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Installation for a Shaver 165 Outdoor Wood Furnace Cont.
Step 1 Location from House or Building Step 2 Concrete Slab
Step 3 Digging Trench for Water Lines and Electric
Now the slab is poured and your ready to dig your trench. These steps can be reversed if easier for your setup. Basic tools are a shovel and a pick. Took about a weekend for the neighbor and myself to dig a 30 ft. run and about 36 inches deep and around 15 inches wide. You should have two one inch pex lines insulated inside a 4 inch black sewer line. If you are using two pumps on the back of the Shaver Outdoor Wood Furnace you will have a total of 4 Pex Lines and another tube to run your electric line (which my electric line was run through normal 1 inch water line, the black 1 inch water line or pipe is pretty cheap at lowes).
For our setup we also ran 2 3/4 inch pex lines for the copper water coil placed in the water jacket. For the water lines we decided to purchase the pex and insulate the lines our selves. Using the standard black insulation that slides over the pex, copper or pvc and ran those lines through 4 inch sewer line piping. Project is not that hard on a small run of less then 50 ft.
Quick Tip if a buddy has backhoe or some other digging machine it would be a good idea to give him a call. Digging through clay, rocky soil as we did was not very fun. And if your trench is longer then 30 ft get a team of buddies over or rent something.
So the trench is dug and the side of the building is exposed, next step is to put a hole in the hose to run the lines inside. On the inside plan were the lines will be running and give yourself extra line to plan for adjustments. For the hole we used a drill, seems like it took forever to get through the concrete block. Drill was a cordless 18 v Hitachi. More effective was a heavy hammer and chisel. So once the hole is done and your lines are placed in the hole we used fast drying concrete to fill in the area around the lines. This concrete sets up very fast so mix it near the hole being filled. If you have to walk very far after mixing the concrete maybe already setup. After concrete drys we used masonry water proof paint (smells like hell) to seal the hole.
Lay some stone over your lines and then backfill the trench. Leave some extra dirt laying nearby the trench to lay over the trench when the dirt settles and then plant your grass seed.
Step 4 Water Tank Hook up for Domestic Hot Water
On most water tanks you have 3/4 inch threads for the overflow and the drain on the bottom. The 3/4 Pex lines are used for the domestic hot water, you can use a different size if needed. Before you hook up the hot water lines turn your water off and its also a good time to flush it out which should be done once a year to remove any sediment at the bottom of the tank. The two lines will be connected to the drain at the bottom (hot water coming in from the outdoor furnace) and the overflow valve on the side (water leaving the tank and getting heated throught the copper coil). Take off the overflow valve and install your fitting we also setup the water pump directly above the overflow valve. This way you can run your electric for the water pump directly off your existing water tank electric outlet. Also wise to put a switch for the water pump so that you can turn it off when furnace is not in use.
Next hook up the return line from the furnace to bottom of the hot water tank to the drain. You will have to take off the drain fitting to install the ones you need (SO A WISE CHOICE WOULD BE TO HAVE THE TANK DRAINED)
Regulating the pump power and temp. control. We used an Aquastat placed on the outflow on the hot water tank to monitor the temperature of the hot water and the setup seems to work really well. So the Aquastat will be set to whatever temp. range you want around 120 or so and when temps fall below your setting the Aquastat turns the water pump on and heats the water until upper limit of your temperature gets hit.
Connections for the Copper Water Coil in the water Jacket. Our furance came with plastic compression fitting which are not very good. Talked to Ben at Shaver furnace and said these were being replaced. Plastic is not that durable and we had one compression fitting bust and dumped hot water all over the back of the furnace and of course it happened while on vacation. So you should eiter solder copper extensions or use shark bite fitting. Too much heat, steam and cold temps for plastic to be used. When the coil is setup replace the steel lid and use high temp caulking to seal that lid, this is very important to seal it up. First season we ran without sealing and seemed to use alot more wood because you lose all that energy and the steam will form condensation all over the furnace. The caulking can be found at tractor supply stores etc...