that size for a couple or more hours until I feel some heat coming from various parts of the heater. This is the curing process. Others recommend two or three small curing fires spaced a few hours apart. I prefer the small continuous fire until warmth is felt. Then I wait for another 8 to 12 hours to light the first full load of lbs. of dry split wood 3-4 in diameter. The wood should be 3-5 away from the glass and screen. In Finland, where the top down burn does not come from, they typically lean their wood vertically against one or both corners of the back wall. The firebox is self-cleaning. The glass doors will start dirty then come relatively clean after a full burn achieves its highest temperature. Some build up of fly ash or creosote may occur on the door. Putting a few fine ashes for the previous fire on a moist paper towel and rubbing the glass of the door using the ash as a fine abrasive easily removes this. Using this technique, Cheryl s parents have kept their doors spotless for many years. A full burn is likely to last hours. A very aggressive burn of lbs. of wood can be consumed in an hour, but much of that heat is then lost up the chimney, since the brick can t absorb it as fast as it is being produced. Fly ash building up in the channels can be vacuumed out once or twice a year with a shop vacuum inserted into the base of the channels through the soot doors. The bake oven can receive bread directly on the floor tiles to the left and right of the center slot. For 12 plus pizzas, add a pizza stone available from gourmet kitchen supply houses and bake on the stone. Be sure to remove the stone before lighting the next fire. The oven is on after each burn. Immediate use of the oven may burn foods, until it cools down a little. An infrared, hand held heat gun (about $75) can be purchased from Science catalogs and plumbing/heating supply houses. They have a laser beam that is activated by a pistol grip trigger. Point and shoot at any surface to get a digital reading of the temperature. Soft wood well dried is an acceptable fuel. Most people in New England have hard wood available, so prefer to use it because of its greater density as compared to softwood. A moisture content of 20% or less in the wood is preferred. The heater will work best if you can cycle it once or twice daily. If you fire it sporadically, it should always be brought on line gradually to avoid shocking the mass. We hope this information is useful. 2

3 STARTING A NORMAL FIRE: TOP DOWN BURN 10) On top of kindling add three or four more sheets of crumpled newspaper. 1) Make sure basement cleanout and thimble is closed tight. 2) Open slide damper. (Pull it out approximately ). 3) Open by-pass weighted handle. In the open position the handle points towards the chimney. In the closed position the handle is typically vertical, in the same position as the damper within the by pass channel. 4) Open the draft slides in both doors. 5) Leave draft slide in oven door closed. (Occasionally, there may be a desire to use the oven when the heater has not recently been fired. The oven itself can be used as a firebox and a small fire can be lit in it to bring it to a baking temperature. In this case, the draft control can be opened. In no case should the oven be fired with the by pass damper left in the open position as this can put flame directly into the chimney flue tile.) 6) Open draft slide in ash box door. 7) Stack split, dry (approx long) cordwood in log cabin fashion on base of firebox. 8) Add three or four crumpled sheets of newspaper. 9) Add several sticks of kindling on top of split, dry cordwood. 11) Light the top layer of newspaper. 12) Close the large loading doors and stay with the fire. 13) Once the fire is clearly established and drafting well (5 minutes approx. on first start---- less once heater is on line during heating season) you can shut the by-pass channel. If any smoke enters the room, open the by-pass and wait another 5 minutes. In no case should the bypass be left open for an extended period of time during the burn (with the main doors closed). A closed door and open by-pass extended burn can over heat the by-pass and chimney flue at the by-pass connection. For summer open fire viewing, the by-pass can be left open as long as the loading doors (with the spark screens closed) are left open. The volume of room air entering the firebox and by-pass will keep the system sufficiently cool. 14) If smoking persists, recheck basement openings and all soot doors on heater for an open one. Positive chimney draft on a tight system always is readily established in five minutes or less in cool weather. Almost all smoke problems are a result of a closed damper or an open soot door. 15) Once a burn is well established and the bypass is closed, start to adjust the slide damper, closing it by one third and also close the ash box door draft slide. An open ash box door draft slide or a slightly ajar 3

4 ash box door will create a very strong draft and flame, but this excessive air will actually cause a less efficient burn than one with air coming in primarily through the loading doors. The fire has become well established and flames are extending into the bake oven/secondary burn chamber. (Fireplace is drafting in down draft mode with bake oven door open.) Bob Earnest has prepared and lit his top down burn. Fully Established burn shows dramatic clean combustion in both chambers. (Gas combustion in the bake oven chamber swirls left and right from the top center of the dome down to the floor and back up again in a double ram s horn pattern before exiting in a narrow slot parrallel to and just inside the oven door in the dome.) Fire burning down through from the top of the firebox. 4

5 16) Watch the flame. A clean burn is a happy looking fire. It will be bright yellow or white and even blue near the coals once the burn is well underway. An unhappy fire (too cool, not enough oxygen) is dark and angry looking. Too much wood is trying to burn at once under less than ideal conditions. With a top down burn and as the throat and firebox heat up, the burn will also clean up. SAFETY SLOT: The shut off damper is equipped with a 5% cut out safety slot so that the warm chimney will continue to create a vacuum suction on the heater, thereby drawing off any carbon monoxide gases left in the ash box. ASH DUMP: BURN TIME: A full size load can be efficiently burned in 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The same load of wood can be burned in less than an hour, but much of the heat generated will be lost up the chimney. FURTHER DAMPER ADJUSTMENT: As the burn progresses, you may be able to close the damper 2/3 in without seriously affecting the fire. Slide the damper in until the fire begins to visibly falter, then pull the damper out a bit and leave it in this new position. COALS: You need not dump ashes after every burn. When the ashes are a couple inches deep, reach in when the fire is out and pivot the ash dump plate to the open position. Rake ashes into the opening and then close the ash dump. BURN CYCLES: Small heaters in Finland were traditionally burned once every eight to twelve hours and no more than 3 times in each 24 hour period. Larger heaters are often fired by commuters twice in the evening over a 3-4 hour period and then not again until the next evening without any stress problems. If someone is home during the day, a morning burn and an evening burn will give the most even heat. As the fire burns down to coals, the volatile gasses have largely been consumed. Open the damper (and by-pass if necessary) and the loading doors. Rake the coals with a poker towards the grate. Close the doors, close the by-pass and readjust the damper, then open the ash box door draft slide to get a fairly rapid consumption of the coals. When all the coals are consumed, close the ash box door draft slide, the main door draft slides and the shut off damper. CRACKING: While hairline cracks can occur in heaters, and cause no safely hazard, larger stress cracks in heaters are always the result of over firing. Heaters must never be used on a continuous fire basis, like a metal wood stove. After a few hours the surface of the firebox firebrick will be saturated with heat and unable to move heat away from the fire as fast as the fire is delivering 5

6 it. When this happens, the firebrick goes into shock and will start to spall and/or crack. Exterior brick and stone joints may develop minor hairline cracks, which will open and close as the heater cycles. Larger cracks only occur when the heater is over fired. If your heater develops serious cracks, stop using the heater and call us or a local heater mason immediately for an assessment visit and repair. SURFACE TEMPERATURES: Under normal operating conditions, all the masonry surfaces should be cool enough to touch. Only the metal will be too hot to touch during the burn. After the burn, the doors as well will cool down. Avoid putting combustible materials or candles on any shelves or mantels on the heater. The heater cap and mantle can hold non-combustible objects, vases, etc. Use your good judgment. GLASS CARE: Many customers wipe the ceramic glass before each burn with a paper towel and a tiny bit of fine ash from the ash box. If you choose to use a liquid glass or oven cleaner on the ceramic glass, only do this when the glass and doors are cool. SMOKE REMOVAL: If you get smoke on the brick or stone face from an improperly closed damper, wait until the heater is cool and clean the carbon stains off with oven cleaner (or simpler means) following instructions on the can or bottle. OUTSIDE AIR: It is customary in a new tight house to supply outside air (a 4-6 metal duct) to the vicinity of the heater. A hole can be drilled through the foundation wall, and a rust proof/fireproof duct installed with a screen on the outside end and a closeable register on the living room or kitchen end. The duct can be on either face or side of the heater. Do not place it away from the heater where it might create a felt draft across the feet of someone trying to enjoy the fire or heater. DAMPER MAINTENANCE: The sliding damper and frame is fabricated from steel. If left in the closed position all summer, it can accumulate moisture and rust, and stick a bit when you start up your heater again in the fall. Many people remove their damper at the end of the heating season and clean it with fine steel wool or a brass brush and spray it with WD-40 and also spray inside both left and right channels of the frame with a red needle attachment on the can. Lubricating and rust proofing the damper for the summer is a good way to have it in good shape and ready to go for the fall. ANNUAL MAINTENANCE: Most people check all their soot doors once or twice during the heating season and clean out any fly ash or fine soot with a shop vacuum. The basement ash chamber can typically hold a full season s accumulation of ash and can be cleaned 6

7 out with a hoe and dust mask in warm weather. Questions- Call us or us at [email protected] FINE-TUNING: DO NOT FORGET TO REMOVE THE PIZZA STONE AFTER YOUR COOKING IS DONE. Left in place the stone will block the oven throat and cause the heater to smoke out around the doors at the next burn. Follow the general guidelines, but exercise common sense. Watch, listen, and learn from the fire and heater. Fine-tune and adjust your techniques as necessary. OVEN CARE: The oven is on after every burn for several hours. A clean burn in the main firebox will create a clean burn in the oven. If the oven is sooty and dark, then you are not getting a clean burn. Call us for advice if dry wood, upside down burns and close attention on your part doesn t clean up the burn and oven. During a clean burn, flames will flow into the oven and circle left and right like ram s horns on either side of the oven throat. After a burn, test the oven temperature with a metal oven thermometer. Fine untreated wood fly ash is not unhealthy. You can bake bread, if you wish, directly on the oven hearth bricks. Casseroles or pan goods such as pies, cakes or roasts can be placed anywhere on the oven floor and over the throat. Rotate the pans if necessary. Pizza is best prepared by placing a pizza stone in the oven after the burn. Let the stone soak for minutes then bake pizzas (up to diameter) directly on the stone. Several pizzas can be cooked in sequence, each taking only a few minutes to bake. 7