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Basic stove use


Pennie

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Won't die from carbon monoxide; may however develop hypothermia.

 

It may not have been able to get giddily hot with the stove but jeepers it's cold without it. So glad I'm not in the wilds somewhere least there is some urban warming here ish. Going to try and borrow an electric heater tomorrow as trying to get to and stay asleep in a room 3 oC and dropping is difficult. Windows will be streaming wet in the morning unless frozen lol

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I'm deeply perplexed by the cold in your boat. I have a Boatman stove which I hate with a vengeance, but it keeps the boat warm just fine. The thermometer in here is reading 26oC right now for example and its sub-zero outside.

 

I suspect the problem is a combination of two things. Firstly, shut ALL the windows. You don't need any windows open, not even a tiny bit with a stove alight. A stove burning well will be dragging in more than enough fresh air (through the fixed air vents) to prevent condensation.

 

Secondly, in freezing weather forget mucking about with wood. Burn COAL! There's very little heat energy in wood. A grateful of coal has at least ten times the amount of thermal energy in it as wood, possibly a great deal more. Your comment about your Ecofan not spinning tells us your stove simply isn't getting hot. My ecofan still spins even when the stove is barely alight and producing any heat. When the stove is hot the fan goes like a train and I take it off as it makes so much noise rattling away. And in weather like this the stove needs to be running quite hard to keep the cabin at 26oC!

 

P.S. How much do you want for your Squirrel?

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The eco fan not spinning is because the stove was designed to be safe to touch. If I ever get the stove working efficiently enough to get in the 20s I'll be a happy pennie.

 

Squirrel is £600, it's details are in the sale section.

 

Funniest thing right now, only I could get a hot flush in a room this cold lol. Thankfully it has dropped below 3.5,seems this is where the temp will settle tonight.

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The eco fan not spinning is because the stove was designed to be safe to touch. If I ever get the stove working efficiently enough to get in the 20s I'll be a happy pennie.

 

 

Lol who told you that??!!! Was it the seller of the boat?

 

Anyway this is the root of the problem. ALL stoves get hot. This is how they heat boats. I very much doubt you have a stove designed not to get hot. If you really have, then I wouldn't expect it it to do much heating. Dump it and fit your squirrel. Sorted!

 

By the way it hasn't sold because a new one can be had for £800-ish. £600 for a second hand one is too much given they have limited life. £300 and it'll be snapped up.

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As far as I can tell from the little bits of info about the stove online it was marketed to be safe for the family in case little kids touched it. Maybe these stoves weren't designed as typical stoves and actually put their energy in to their back boiler to heat radiators?

Weird thing we've noticed with this stove so far is it kicks out more heat with wood than coal. Perplexed about than one, but then again nothing about this vintage relic makes sense lol

 

My Squirrel is just too big to fit in the boat, unless I did a major refit.it's not the standard Squirrel, it's the 2b model. I really chose badly buying it hoping it would ever fit on a narrow boat.

Edited by Pennie
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Phew it's HOT in here. Just checked the thermometer and it's now 28.4oC.

 

I think you should just cut your losses and buy a Boatman stove (£300) like wot I have, or a Stavros Stove (£200) like wot Coasty has.

 

Both brilliant value for money and superb boat heating capabilities...

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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Was just considering going out for a dawn stroll along the towpath in my tee shirt, to cool down...

 

cool.png


But seriously, the surface temperature of my stove is probably between 200C and 300C at the moment.

 

Any stove 'safe to touch' is going to have pathetic room heating ability.

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I remember a similar situation in our first (second-hand) boat 15 or so years ago. It was fitted with a stove which, at a guess, had run a domestic central heating system. So it had nice snug insulation all around it - result, the outside was "safe to touch" but the boat didn't get really warm unless we stoked the fire right up and left the stove door open.

 

Being new to all this at the time (we had previously boated only on hire boats, none of which had a stove) we thought that they were all like that. The saloon got tolerably warm but the bedroom (and this was only a 39-foot boat) remained almost glacial in cold weather.

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What is it about you boatman stove MtB that you hate? Just curious if it was a personal thing about them or if you had a disagreement with you current one. I ask because you still recommended one.

 

They look like a good choice to replace mine. Just need to get hold of one and then someone to fit it asap. The asap is proving the difficult bit.

 

Wish I had a car to go to where the electric heaters I have for the boat are. Just something to take the edge off the cold. I would be fine if my body acted like it's 26 and not an Oap, oh the joys of being chronically ill :-/

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I'm sure the marina where you are at sell a range of stoves, and there will be people there to fit them... Go talk to the chandlers. You might even get a discount if you moor in the marina.

 

I swear by my Squirrel 1410 - smaller than the one you have, but very easy to control. Well suited to boats IMO. Can punt out tons of heat, or keep it ticking over on a light load and give out gentle heat.

 

Cant say I've used any other type.

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(snip)

Weird thing we've noticed with this stove so far is it kicks out more heat with wood than coal. Perplexed about than one, but then again nothing about this vintage relic makes sense lol

(snip).

 

Kelpie's stove isn't very effective either. Can't remember the make offhand, but the problem seems to be that the bottom vents do not provide bottom draught, but just let air into the stove. There is a large space between the front of the grate and the door, and most of the air seems to go through that, rather than the grate. It's a real pain to get it going well, but it does go better with wood than coal, probably because of this.

A squirrel, as we had in Copperkins, is MUCH easier to get, and keep, going well, IMO.

 

(We're looking to replace Kelpie's one sometimeunsure.png )

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I've fitted a couple of these stoves in boats in the last year or two and they've been excellent, just visited the wide beam I fitted one in at it's as warm as toast. They are Chinsese stoves and in my opinion are better quality than many stoves at three times the price for the size. And very controllable. They are quite small, although rated at 6kw which I think is a bit optimistic, more like 5 or 4kw, but anyhow easy to bung a house brick on either side of the grate to reduce heat and coal consumption if too hot. They come under many names with different suppliers. The ones I've fitted are called ''Mazona Rocky'' £201 from ''gr8fires.co.uk'' Google them. In fact, I think maybe forum member Starcoaster has one of these, although she calls it ''Stavros'' and is very pleased with it.

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Even though I have a £1000 stove, I quite like the look of this one.

 

http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/PBSCProduct.asp?ItmID=9622640

It may be able to have a back boiler. You could email them as it looks like some kind of knock out tappings on the rear for a boiler.

Evergreen stoves are a good Chinese choice.

 

Jamescheers.gif

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Availability of a boatman is currently 3 weeks. Look for alternatives in case something as good is available sooner

The only have stoves from £625 up :-/ did look

 

freaky friday at Midland Chandlers this coming Friday.. 15% off online.

 

I can lend you some oil filled radiators and electric fan heaters if you want in the meantime, although I'm not up in the area until Tues morning. (presuming you are on hook-up).

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Even though I have a £1000 stove, I quite like the look of this one.

 

http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/PBSCProduct.asp?ItmID=9622640

It may be able to have a back boiler. You could email them as it looks like some kind of knock out tappings on the rear for a boiler.

Evergreen stoves are a good Chinese choice.

 

Jamescheers.gif

That one is very pretty but as Athy said "cracking choice" wasn't a cracking choice of wording lol

 

 

freaky friday at Midland Chandlers this coming Friday.. 15% off online.

 

I can lend you some oil filled radiators and electric fan heaters if you want in the meantime, although I'm not up in the area until Tues morning. (presuming you are on hook-up).

Thank you so much for your offer, but I couldn't stand the cold no more I had to relight the poor performing stove but we tested the direction of air flow using a match (it went in and up, not out towards us) and have put the CO monitor right near the stove at waist height. I did look at midland chandlers but wasn't inspired by their choice.

 

Other good news is I've come to the decision of getting a Boatman stove as was really struggling to find one compatible with a back boiler. Will take 3 weeks for manufacture but I'm hoping the Torglow will keep us ticking over for now. Can't wait to be able to cook on the stove top ^_^

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I'd check with Eddie because the back boilers on the old original Boatman stoves were a welded in tank, welded in at the top area of the back plate using the stoves back panel and top plate as the back and tank top sides, ok, but the full heat of the fire can't completely surround the tank like that, just the bottom and front face of it which would cut its efficiency down by about 30% or so and so struggle to heat perhaps even just one radiator. A proper back boiler should be placed with a passage all around and behind it too, you then have three sides plus the ends and a bit of its top presented to the full fire's heat for best efficiency.

Perhaps Eddie now does this on his latest stoves, I don't know.

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