Return-Path: Received: from rly-yc02.mx.aol.com (rly-yc02.mail.aol.com [172.18.149.34]) by air-yc04.mail.aol.com (v59.4) with SMTP; Tue, 06 Apr 1999 15:20:32 -0500Received: from mx02.together.net (mx02.together.net [204.97.120.62]) by rly-yc02.mx.aol.com (vx) with SMTP; Tue, 06 Apr 1999 15:20:10 -0400Received: from 209.91.2.179 (dial-33-tnt-btvt-02.ramp.together.net [209.91.2.33]) by mx02.together.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id PAA25349 for ; Tue, 6 Apr 1999 15:20:14 -0400Message-ID: <370A6057.71D2@together.net>Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 15:28:20 -0400From: Raph Worrick and Meg Harris Reply-To: raphmeg@together.netX-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0-C-AICK1-2 (Macintosh; U; PPC)MIME-Version: 1.0To: Minaska@aol.comSubject: Heater...References: <3ddd335f.36a62ea5@aol.com>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-asciiContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: To: undisclosed-recipients:; Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bill- Sorry so long with this response to your interest in a review of the heater thus far. I've been waiting for a quiet moment to sit down and write it, which is always a mistake since there never seem to be any! In all we are pretty happy! Number one positive would be the quality of the heat. Its very even and balanced- my feet are never cold in this house which they always were with forced air or radiator heat. In general we havent found cold spots in the house too much except for the basement of course. I also noticed how much drier the air was when we returned from two winter trips having left the propane forced air heater on! The quality of the burn is enjoyable too and always gets comments from friends and neighbors who have airtights with no "fireplace" feel. Something you might pass on to Norbert: I sand-loaded by floor in the upstairs, mainly to provide soundproofing. I have only 3/4" of sand in place- if I did it again I would use more. My feeling is that it provides an additional thermal "radiator" which transfers heat to the upstairs. Obviously I didnt build a control house without such a floor so I can't be scientific about it! Would be an interesting test for someone doing research on it though. The bakeoven is great! We used it constantly to cook- probably the fact that our regular oven isnt installed yet was a good thing to make us see the many uses. We'll miss it as the summer comes on. Despite the added cost I would definately recommend it to anyone who for whom cooking is an interest. As to the efficiency this is probably not a good year to judge. We have used about 3 1/2 or 4 cords, but we still have no trim or siding on the house so there is a lot of air leakage that will go away (we hope!) So I'm sure the usage will go down. Even at that rate its not a real burden. Negatives: Just as in the fall, the current warm days/cold nights are providing a bit of a challenge to it. If we keep it too hot the considerable solar gain in the house makes it uncomfortably warm inside. However by morning it can be a little chilly. Again, small burns dont seem to work as well- they smoke up the glass etc. Also, my guess is there is a level of "thermal inertia" operating, in other words it may take more energy to keep the mass up to a temp where it is making a difference than it would to simple provide the small back up heat directly at the time it was needed (early am). Has Norbert done any tests on this? It couldn't keep up completely on the coldest nights (I'm talking the 20 or 30 below ones.) Had to run the propane heater for supplement. This doesnt seem like a major drawback. Also, back to the question of can you get it too hot- on those nights I had it pretty cranked up. I have a thermometer in the bake oven that was up to 6OO. Too hot? There doesn't seem to be any cracking etc. Air supply. I've found that I need to use the ash drop as an airflow control especially at startup. I dont yet have my air intake duct hooked up and this may help in the future, but if this is a common problem it would be good to provide a control handle on that door that allows it to be kept partly open (I often had to wedge it with a bit of wood.) A small one- the door handle design could be better. I find it slips a lot and I'm afraid I'm going to break more of that expensive glass. I think providing an operating manual for the thing would be a big help. I'm still not sure if we used optimum sized wood, whether we sometimes burned more than necessary etc. I realize a lot of this is particular to the individual house, but I think some form of help at the beginning would be good. We felt a little like we were operating in the dark, especially after that first incident when smoke started pouring into the house! So, there you have it. We still haven't plastered it or put the bench stone on- thats the cash flow around here! All in all we are happy with our decision and have been comfortable all winter! Hope all is well with you and that you are enjoying the beginnings of spring. Raph Worrick