6100/6220 Concept Heat Exchanger

[firbug13]

One thing that i regret not doing in my barn that I did in my basement is put in radiant water heat in the floor. If you have the extra $ put the pex tubing in the floor before you pour your slab and you can heat it with the add on water heater kit from your stove This was a great add on for my basement and it helps heat the whole structure. The pex tubing is not that expensive when compared to other forms of heating.Plus you will still be heating the air with the blowers from the stove. I have the same size barn but I have 15' walls. I am going to buy another 6300 to heat that with (wish I had the radiant tubes in the floor).... just something to think about!

[BS Acres]

firebug 13. I was thinking about that. the only problem is that will about double the cost of my concrete unless I end pouring it myself and do it in sections. If nothing else I was going to dig down around the outside and put insulation down atleast 4'. I just need to make a decision. Do have sprayed insulation on your walls or regular. I have 3" sprayed and 15" blown fiberglass in the attic. My biggest concern is once my concrete is poured my shed will be airtight and I need some sort of a air intake for the stove.

[firbug13]

you should be able to pour the same amount of concrete,you will have to put down the pex piping. it is very easy to do.even if you dont do it now you only have one chance to put down the pex. I have 6" walls blown in insulation and the same for the ceiling. being airtight is not bad ,its easy to make a fresh air intake,but its hard to make it airtight.if you need some more advise on the floor let me know...

[Luke Cornstalker]

BS, it shouldn't change the cost at all as far as having a contactor pouring the slab. Your initial cost will be higher because you need to buy the pex. When I did mine, I had the contractor excavate for an extra inch, then I went in, layed heavy plastic, one inch foamboard insulation, steel reinforcement mesh, (supplied by contractor) and then layed out my pex using the mesh to tie it off. Cost of concrete or the labor to pour it never changed. I absolutely recomend you do that, even if you can't use it right away, get the pex in there.
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Let the forced air corn fired furnace be with you...

[BS Acres]

Luke the guys pouring the concrete said there price will double. They have to rent power buggies to move the concrete into the shop. If I dont dont put down pex then they can drive the truck right into the shop and just use the chutes off the truck and back the truck out as they pour. I really like the idea of a heated floor but do I really wanna take my price form 10,000 to 16,000. Me personally I never poured a 2000 sq of concrete then had to finish it.
Im still trying to figure out what way to lay my floor drains. I dont want my floor to have so much pitch that if you drop something on the floor it rolls across the shop. I know a few guys whos floors are like that and its no fun. So I would like to my drains across the front by the overhead doors. I think. Like i said it hard to decide what to do.
BS Acres
Dave

[firbug13]

just a thought ... if you could lay the pex on as much of the floor as possible, just enough to get the truck in there it might still be worth it... have them use as much shoot as they can... hate to see you loose that kind of heat that would pay for it self in a short time.... I put a 8 ft. drain down the middle of my shop with a very slight slope to it ... if you or they lay it out have them shoot it with a laser, you can put 0- any deg. slope that you want in it.

[mavs]

I am in the process of making a tube heat exchanger on my 6100. So far i can say is with the shallow depth of the burn box you will have trouble going in from the top. The airflow also comes up from the sides mostly and not the middle, which makes the design really poor in my opinion.

I currently have mine furnace tore down to the burn box and am getting materials to make the exchanger inside the box. Since the airflow comes up the sides i have been considering running the tubes side to side instead of front to back. Then i can easily force the air through the tubes with a few plates tacked in.

[tinman]

mavs........sound like a good idea
sure would like to know how it works out
keep us posted

tinman
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"You know everybody is ignorant only on different subjects"...Will Rogers
"If life was fair Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead"....Johnny Carson
USSC 6300

[mavs]

will do have some pics of my teardown that i can post if you can tell me how to post them.

[cww]

I think if you want to find out how much more heat you can recover, the easiest way would be to put a simple shell and tube heat exchanger on the exhaust. After all, all the heat you can recover is going out there. And you don't cut your stove up. A version of the "magic heat" thing they put in stove pipes would be easy to do with some sheet and some emt and a boxer fan. If you calculate the flow and the temp of the exhaust, there aren't that many BTUs to recover even if you took it down to room temp. A small HE would get about what you can get, without condensing and catching the latent heat. You don't want to condense corn exhaust in your vent. It would eat right out the bottom. If you keep the top and sides clean of ash, these things are pretty efficient, that's what all the design award nominations were about. Getting the heat out _without_ a sophisticated HE. It amazed the firebox tube crowd.
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I can't grow propane!

[SidecarFlip]

[cww]

My point is, that since the flue gases are fairly cool, there isn't that much more heat to be recovered by any means. You only have X BTU, it goes into the room or it goes out the pipe.
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I can't grow propane!

[mavs]

Well i have 2 stoves one is the 6100 the other is a ashley 5500xl pellet stove. the ashley is in the house and the 6100 is in my 1200 sqft. shop. The ashely will heat my house without the use of my furnace, the 6100 won't heat the shop up much at all. my shop is better insulated than my house is. The difference between the 2 is in the heat exchanger, the ashley has 7 tubes through the top of the firebox, that the air is forced through. the 6100 the air is blown around the outside of the firebox and out the top.

So i figure that if i put tubes in the firebox and force the air through them that in effect increses the surface area that is heated.

[owen1508]

And they are both made by US Stove and do such a different job. How is it that some people can heat a 2000 sf house with the 6100 and you have a 1200sf shop you can't heat?
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-------Patrick------
Aspire to Inspire Before You Expire! --UNK
US Stove
USSC 6041 and 6500

[mavs]

the reason i bought the 6100 was because i was extremely happy with the performance of the ashley, which is only rated at 48,000 btu if i remember right. So i bought the 6100 which is supposed to be rated at 75,000 btu. So i would get more output available if needed plus be able to burn corn. But that's not the way it worked out, heat output is sorely lacking in my opinion. And judging be the comments i have read here by others as well.