OT: Chimney Brace (To Do or Not to Do)

Here is a low cost solution: Rip it all out, install a flat panel monitor, put brick veneer around it, and then let it play this:

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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but your wood burner puts out as much in one hour as a car doing 400km and you do it all day and night at least part of the year that is a lot of cars

They did some air samples here and the typical residential area with many wood stoves there was many more particulates than in the the city where there is lots of cars busses etc.

Though there is some discussion on whether the particles from modern diesels are more dangerous because they are smaller

Diesel and California is probably more to do with NOx that causes smog Since diesels run excess air they cannot use a three way catalyst to reduce NOx

-Lasse

However, the little Diesel car cannot heat a large house with office and lab. A serious wood stove operations looks like here in our driveway :-)

Don't get me wrong but so far all the European wood stoves I have seen were not exactly engineering marvels. They had no afterburning systems and no catalytic converters.

Also, as I said before, the vast majority of people do not know how to operate a wood stove properly. Older people are especially bad on average. I know many who claim to be "experience wood burners" who then throw in one lone log at night. Needless to say, that will start to smolder and produce stinky crawling smoke the minute the other logs have burned down. Even people with cardiopulmonary issues do that no matter how often you tell them that they'll ruin their own lungs. They simply don't get it.

That is one problem, but also the soot is a major issue.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

very cool.

I think like, it might be the only source of heat in a meltdown.

Greg

As Jeff suggested, a Metalbestos chimney system would probably be your best option. I have the original system I purchased and installed in 1977 when I bought my first house, and then when I bought my neighbor's house in

1989 I had it removed and re-installed in my present house, where it is still working fine and I only had to replace the chimney cap when it was damaged.

I have the chimney running inside the house, and the upstairs pipe gets warm enough to add heat to the bedroom (and a floor grate over the stove brings hot air up from convection).

Here's my daily exercise during the winter to heat my house, using my ancient "Englander" wood stove:

Paul and Muttley

When I look into the gap on my brick house, there are random clips between the outer sheathing and the bricks. It's amazing how little lateral strength there is in the brickwork. I also have an afterthought chimney on the outside of the brick, made from large blocks, and a ceramic like inner core. That was there when I bought the house. I just don't have a stove, yet.

Greg

My grandmothers house had four rooms plus outhouse. The four rooms each had a fireplace at one time. I only saw the kitchen coal stove plus coal furnace. I remember neighbor using coal in fireplace in that house. They took baths in the kitchen. It was just black smoke in the air back then. Mt grandfather would come home black after mining. I was really young then.

Greg

I nearly fell over when I saw the measurement units were in GRAMS, not milligrams. Yikes!

Clean wood burning is like clean coal technology, i.e. fiction!

Perhaps fireplaces are mandatory in the Santa Cruz mountains, but they tend to be a waste of space for most people in...well...civilization.

Why is it that the perfect place for a TV is where the fireplace is located? Even all those gas fireplaces with the rocks are set up so you can put a flat panel above it. Not so great though for the TV.

The gas fire pits are way more useful because at night you can actually use a fire pit outside.

Most people have central heat, so the gas fireplace indoors isn't all that practical in the great room. It is OK in the master bath where a few extra BTUs may be useful. They have two sided gas fireplace so you can heat the bath room and bedroom.

It is best not to "faux" anything. The reason they have gas fireplaces with rocks and other objects rather than fake logs is everyone hates the fake logs. Like a bad comb-over, a fake log looks fake.

The west was never really a brick house kind of place. We have lot of stones.

OK, more a bit inland than on the coast.

If plain stucco bugs you, you can use stucco-stone. It is so good you have a hard time telling it from real stone.

Not at all.

I don't believe in global warming but, strangely, our house operates a lot more CO2-neutral than those of the most vocal protesters. Who simply flick a li'l switch on the wall thermostat.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Because many civilized people believe that TV is not the ultimate achievement of civilization and have something better to do. Like reading a good book next to a fireplace :-)

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Exactly. It is the TV that should be optional and rarely used, while the

fireplace (or better, a good woodstove), should be as standard as a kitchen sink. It is disturbing that we are becoming so dependent upon electronic

entertainment and communication that people are always using their phone/tablet to take video or listen to music or play games or talk to people (even in the same room) or watch mind-numbing TV, rather than engaging in face-to-face conversation or enjoying connectivity to nature and the non-electronic environment.

Of course it's all designed to use as much bandwidth as possible and thus maximize revenues, so new devices are essentially always ON and CONNECTED.

It's a sad, and not so brave, new world...

Paul

Civilization is not all that it's cranked up to be. I don't have to do anything to "get away from it all". I live away from it all.

It's amazingly common: and as you mention, a great way to melt a TV.

We use a 55 gallon drum, with some holes in the bottom to draw some air in under the fire. Great for an evening barbeque or illegally burning the slash (tree droppings). If I want to actually cook something, I have a hibachi and various camp stoves. For parties, I can borrow a large Weber grill that runs on a propane tank.

Nice. I previously had some copper and steel tubing running through the wood burner. I could have powered a steam engine but instead used it to heat the bathroom through a repurposed brass automobile radiator. It took a while to get it going, but it sure was cheap. I kinda miss it.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Talking about repurposing:

Built with a 1939 DeSoto front axle, the steering welded shut, a 1942 army pump engine and a discarded Caterpillar bulldozer piston. "Betsy" was built by a friend of ours. It would sit under a tarp for a whole year. Then you'd lay some cord around the motor pulley, set the carburetor to rich, one pull ... VROOOOM. Oh, and you can't stand behind the exhaust because that consists of some repurposed water pipe and rust flakes and stuff will fly out of there with gusto.

She is slow but the most powerful splitter I ever used. It would squish even the gnarliest piece of wood into a pulp. The engine indicates a serious knot in the wood by a bang or two.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

(...)

Nice. Looks like it's well made. The main support looks like 4" square pipe reinforced with two 4" C-channels. That's not going to bend. No pressure gauge or over pressure bypass? You're living dangerously. I think the pump should have been a little lower, or the hydraulic reservoir a bit higher, to prevent pumping air when used on sloping ground.

The big oil filter is nice, especially to deal with the zinc flakes from the galvanized tank inlet pipe. I would have used schedule 40 black pipe instead. Note that the galvanized pipe is AFTER the filter, which means that the tank will have some flakes inside. The consensus seems to be to NOT use galvanized pipe.

The steel pipe muffler might be a problem. The problem is that cold air can flow back through the exhaust pipe, into the cylinder, and warp the valves on a 4 stroke engine. If it's a 2 stroke, it's not a problem. Besides reducing noise, the common muffler also pre-heats the backflow of cold air so that the valves don't cool off to quickly. I use a neighbors hydraulic splitter from Northern Tool. It works well but I sometime need something with more power. I prefer to run it vertically, so that I roll the unsplit logs instead of lifting them. Every year, I have to fix some hydraulic leaks. I've also had problems with water in the hydraulic fluid with no obvious source. I just drain the tank and put in new fluid. I added a 5000 psi pressure gauge.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Ok, ok, but Betsy was built on a budget out of scrap parts, and has done her duty for decades.

It's 4-stroke. But I was more worried about rain getting in there should the cover blow off. The motor ususally started its season with a major

*PHTOOOEI* upon which all accumulated crud flew out of there with gusto.

Neat. The guillotine style is much more friendly than Betsy when it comes to back pain. Also, less chance that a log falls onto your foot.

Betsy was constantly leaking. This is what the little pot to the right is for. Gets placed on the log under the axle, and when half full of hydraulic fluid gets dumped into the tank. That doubles as a timer, because then it's time for a break. Betsy knows all this stuff :-)

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

We might try your method with a twist. We figure that the chimney weight is around 4 to 5 cars equivalence. So, in theory, we should be able to support it with 4 to 5 tire jacks and pour concrete in, rather than relying on pounding dirt.

I would check for roots. I had a patio slab I was trying to elevate which I thought got shifted with roots. I tried a 3 ton jack, but the slab bent where there was a crack. I figure the slab was a lot more than 3 ton.

Greg