At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

What do you think would happen if you let the vents on the cover point upward??Tony

Tony, that's an interesting suggestion for the wall heater grill. It would take some modification of the grill but it seems like it would definitely help to distribute the heat into the room better. The downside would be encouraging dust and debris to collect in the heater - maybe a fire hazard?

Obed

 

[Obed]

Ah. Well there ya go. (I'm Dave BTW). But that was what had me confused. I see now it was something you had done for the camper, which makes sense. Just checking, as these things vary around the country.

You are still on track.

For the FP... Have you checked the moisture content of the wood you are burning? I recall you bought a moisture meter. If you are in for a fight with the stove company, then that is very good info to have. It is pretty typical to "blame the other guy" aka the "wood is wet" in your case. You need to remove those arguments from their repertoire. Of course, the way to do this is:

1. Measure the MC of your firewood on several sticks. Average that out.
2. Call them and tell them your issue.
3. Wait for them to tell you "your wood is too wet"
4. Ask "Well then, What is the correct %MC of firewood to burn in this FP"
5. Ask how you measure that?
6. Destroy them when you say "I used a moisture meter and my wood is measuring 16% with a 2% SD over 25 pieces, all of which I measured just prior to burning."
7. Wait through the stunned silence while the guy figures he needs to escalate....

Seriously, you have seen this in your work life, I am sure. Everyone tries to point the finger at someone else. Predict those finger pointings and cut them off. My guess is they have two options: 1. the wood, 2. the Install. You need to destory them on the first point so they know they are not dealing with Jeb Rube (aka "would you like me to send you the spreadsheet with the %MC distribution vs position on the log including standard deviations and the log normal distribution?" That should light them up ). Then have as much as you can on point #2, which they will now home in on. "Cause it can't be their fault...:laughing: The finally ask if they will do the right thing and send out a tech to figure it out and add to their technical knowledge database.

Dave, those are some good suggestions. We did measure the wood with a moisture meter and it was within the recommended moisture content. One problem we have is we cannot deal with the Quadrafire manufacturer directly; our only contact with them is through the fireplace store/installer. There is a phone number that customers can use to call the manufacturer; my wife tried calling it, waited on hold forever, then got disconnected without being able to talk to anyone. Dealers have a special number they can call to get through to a technician.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Tonight was not very fun.

I left work late tonight and got home at about 8 PM. It had been raining solid for much of the evening. When I got out of my car, I looked at the front of the house and was not very excited about how the water was draining. The dirt where the gas line had been run had settled and was funnelling water toward the corner of the dining room/office. Although some of the water was running off like desired, some of it was puddling close to the front of the house.

After I ate supper, I went down to the basement and found out that water was dripping down the inside of the concrete wall where the water pipe from the well goes through the concrete wall. The silicon around the PVC pipe was obviously not a perfect seal resulting in rainwater dripping down the wall. There was some water on the concrete basement floor. With lots of rain forecasted for tonight, I did not want to let water keep coming through the wall. I'm nervous about letting moisture in the basement get a chance to cause mold and mildew.

I asked my wife to try to rig something up to try to catch the water dripping down the wall. With some duct tape, a scrap gutter downspout, and a bucket, my wife was able to funnel the water that was dripping down the wall into the bucket.

I left my wife to try to catch the water entering the house and went outside to try to prevent the water from coming into the house. I spent 2 1/2 hours outside in a continous downpour in the dark digging a couple trenches with the tractor's backhoe and using the tractor's work lights to see. At one point I hit a couple stumps that really slowed down my trenching effort. Eventually I got the water to run away from the house instead of toward it. By the time I finished the trenches close to midnight, the water had stopped dripping though the basement wall. By that time the wall was dry even though it was still raining outside.

It wasn't much fun digging in the rain and in the mud at night but it was very satisfying when the water stopped coming in the house. While I was working out in the rain, my wife made me some homemade chocolate chip cookies as a reward. I took a warm shower which felt fabulous. Then I sat down in my office, typed this message, and ate fresh warm cookies, lots of them.

Life is good.

Obed

 

[srs]

Obed, instead of using silicone sealer around the pipe what about using hydraulic cement on the outside, plus some inside? Of course you'll have to clean out all of the silicone sealant really good then apply the hydraulic cement.

 

[Obed]

Obed, instead of using silicone sealer around the pipe what about using hydraulic cement on the outside, plus some inside? Of course you'll have to clean out all of the silicone sealant really good then apply the hydraulic cement.

Stanley,
I used hydraulic cement to seal the holes where the gas pipes, phone line, and electric service cables go through the walls (5 holes). The phone line and two electric cables have conduit enclosing them and the gas lines are galvanized steel so I was comfortable using hydraulic cement around them. The well guy put silicone around the PVC water pipe when he installed it. Hydraulic cement expands as it dries so I'm afraid it might damage the PVC water pipe. Also, silicone is reasonably easy to remove if we ever need to replace the PVC pipe going through the wall.

Regardless, sealing the gap around the pipe is a secondary water prevention method. The primary tact is to prevent water from getting there in the first place.

Obed

 

[Obed]

We got 4 inches of rain last night. This morning we had high winds; we could see the trees behind our house swaying quite a bit. When I attempted to leave the house around noon, I found that a large tree was down and was completely blocking our driveway. We cannot leave our house because all our vehicles are blocked in. This is a large tree about 18" in diameter. Unlike the hickory that blocked our driveway back in June, I think I can handle this tree myself with a chainsaw.

Unfortunately, my chainsaw isn't working. My brother-in-law is bringing over my father-in-law's chainsaw as I type this message. He won't be able to help so I'll be working this tree up by myself.

 

[dcyrilc]

Just be careful.:thumbsup:

 

[radioman]

Back in February, I received the thermal overload device and new grill. I replaced them and that helped. The thermal overload device stopped tripping. However, the heater would only heat the bathroom to 70 degrees when the thermostat would turn off the heater. So a couple weeks ago I contacted Broan, the manufacturer, and told them about the problem. I suspected a problem with the thermostat. Broan sent me a complete heater assembly; it has everything except the metal casing, installation brackets, and grill.

This evening I replaced just the thermostat and am testing it. The room appears to be heating up to around 75 degrees now before the heater turns off. Thats better than the 70 degrees we were getting before.

I got curious and put a thermometer at the floor beside the vanity cabinent that is 3 1/2 feet directly in front of the wall that holds the heater. That thermometer was reading 90 degrees. So now I think I may understand the primary issue. The heater is in the wall opposite the vanity that is 3 1/2 feet in front of the heater. The heater blows out hot air which bounces of the vanity wall back toward the heater. The heater thinks the room is 90 degrees and turns off. To complicate matters, we have an HVAC register right below the wall heater which blows hot air during the winter. We picked a poor location for the heater.

I'm thinking that when the temps outside are winter temperatures, the heater may only warm the room to 70 degrees instead of 75. When taking a shower in the winter, 70 degrees can feel fairly chilly when stepping wet out of the shower.

If the heater won't warm the room well enough, we basically have two options. We could relocate the heater to a different spot; unfortunately we don't have a real good location for it. A second option would be to rewire the heater so it can operate in its 1000W (half-wattage) mode per the wiring instructions in the manual. We currently have the heater wired for 240V and 2000W. It might be that in 1000W mode, the heater will not heat up the small area in front of the heater so quickly and will actually allow the surrounding room to get warmer. There might also be a third option. The heater does have the option to be controlled by a remote thermostat. I'm just a little concerned that if we run the heater off a remote thermostat, the heater and the area around it might get too hot. I would have to get the manufacturer's opinion regarding using a remote thermostat. It could be that running the heater in half-wattage mode and using a remote thermostat might be the best solution as long as the heater does not get too warm.

I'll probably test out the half-wattage mode soon and see if that helps.

That is a real bummer. Its too late now to add electric radiant heater under your floor, but it would have prevented the dilemma you having now. Anyone else have ideas?

 

[CurlyDave]

I have had success heating bathrooms with the little portable 110 Volt 1500/750 watt heaters. You can point it anywhere you want to avoid overheating problems.

Admittedly it is not an elegant solution, but it is effective.

You can try one out on your existing electric supply for about $25 at Wally World.

OTOH, I think running your existing heater at 1000 Watts will make a difference. Probably enough difference to remove the need for anything else.

 

[Tororider]

Obed,
No fair posting pictures of cookies without sharing.

Glad you got the water running away from the house.