Furnace has been completely disconnected, cleaned, and removed. Hit me with your offers, I don't want it to just rot in storage.

So opportunity presented itself recently in the form of a lightly used GlowBoy multi-fuel stove.



It was a local Demo model that was run in a showroom briefly. The dealer ordered a load of these when his regular line was backordered a few years ago; this one was run with panels off for about 20 bushels worth of corn. Then it was mothballed and parts pirated from it to satisfy customers needs in order to expedite things and not make them wait on parts shipments.

Then the dealer got out of it when corn prices shot up. This stove sat in a corner for a few years, then I caught wind of it. The parts were all there, and he put it back together, with the exception of a bad control board. The replacement never came in, and he just sold it to me as-is.

New control boards are $300 by the way.

I cleaned it all up, put a new coat of stove polish on where the mouse pee had rusted it, and took a look at the control board. Fairly grubby, and a lot of the soldered connections looked really crappily done at the factory.

So I broke out my magic soldering wand, and resoldered all the joints. Connected it up, plugged the stove in, and Presto! I had this....



All systems are go, blower control works, auger rate control seems to work (hard to see change in speed of slow auger) switches from start configuration to run configuration. Looks like I dodged a $300 bullet?

So as soon as I adapt it to my current wall thimble I'll fire it! Excited to be able to burn pellets upstair in the stove!

So as a final update to this saga......... I have mastered the beast.

It needs a simple poke-n-prod with the poker it came with, at least twice a day. Simply run it round the lower set of holes and give it a little "flip" to move that clinker away from the lower holes. You don't even have to get the clinker out of the pot, I try to but it it is moved to the center it will burn away with no problem.

As long as this is done, and the bin is kept 1/2 full or more, this furnace burns with no problems.

The other side of the coin is this: This furnace simply does not have enough BTU output for our needs. Our house requires a minimum of 150,000 BTUs, and this furnace is rated at 100,000 BTUs. It is just never going to be able to keep up for us when temps get down to 10* and the wind blows.

For a 1200ish sq ft home, I have no doubts it would do a fantastic job, and probably heat the place on 6-7 tons of pellets a year. I put 5 tons through it and just finished off the last one Saturday night.

That's all I have. This furnace will be coming out of the basement soon, and I hope to find a new owner for it whose needs better match the furnace.

And hopefully someone else can use these experiences to tame their beast!

Thanks for all the input and advice!

I'm just about ready to fire up our new GlowBoy stove, it will replace our SnowFlame 2100 style stove. Reason I'm switching is it was cheaper to go with the GlowBoy for negative pressure and burn pellets than to update the 2100 to burn pellets (its a positive pressure stove)



So my thoughts turn to what is to become of the perfectly good 2100? I like it a lot, its been nothing but good to us, but with the price of corn vs pellets, and the slightly higher btu output of the GlowBoy it has to go.

But what about putting it in the basement? We don't exactly have a finished basement, but its not bad either. Decent place for the kids to play without worrying about breaking something. This kit (bottom of the page) looks like it is intended to run room air for combustion and just powervent the exhaust, as well as converting it to multifuel. $250 doesn't seem bad to make something I already have heat a space I also already have?

www.spartacoop.com./product-category.php?id=114

link to spartacoop 2100 conversion and parts


In other news.....
The LDJ style furnace finished burning its last load of pellets at 2 AM Saturday by the way.
I did a lot more research and comparison, and it just didn't have the BTU rating this house needs. The fellow doing the Geothermal install calculated our needs and there was just no way 100,000 BTUs were going to be adequate; we needed at LEAST 150,000 BTUs. I was asking the poor thing to do something it just wasn't up to.
My next step is removing it, it will be ready to load up soon for whoever its next owner will be. Shoot me an offer if you are interested.

Using FoolOil till that tank is gone, hopefully it lasts the season. 250 gallons for 2 weeks in Feb and all of March, some of April.....might make it.

It's on the last binfull of pellets, will be shutdown by the weekend.

Feel free to make an offer.

This unit would heat a 1200 sq ft house with no trouble. Its just not enough btu's for my 2000 sq ft home.

Forgot to mention, I can take credit card payment.

Call the number at the bottom of the listing with any questions, or to come look at it.

We will be going geothermal soon, so I'm selling the LDJ style clone furnace.

Its the 100,000 btu model, used one winter only. You get all the ductwork that connects it to the main plenum, hot and cold side both. Exhaust stack, dampner and manometer included, as are original manuals.

Come see it run, we're currently heating with it. I'll be running it until this last ton of pellets is gone. If you like what you see, hit me with the cash and I'll take it out and have it ready to load for you ASAP.

419 563 4328

$3000

I have run a SnowFlame for the last 6-7 years, its a good little unit that just runs with no drama once you get the hang of it.

My friend has a CornFlame, so lots of experience between us.

I made my own air adjuster. I tried messing with bending the tab - my opinion is that tab needs to be where it is to deflect the air, not to limit the air. I'd leave it alone.

I took my angle drill and made a simple centering jig from a piece of wood. Make the wood fit the air hole in the back of the stove, and drill a hole in the center of it. This piece will hold your drill steady and keep it from walking around.

Drill through the back wall. Its thicker than you might think, so be prepared. Pull the room blower fans before doing this.

Now tap the hole for threads. Again, the wall is thicker than it seems, so go slow and use thread cutting lubricant, or you'll break the tap in the hole, and its darn hard to get to.

Next I took a stainless phillips screw about 3" long, and a stainless washer slightly smaller than the air hole, and welded them together leaving the phillips head intact. You'll need the phillips part to install or adjust.

Now just screw the part you just made into the hole you tapped. It will protrude through the wall into the motor electrical compartment. If you did a good job tapping, you may be able to turn this end of it by hand, if not maybe double-nut this end to allow a better grip.

I can get a picture next time I shut it down to clean, though its kinda hard to see once installed.

Another HIGHLY recommended thing to do is run a cast-iron burn pot from a 4100. They were about $100 when I bought mine, and it allows for up to 36 hour burn times between clinker removal. Part P-0077 4100 AZM IBP americasharvestenergy.com/mcart/index.cgi?code=3&cat=3
And the cast iron is like teflon to clinkers, where I had to dig it out before it slides right out now.


I also copied the burn enhancement kit, I only used the top piece that raises the rear wall up into the exchanger tubes. MAJOR improvement in heat output. Here is a picture of the piece I made, its just normal mild-steel sheet metal and has been used for 5 years now with no degrading.





And yes, all these Buckner style stoves were positive draft, but there is no limit to the air intake.

TallCorn, I believe I have restricted my exhaust as much as I dare. The draft finally fell into a range I can adjust after I installed the cast iron dampner in the flue.

Now I find that it has 2 sweet spots for draft. One for windy days, and one for calm days. Moving it 1/4" lets me keep draft just under .05

If I don't put it back on a calm day the draft tends to hit zero and I get some smouldering.

I'm burning Somerset pellets that others on here have stated are good pellets. That doesn't mean they don't have high silica as you state though.

Yesterday and this morning it still measures 450-500. Air from the registers is warm now, but house is still only 64*. Of course, its IS 8* outside with light winds.

Update - so with no real change other than flicking that weird "clinker" out of the way every few hours, my door temps are finally up. For the whole weekend and this morning it read 450*

Actually I have tried that. No real change to report.

I'm still using my SnowFlame 2100 on a daily basis, and since its a positive pressure stove corn is all I burn in it. It burns roughly 120-130 bushels a winter.

Burning both the furnace and stove I can keep the house @ 70* without burning Fuel Oil.

I was hoping this winter I could sell the wagon of corn and just burn pellets, without using the stove at all. That ain't happening.....

You and I seem to have the same issue........I cannot get adequate combustion temps due to the same buildup around the sides of the firepot.

It doesn't make the fire go out, just limits the output. My door temps are barely 250* if I leave it to run on its own. If I remove that buildup every 3-4 hours I can get 350* at the door.

Does your buildup look like this?

It seems to hold at 350* - IF I pull that weird "clinker" thing about every 3-4 hours.

Here is the clinker thing. And what the fire looks like.

.

.

While continuing to fool with it, I HAVE noticed the formation of "clinker-like" stuff around the perimeter of the interior of the burn pot. Its just a 1/4" or less layer of semi-hard ash that stays on the pot, near the air holes. It removes quite easily with the poker, and falls apart easily, yet it is rigid enough to not be dislodged by the air or pellet motion.

Anyone else see this with their setups?

I removed ALL the screws again yesterday. The fire is burning a little below the upper air holes, and seems to be staying there. Door temps were 350* last night and this morning.

I have also been removing that weird clinker-stuff that obstructs the air holes. Seems I need to do that 2-3 times daily to keep temps up.

You are right CrackedCorn, I do not have the conversion kit.

Details on it are quite sketchy, and from following along on the old forum, I had decided that adding the air on the auger side CONTRIBUTED to the burn back issue that one of the members suffered? Seems someone added air to the auger and darn near burnt their house down - and it appeared they went back and edited their posts to remove the history of them adding the air.

Anyways, it made me think that putting combustion air in with the fuel while it was NOT in the burn chamber was a somewhat bad idea. Maybe I just interpreted the situation incorrectly?

Yeah, the air from the registers isn't exactly warm. Fuel oil furnace register air is nice and warm, pellet furnace air not so much.

My fire pot isn't burning low. Quite the contrary, I can seem to get it to run at any level I desire, just no real heat.

While continuing to fool with it, I HAVE noticed the formation of "clinker-like" stuff around the perimeter of the interior of the burn pot. Its just a 1/4" or less layer of semi-hard ash that stays on the pot, near the air holes. It removes quite easily with the poker, and falls apart easily, yet it is rigid enough to not be dislodged by the air or pellet motion.

Anyone else see this with their setups?

(I'll be removing ALL the screws next shutdown)

Melted elbow and connector.

Melted elbow and connector.

Cracked Corn wrote:



Cracked Corn, I remember you from the old forum, good to know you are still burning!

If you would be so inclined, would you take a look at my thread on my setup? I'd appreciated any suggestions - I'm completely stumped.

Here is a link to my thread -

www.iburncorn.com/new-forum/8-general-co...u-furnace-on-pellets