Post your H45 heater setups

I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of my new H45 heater that I bought from Uncle Sam's Surplus on Black Friday. I am planning on installing it in my woodshop and was wondering if anyone has any pictures of their heater installed permanently. Do you actually use a military tripod for the fuel can or do you have something else rigged up? Will any standard 4" stove pipe work? I'm going to go out the wall with it. Should I run the stack up vertically and then go out the wall, or try to go out the wall as soon as possible? Will it affect the burn at all either way?

Thanks

Yes, run it vertically first, you need to generate updraft so the smoke is carried out. Also, have you spoke yo your insurance co. about this yet? I was going to install a wood heater in my garage and they said I wouldn't be covered if there was a fire. Might want to get that info before you hook it up.

gimpyrobb said:

Yes, run it vertically first, you need to generate updraft so the smoke is carried out. Also, have you spoke yo your insurance co. about this yet? I was going to install a wood heater in my garage and they said I wouldn't be covered if there was a fire. Might want to get that info before you hook it up.

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This is very common. There will no doubt be some Pa. code that needs to be followed and maybe even professionally installed if you're even able to do it. You best check. If you sneak it in and there's a problem you not going to be covered. I know a guy who purchased a house 17 years ago, put a wood burner in two years later. His house burned do to the wood burner (flue fire) about three years ago. He's out of luck. Another guy I know was told he had 30 days to remove it or they would cancel his H.O. Insurance.

It will be in a detached (50 feet away) garage. The walls are 12" block. If there's a fire and I'm not covered it wouldn't be good but not the end of the world either. So I guess no one installs these permanently?

I didn't see a clear answer on the stove pipe diameter. I bought one of these stoves the other day and I measured the diameter on the stove and it was something like 3-7/8" and I was told the cap is 3" diameter (I did not measure the cap myself). So what pipe should I buy? Should i buy a 4' to 3" reducer and put that on first and then use all 3" pipe for the whole length or should I get all 4" and then use the reducer at the top for the cap? Or should I buy all 4" pipe and buy a 4" cap? I know it cant be rocket science but one way might be better than another to get a good draft going and I am not sure what would be best. I only plan on using it outside similar to a camp fire would be used.

Mine came with 4" pipe and 4 " cap

How tall does the flue pipes have to be? I am guessing the stove can not operate without the flue pipes because the stove needs the draft, correct?

I finally got my H45 heater up and going with help/moral support from 74M35A2. I used 95% diesel as fuel and there was probably 5% of used motor left in the can from before (filtered deuce fuel). We used a piece of stainless exhaust pipe for the chimney and it seemed to work pretty good. I couldn't believe how hot it got. On the high setting the area around the chimney was glowing red hot and a small continuous flame was coming out of the stack. Is this normal? Other than that, I was pretty happy on the performance. Has anybody ever used one of these heaters with WMO as fuel? I was thinking blending the fuel with diesel or kerosene might help it flow through the hose and metering assembly. Maybe run a 50/50 mix or so. Here are some pictures of the heater in operation.

Wildchild467 said:

How tall does the flue pipes have to be? I am guessing the stove can not operate without the flue pipes because the stove needs the draft, correct?

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It needs to be taller than the ridge of the tent or building. That is too hot!

Tom, I'd say something is drastically wrong there. That's running way too hot! You'll quickly destroy your stack (along with anything else near by) running it that hot.
In general it seems like way too much fuel and way too much draft if you've got flames coming out the top! But I don't know anything about those stoves or how you meter the fuel on them. Heating the pipe to red hot will quickly fatigue the metal and it will fall apart on you and most likely start a fire in the process. Pic #3 looks like you've got a door at the bottom of the heater open. Is there an damper in the door or elsewhere to regulate the air/draft? If so that door should be closed during operation and you adjust your inlet air with the damper. Leaving the door open will let way too much air in.

Lower access door needs to be closed, or it will melt down (figuratively), it will catch anything around it on fire. Does your insurance agent know you own one of these?

We just tested it outside. There is a fuel control flow meter that I could turn down to low and it was not glowing red on that setting. Only on high it got that hot. I do not plan on using it inside at all. Its too crude of a machine and not safe for that. Its just a toy.

When those puppies are new, if you hit them w/ WD40 and a rag it will
remove the cosmoline, that anti-rust film of grease on them.

I have a couple of those bad boys left and for sale in the classifieds.
There is a you tube link there w/ some great instructions and stuff.

Check it out HERE

I would hardly call a free 4"x5' stainless riser tube (that I paid $100 for, yes I got ripped off, and it is now welded to his knarly science experiment), and 4.5 gallons of spilled fuel in my driveway "moral support".

Next run, I'm stuffing my leaf blower into the air inlet doors, and we are going to supercharge the Tin Man. All in favor of 7' flames out the top say "aye".

I want video!!!!!!

To Quote Tim Allen, MORE POWER!





Grunt grunt grunt...

We only spilled like a cup or two Jerry. One of the doors on the bottom has to be open to let the fuel inlet hose in. These heaters use the fuel control module to control the amount of heat they put out. There is not much to these things.

74M35A2: We should put the air intake to your leave blower not purpendicular to the heater that way it creates a swirl effect just like a multifuel in the combustion chamber! Lets take the module apart and figure out how to get more fuel to that bad boy! (all joking of course)

Has anybody used WMO or a blend of WMO and diesel/kerosene for fuel in these heaters? I would never ever put even a small amount of gasoline mixed with WMO in these heaters.

@Wildchild: Yup to the WMO. Thinned it 80/20 with gas and it works just fine.

Reviving because I've added one of these as a new toy to my line-up.

Mine is the older variant with the threaded connections. The surplus store had sold out of all the QD type, but still had the hose assembly lingering around, so he threw it in for free for me since I had some interest in it. In looking up the part catalogs from numbers stamped on the fittings, all the QD fittings are just standard brass industrial air hose couplings with Nitrile gaskets, so I'll grab the appropriate connectors to fit the actual metering valve (and replace the line going from the burner assembly to the metering valve). Should be nice just having the new-style push-to-fit connection rather than threading them.

For anyone with these, any idea how hot they're supposed to run? I check with an IR thermometer and on my lowest possible setting in the diesel range, the top of my space heater was at 900F, which has it faintly glowing in the dark. As well, if I completely close the top lid, it seems that it like to not burn correctly, leading some vapor to be burning in the stack instead of in the firebox with a bit of a surging/chugging effect. It seems like this is the fuel rate being too high, despite the settings limiting this?

Follow-up: I was running my stove again today, this time, I had more of the pipe section on for better draft and I was using fresh diesel, not the crap from my catch-can that had the muck filtered out. It burned much more steady this time. Same temperatures, but the door was happy to be fully closed and I had almost no smoke out the stack, just heat. Lesson: use an appropriate stack height for a good draft and use clean fuel.

Next up: does anybody else have a **** of a time getting their chimney pipes onto their stove? It's proper 4" pipe that came with the stove, but I can't press or wiggle that onto the collar to save my life. It doesn't fit the crimped end inside the collar, nor does the smooth end fit around the collar...they seem to be perfectly the same size, leaving me no room to work with. For functionality, I had a scrap piece of 4" duct that didn't snap together, but wrapped around the collar and stove pipe and used band clamp to hold together...made a mighty fine splint and seemed that it sealed out any smoke escape quite well. I'm tempted to get out a hammer and slightly flaring out the bottom stove pipe so that I can get all this assembled much more easily and not have to worry about band clamps failing on me.