Re: Arrow Wood Stove Fan Failed- Nightmare repair

by chas February 28th 2020, 4:52 pm

Growing up I was around fireplaces, stoves that burned gas, wood or kero, when I was teenager Dad was in his 50's. Big time asthma, going out to the stump dump and carve up a massive elm tree stump was an all day job. Lay in a cord to a cord and a half, just for the "fireplace". It all stopped by '65. I married in '68 and moved into my present home in '73. All gas fired, I never bothered to put in a wood stove or fireplace although several of my neighbors have...

Thank goodness as the lack of smoke in the house is a blessing for me with asthma too.

Still regret getting the FATSO at a country barn sale, they wanted $20.

That would have been perfect for my backyard Ham shack...

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Trick with any aux heat is a source of cheap or free fuel.

Now not only do I have a few trees in my backyard I am adjacent to a wooded area, private, but there are dozens of fallen trees. They are falling all the time so there is plenty of wood...

In many areas, both towns and states are enacting CO2 regulations. It will get more difficult, read expensive, if not actually prohibited to set up any stove or heater that does not have some sort of CO2 reduction.

But, like a lot of regulation, there will likely be a grandfather clauses. So it may be practical to at least install a stove, heater even if there are no immediate plans to use it..

There are some effective waste oil heaters that do burn cleanly. Alternately burning cooking oil.

Now there is a concept making bio diesel from used cooking oil, but there is a waste product that must be disposed of, glycerin... It is hard to burn...

However, the bio diesel fuel can go into a diesel generator like:

Yah the boy was unfamiliar with the use of the two compression releases. He should of been cranking and the "engineer" flipping the levers...

I have been tempted to do the Listeroid thing, but not Biodiesel, too much danger of contamination of the property. Bad enough to have gasoline around for my old Kohler...

I have no sons to help at my age...

Chas

by Cliff Jones February 28th 2020, 4:20 pm

In Wisconsin we used the coal ashes on frozen walkways and under the tires of cars that couldn't move on icy streets.

by Guest February 28th 2020, 2:12 pm

Speaking of burning coal for extra heat, the family used to do that back in Lynchburg, Virginia at my Aunt Annie's house on Washington Street. It was available for a number of years from a local coal dealer that got it in by rail car load. We preferred to go and pick out our owns pieces from a big pile of it. There were all sizes of chunks of it in the pile-not at all uniform in size like the power plants want and we liked to burn the big pieces best. When one of those got orange hot or better it would really put out a lot of heat into the living room. This went on until the coal business finally closed down and that was the end of it. Seemed like a shame when it was gone. The coal ashes were another matter.
73, Roderick

by FrankB February 27th 2020, 11:17 pm

No coal around here unless one drives to Tono and has some way of getting into the steam plant coal supplies. And it's soft coal too. Not suitable for forging.

by Cliff Jones February 27th 2020, 1:00 pm

How about a small and I mean small coal/wood stove?
I have my Grandpas cast Iron wood stove that was given to me about 5 years ago, I knew nothing about it, other than it was used by Him as a Parlor Stove.

Approx 1-1/2 foot wide, about two foot high with cast iron legs and about two to three foot long. Made about 1864.

Heres a picture:

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Coal puts out the most heat per pound with oil following a close second.
Just don't store anything that contains gasoline, such as lawn mowers. :evil:

A second after thought Just get a gasoline engine, plant it outside and run radiator hoses and hook up to a Radiator off an old car and with a fan. No exhaust fumes .
Idea

I thought of doing that myself. Even a Honda motorcycle engine that uses a radiator.

by FrankB February 26th 2020, 11:22 pm

I seriously thought about building a waste oil heater. But I think the local air pollution Greeners would have a heart attack.... Hmmm.............

by chas February 25th 2020, 4:50 pm

Golly Frank,

You now qualify for an HVAC license, you have been grandfathered.

You had quite the adventure, my fun some 14 months ago with a Jotul stove was a cakewalk...

Can't imagine a technician doing this at all...

My first Ham shack was a 20 x 20' room on the 2nd fllor of an unheated (most of the time) utility barn.

I was going through 30 gallons of propane in a month just on pilot. I modified a Humphrey single burner heater stove that was formerly producer gas. The Humphrey would make a loud "POP" from a cold start, so I would keep it on pilot.

It was a nice Ham shack that never really got back together when I moved... Still dream of converting one of my sheds to a shack. I imagine a little wood stove like a "Fatso" along the North wall, coffee percolator on top...

Chas

by FrankB February 23rd 2020, 12:24 am

I would love to have natural gas here, but the gas co. basically said never. Too far out.
If I had nat gas, I could heat the shop to a consistent 60. I tried it with propane & I ran thru 350 gallons in 20 days. So gas stove there is non functional. Wood heats it when I use it, which is seldom anymore.

by Cliff Jones February 22nd 2020, 7:27 pm

I went from propane to Natural Gas, Cost me about 750, that included after the gas meter to changing to a smaller orifice. Last Months Bill was just under $59 for gas = 60 Therms and Electric bill was $40 KW = 360.

Not bad as last year my electric bill alone was $160 for 1 month
Combined Heating costs last month $100 so a savings of $60

When I was on propane it was without use, so $25 just to run the Pilot. for 2 months

I looked at the price on a blower and it would have been online $100 or more, so I just went for a small propeller 3-inch for $8 and a Oscillation 6-inch for $40. I run the temperature at 68 to 72 degrees during the day and down to 62 down to 58 degrees after 10PM.

I change to an programmable thermostat for $40 and I have notice a drop in my gas bill.
I just cant do the tinkering I use to do. Crying or Very sad

Glad to hear about solving your problem. cheers

by FrankB February 22nd 2020, 6:18 pm

Let me start off with this caveat- I am not a machinist or a mechanic. I fixed radios.

I have an older Arrow wood stove, the heat-a-lator model.
The fan kept freezing up.

After weeks of searching for a replacement fan, none were to be had.

The original fan assy. was a custom made unit by Heat-a-lator for that specific model stove.

What a nightmare from HXXX to cobble together a replacement.

My local Motors and Controls- (Great folks!) found me a Fasco D181 motor. (About $150.00 total).
(The OEM was NLA and Arrow out of biz for years now. Of course. Did I expect anything else?). 2 trips to town. One to order & 1 to pick it up.

Then It required a special $30.00+ mounting kit. Neutral

The original shaft has a set screw that is very difficult to get to. and a "very common" size- 9/64" Allen wrench was required to remove it. Oh, and it needed to be a long shaft to get through the squirrel cage fins too. A trip to town for a long shank Allen wrench kit.

And the motor "Had its wiring diagram on the label on the motor, per my supplier and Fasco website.
Nope. Crying or Very sad

Had to wait another 2 days for them to open to get the info. They looked it up, and nope, not on the motor tag. (See I wasn't that big an idiot). (Yet another trip to town).
They did make me a photocopy of the wiring diagram too. Thanks guys! Very Happy

Of course, the set screw collar was stuck. Off to my buddy who is a machinist for help.
With a long (12") drift we managed to drive the shaft out of the collar. (Yup- another trip to town).

Then the new shaft wouldn't fit as the collar had burrs on it. Tapered reamer to the rescue.

We mounted the squirrel cage on the motor and secured it. Cool. Almost done, right? :evil:

The replacement fan is 2 speed vs. 3 speed for the OEM. Not a problem I could live with that.

Then I had to find 3 new SPECIAL mounting grommets for the mounting bolts. (Ace Hardware. $1.69 each.). Great Progress..... (Another trip to town).
Then the slots in the new mounting kit wouldn't fit the grommets, too small. :evil:

4 hours later of filing, 2 worn out files and blisters, (Antibiotic cream and bandaids ) still wouldn't fit. My machinist buddy told me to go get a carbide Dremel bit. Easy. $8.95 for that at Home Depot. (Another trip to town).
Wait- my Sears Dremel "clone" died. Another $69.00 and a trip to town for a new Dremel brand tool. Ok, slow progress....

Great! The bit cut the metal like butter. I was able to enlarge all the slots in under 10 minutes to accept the new grommet and the whole thing fit together. (Then 2 hours of pulling tiny metal bits out of my fingers. Note to self:- wear rubber gloves next time). Cover motor with cloth to keep metal bits out of vent holes in back of motor. Sealed bearings too.
I did blow out the motor to get rid of any stray metal particles. (No, I didn't blow the squirrel cage around with the compressor either. That can ruin bearings).

Yahoo- fan assy dropped into the housing . Fantastic.....
Not. The cage kept hitting the housing as I rotated it by hand. So several hours of "adjusting" it all, and finally no scraping.

Now to install the assy. Dropped it. Grrrrr. Another 1.25 hours of adjusting the unit so it didn't scrape again. VERY tight clearances in the housing.
Awesome- no scraping. Went to put assy in stove. WHAT! :twisted: The top mounting kit ears wouldn't fit in the space- too long. OK cut the mtg. ear off. Fit fine.

Next wire up the switch. I bought a new DPDT center off toggle $17.95 + tax) to replace the old rotary 3 position switch. Female spade conn. wouldn't stay on lugs. Asian import connectors. :evil:

Then I noticed wires were too short for the switch to reach the mounting hole. Stripped back the line cord and cut off the spade connectors. Soldered them to the switch. Heat shrinked the lugs and wires.
Re- checked the fan operation. Rubbing on housing again. WHAT???!!

More adjustments. Cool, ready to go. Nope. Switch hole wrong size for the new switch. Drilled out hole and got it mounted. Done!- NOPE. Crying or Very sad

The bottom mounting ear blocked the perforated protective screen from going back on.
Pulled the bloody thing back out and cut off the mounting bracket like I had done the top one. Slid it back in, finished mounting the switch and tested it.

FINALLY SUCCESS. Shocked

By the time I was done, I had $400.00-$500.00 into the repair, counting the parts, chemicals, & tools I had to buy, bits, gas, time, etc.

It would have been easier to "just spend a couple of thousand" on a new stove and faster too. Chump change, right?

But it is done, and ready to warm me again. Been a cold couple of weeks to get it fixed, for sure.

And YES! I did Locktite (tm) the nuts and screws too.

Would I do it again- Now that I know the hassle- nope, not if I had the bux to buy a new stove.

But, I now have some new tools, extra hardware, and know what is required to do it again.
Hopefully, not in what is left of my lifetime.

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