# Fine tuning EKO



## sdrobertson

Question for you before I tear down front of stove tomorrow while cleaning everything.  I've always had a problem staying in complete gasification.  What I've been doing is after stove is up to temp and running well I start to get smoke out the chimney.  I would go out to the stove and stir up the wood and it would burn really well for about 5 - 10 minutes and then start to smoke alittle again.  In a hour or so I would go back out and stir and again good gasification.  What I was thinking was that I couldn't keep hot coals by the nozzles so I would loose gasification.  Today I decided to screw around with the secondary air and I went from fully closed to fully opened.  Not much difference.  I then opened the top and let the smoke clear out like I always do and then stirred the wood.  It occurred to me that maybe I was getting to much fuel (smoke) and that maybe the primary's were open to far and letting to much air in the top chamber.  I have a fire going so I can't work on the primary's so what I did was open the secondary's all the way and closed down the fan shutters to about a 1/2 inch.  Its been about a hour and still in gasification but its not roaring like it does when I first close up the top after stirring the wood.  I set the primary's to the manual specs so what I wondering is how much should I close them so that I can start closing my secondary settings and fine tuning?  Does any of this make sense or am I spinning my wheels like usual?


----------



## sdrobertson

Update - My burns are just a little bit better now.  Its even better with no end to gasification when I just barely crack the bottom door.  I did this for 30 minutes and it really ran well so I'm thinking its starving for O2 in the gasification chamber.  I'm not spending all night with the door cracked so I closed it up and it went back to the way it was burning this afternoon.  Hopefully tomorrow I can get it zeroed in with the primary air closed down - I'm just wondering how much?


----------



## Eric Johnson

That almost sounds like you're burning wood that's not dry enough, though it could certainly be the air adjustments as well.


----------



## sdrobertson

Eric Johnson said:
			
		

> That almost sounds like you're burning wood that's not dry enough, though it could certainly be the air adjustments as well.



When you make adjustments to the air - how much do you have to move them so see a difference?  Is it like a fine carburetor where just a 1/4 turn really changes things or are we talking a full turn on the secondary screws and a 1/4 inch on the fan inlets?


----------



## rickh1001

sdrobertson

I am still learning how to tweek my EKO 60 as well.  I know if I have only a modest fire going, then load it to the gills with fresh wood, I often come back to find that there are no coals by the nozzles, and sometimes the boiler will shut down with a "Fuel" error.  On the other hand, if I maintain a deep bed of hot coals, I can throw wood on up to the top of the chamber, and have it burn down nicely, with full gasification.  So I'm not sure it is simply the wrong settings on the primary/secondary air, as much as it is the routine of stirring the embers and charcoal down towards the nozzle before loading more wood. 

One thing I am seeing is there is a bit of a myth about firing these boilers flat out, then living off the stored heat for a day or more.  At least in my case, where I am heating two buildings with rather large heat loads, and with only 500 gal of storage, there isn't a whole lot of down time between firings. In fact, I am pretty much running the EKO full time in the colder weather (we are at 5F tonight).  It seems to like being loaded every 4-6 hours, and if I do, it keeps a deep bed of coals and gasifies like crazy with a huge roar and red heat in the secondary masonry.  In that regard, I have found the recommended settings from the factory to be right on - about 50-60% opening of the primary fans, and 3.5 turns out on the secondary screws.  The EKo hates it if it runs out of fire, and I find it takes hours to get the bed of coals really going again where I can have steady, reliable gasification if I leave it.  

In general, I am finding keeping the EKO running is pretty similar to running a regular wood furnace.  Nothing wrong with that, but although it is more efficient with its gasification and automation, it is still a wood furnace at the end of the day, and requires more or less continuous attention.


----------



## Duetech

boilerman said:
			
		

> sdrobertson
> 
> I am still learning how to tweek my EKO 60 as well.  I know if I have only a modest fire going, then load it to the gills with fresh wood, I often come back to find that there are no coals by the nozzles, and sometimes the boiler will shut down with a "Fuel" error.  On the other hand, if I maintain a deep bed of hot coals, I can throw wood on up to the top of the chamber, and have it burn down nicely, with full gasification.  So I'm not sure it is simply the wrong settings on the primary/secondary air, as much as it is the routine of stirring the embers and charcoal down towards the nozzle before loading more wood.
> 
> One thing I am seeing is there is a bit of a myth about firing these boilers flat out, then living off the stored heat for a day or more.  At least in my case, where I am heating two buildings with rather large heat loads, and with only 500 gal of storage, there isn't a whole lot of down time between firings. In fact, I am pretty much running the EKO full time in the colder weather (we are at 5F tonight).  It seems to like being loaded every 4-6 hours, and if I do, it keeps a deep bed of coals and gasifies like crazy with a huge roar and red heat in the secondary masonry.  In that regard, I have found the recommended settings from the factory to be right on - about 50-60% opening of the primary fans, and 3.5 turns out on the secondary screws.  The EKo hates it if it runs out of fire, and I find it takes hours to get the bed of coals really going again where I can have steady, reliable gasification if I leave it.
> 
> In general, I am finding keeping the EKO running is pretty similar to running a regular wood furnace.  Nothing wrong with that, but although it is more efficient with its gasification and automation, it is still a wood furnace at the end of the day, and requires more or less continuous attention.



boilerman & sdrobertson,
     Ideally for gassification the upper chamber is only supposed to smolder and generate enough heat to charcoalize the wood in the upper chamber and should never get enough oxygen to have a fire. If you are getting burned out pockets over the nozzle it is because of too much air supply/velocity over the nozzle. I only have a 40 but the principle is the same. Close down the primary as directed in the new manual on page 18 (to 9-12 mm) and the blower (from 50-70%) to *start* tweaking the boiler. In my 40 with no storage I have added about 1 hour burn time per loading with hard wood. A monster flame in secondary that is predominately yellow orange in color is under oxygenated and over fueled which blows efficiency and produces smoke and will produce hot pockets that gassify for a short time.

500 gal storage is barely minimum and probably too small for the 40 and for the 60 is way undersized. See page 7 in the manual for the formula and page 26 for the data to plug in to the formula to determine storage for your boiler. For the 60 you should have about 841 gal minimum (their math confuses my calculator). Nofossil has a 25 and uses 880 gal. storage and one fire a day. I don't know your sq. ft. or heating formula for btu's required for your set up but per your boiler and the manual you need more storage to extend your between firing times. With no storage I burn 24-7 so I know your pain. Next summer I am going to try building 1200 gal. storage for my system...Stay warm


----------



## markpee

Can someone tell me where the primary air setting is located on my 40 and how to get to it?


----------



## Tony H

The primary air setting is behind the fan panel , you have to remove about 12 screws and there are 2 slide covers in the upper corners of the panel. I know what you are thinking why the heck didn't they make these easy to adjust like the secondaries. There is a good picture of it in the new manual.


----------



## sdrobertson

Cave2k said:
			
		

> boilerman & sdrobertson,
> Ideally for gassification the upper chamber is only supposed to smolder and generate enough heat to charcoalize the wood in the upper chamber and should never get enough oxygen to have a fire. If you are getting burned out pockets over the nozzle it is because of too much air supply/velocity over the nozzle. I only have a 40 but the principle is the same. Close down the primary as directed in the new manual on page 18 (to 9-12 mm) and the blower (from 50-70%) to *start* tweaking the boiler. In my 40 with no storage I have added about 1 hour burn time per loading with hard wood. A monster flame in secondary that is predominately yellow orange in color is under oxygenated and over fueled which blows efficiency and produces smoke and will produce hot pockets that gassify for a short time.
> 
> 500 gal storage is barely minimum and probably too small for the 40 and for the 60 is way undersized. See page 7 in the manual for the formula and page 26 for the data to plug in to the formula to determine storage for your boiler. For the 60 you should have about 841 gal minimum (their math confuses my calculator). Nofossil has a 25 and uses 880 gal. storage and one fire a day. I don't know your sq. ft. or heating formula for btu's required for your set up but per your boiler and the manual you need more storage to extend your between firing times. With no storage I burn 24-7 so I know your pain. Next summer I am going to try building 1200 gal. storage for my system...Stay warm



This morning I filled the stove with what I know is dry wood and let that burn to see if Eric was right in a couple posts above this.  No smoke but I was still getting the pockets around the nozzles so the wood and the primary air was a problem.  I just read your thread and it makes sense because I always have flames in the top chamber.  I just closed the primary's just a touch.  Immediate results were bluer flames (still more orange though) out both nozzles.  I'll let it burn like this for awhile and hopefully I'll have good results.  One problem I still have is that I noticed that my secondary covers are to low just like several others have had.  I'm wondering if this was a design by Orlan of if they are supposed to be totally covering the secondary tubes as my stove is a older 60.


----------



## Dave T

SROB I wish I could tell you how mine burned before I changed my secondary inlet plates, But I saw this as a problem before I had my first fire and switched it (easy fix) but if there are more than mine out there that the secondarys are low on the EKO standards maybe mine was not a mistake?? Either way I put screws in the secondary holes so it can be changed back easily..In my opinion comming in full contact with the secondary inlet pipes is the only true way to close them off,  opening them a little extra is no issue if that what it takes just my $0.02..Dave


----------



## sdrobertson

TacoSteelerMan said:
			
		

> SROB I wish I could tell you how mine burned before I changed my secondary inlet plates, But I saw this as a problem before I had my first fire and switched it (easy fix) but if there are more than mine out there that the secondarys are low on the EKO standards maybe mine was not a mistake?? Either way I put screws in the secondary holes so it can be changed back easily..In my opinion comming in full contact with the secondary inlet pipes is the only true way to close them off,  opening them a little extra is no issue if that what it takes just my $0.02..Dave



I agree that it seems funny that there are so many.  I wonder if they did it for safety reasons as you can never close them off all the way and then build up gas in the bottom chamber.  I'm going to burn awhile and see if I can get it tuned in further before I attempt to move them.


----------



## Eric Johnson

There's a lot of good information and observations in this post. Boilerman is right about a gasification boiler being not all that much different than any other wood-fired boiler in the commitment and tending department. You just get a lot more usable heat out of a gasifier and a much cleaner burn. I also agree completely with the observation about the coal bed. That seems to be a pretty important element to success. You can get a clean burn without a bed of coals, but it's trickier to accomplish. I always try to stir the coal bed up and get everything right over the top of the nozzles. As to the air settings, I'll have to look your advice over again and see if I can come up with an experimentation strategy. Basically, I got mine working well last year and quit fooling with it, but I have the new controller (not hooked up yet), and it seems to offer some interesting options for tweaking performance. Like everyone else, I'm always looking for more efficiency. But hey, this morning it was below zero here, and I woke up to a 70-degree house (big bastid, too) and a firebox full of coals, so it's all good.

Threads like this will really allow us, over time, to nail down how to set up and operate these things. I'm really grateful that we have so many new users willing to experiment and share.

BTW, I did the most recent manual revision for New Horizon Corp., and I'm really pleased to see that it seems to be more helpful than the older ones. I don't have any connection to the company, other than I bought my boiler last year, took a look at the manual and suggested to Zenon that it would benefit from some illustration and clearer descriptions. I would still like to expand it into a more comprehensive user/installation manual. So maybe when we get this all figured out for good, I'll get Z to let me take another whack at it.


----------



## verne

I have to make an observation . So far Im not sure how much storage is helping me . fast clean burn , yes . but I too load my boiler in the am and pm like most, all though I have to start without a coalbed . Im still learning what temps I can survive on off my tank so maybe this will change .


----------



## Tony H

Eric Johnson said:
			
		

> There's a lot of good information and observations in this post. Boilerman is right about a gasification boiler being not all that much different than any other wood-fired boiler in the commitment and tending department. You just get a lot more usable heat out of a gasifier and a much cleaner burn. I also agree completely with the observation about the coal bed. That seems to be a pretty important element to success. You can get a clean burn without a bed of coals, but it's trickier to accomplish. I always try to stir the coal bed up and get everything right over the top of the nozzles. As to the air settings, I'll have to look your advice over again and see if I can come up with an experimentation strategy. Basically, I got mine working well last year and quit fooling with it, but I have the new controller (not hooked up yet), and it seems to offer some interesting options for tweaking performance. Like everyone else, I'm always looking for more efficiency. But hey, this morning it was below zero here, and I woke up to a 70-degree house (big bastid, too) and a firebox full of coals, so it's all good.
> 
> Threads like this will really allow us, over time, to nail down how to set up and operate these things. I'm really grateful that we have so many new users willing to experiment and share.
> 
> BTW, I did the most recent manual revision for New Horizon Corp., and I'm really pleased to see that it seems to be more helpful than the older ones. I don't have any connection to the company, other than I bought my boiler last year, took a look at the manual and suggested to Zenon that it would benefit from some illustration and clearer descriptions. I would still like to expand it into a more comprehensive user/installation manual. So maybe when we get this all figured out for good, I'll get Z to let me take another whack at it.




The new manual is a huge advance over the older one ! Thanks Eric 
The new one really helped me in getting it installed and running everything from the startup without too much trouble aside from my semi poor soldering skills.
One item I noticed was the piping diagrams do not show a manual tempering valve ahead of the danfoss or termovar.

 It seems as storage must be sized fairly large to offer the ability to skip fires or even days because it takes more time to start them from scratch instead of just adding wood and letting it burn. I have not started a new fire in a few weeks I just add wood 3 times a day and keep it going  and even though the fantasy of using a couple arm fulls of wood every 12 hours has not come true I am pretty happy with it so far although a wood splitter sure would be handy for that wood the maul just bounces off of.
sorry for the rambling


----------



## sdrobertson

[quote author="Tony H" date="1228809051
 It seems as storage must be sized fairly large to offer the ability to skip fires or even days because it takes more time to start them from scratch instead of just adding wood and letting it burn. I have not started a new fire in a few weeks I just add wood 3 times a day and keep it going  and even though the fantasy of using a couple arm fulls of wood every 12 hours has not come true I am pretty happy with it so far although a wood splitter sure would be handy for that wood the maul just bounces off of.
sorry for the rambling[/quote]

I work 12 hour shifts so on the days I'm working I'm gone for 14 hours or so.  What storage has done for me is allow me to leave the house with a small fire going and get through my shift without having to worry if my house is warm for the family.  I get home from work in the AM and start a fire, get the kids ready for school and load the stove.  Get some sleep and load the stove again before work.  CB 6048-lots of wood, smoke and warm house - EKO-allot less wood, no smoke and a warm house.  Only drawback is I have to start fires from scratch but that is getting easier every time I do it.


----------



## Nofossil

sdrobertson said:
			
		

> Only drawback is I have to start fires from scratch but that is getting easier every time I do it.



I think you hit the critical point here. I made the decision to start a fire when I need it, run it flat out as long as I need it, and let it go out. Starting a fire takes 10 minutes, including the time to get it going hot enough for secondary combustion. With storage, I only have to do that once a day.

Trying to keep a fire going when you don't need it hurts your efficiency and can cause creosote deposits in the heat exchangers and chimney.


----------



## tuolumne

What is this new manual that folks are speaking about?  I would love a glimpse.  We just moved into our new home over the weekend, so I am ready to start tweaking my EKO 40 to get better results.  The short story is that our house is plenty warm, even with temperatures below zero sunday night and near zero all day yesterday.  I really need to get on top of my storage hookup...I have all the components, but I've been delaying due to the difficulty in moving 500 gallon propane tanks and wondering if the welding process will blow me up.  I woke up around 5 this morning and the house was warm.  However, my boiler was still full of wood (145 degrees) and said FUEL.  The house is insulated quite well, and there may be several hours between zone calls when the thermostats go from 68 to 65 around 9:30.  During this time I must have run out of coals and gasification could not get going again.  Obviously my storage scheme would be saving me a lot of wood here...I could have avoided throwing those last two armloads in altogether.  I wonder if I could tweak a few air settings in the meantime to help keep things going through the night when the temperature is moderatre outdoors like 15 degrees =).  

Most important: is there an online version of this new manual?


----------



## taxidermist

check here.......       http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/eko.html


----------



## stee6043

Enjoy

Manual:
http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/PDF/ekomanualNA07.pdf

Controller Manual:
http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/PDF/RK-2001UA-ENG1.pdf


----------



## Duetech

tuolumne,
     Where the 40 is concerned, at least mine, I can testify to what tweaking the air can do for extended burn time. I downloaded the new manual and printed it and will be referencing it. Page 18 shows factory recommended settings for "primary" (9-12mm) pictured on pg 19, "secondary" (3,5 turns) pictured on pg 19 and "blower opening" percentage" pictured on pg 19 which are all variable compared to moisture content of the wood being burned. For me primary was almost open an inch when I got the boiler and secondary was open close to an inch as well. The blower opening was closer to 3/4" open. The boiler worked and was impressive. I was naive but my house was warm. It is my opinion that though the new manual is better than the old one I got with the boiler it is only the starting point. 10mm (middle of the road) for primary still seems over powering and I think that is because the blower is a bit robust compared to its purpose. My setting is now 9mm and still too strong as it doesn't seem effected by wood moisture content and there is a lot of blue flame in my secondary chamber and I really have to crank the secondary wide. Any how I am around 10 hours for my burn time with a good coal bed remaining per loading of hard wood without storage. My experience is for there to be coals in my boiler when I wake up I have to avoid sleeping more than 10 hours. Your heat needs are probably greater than mine but you can stretch the burn times.


----------



## tuolumne

Thank you, that is extremely helpful; especially the chart.  My manual contains wonderful advice such as, "Right boiler's temperature maintaining during its exploitation is very important."


----------



## markpee

Cave2k said:
			
		

> tuolumne,
> Where the 40 is concerned, at least mine, I can testify to what tweaking the air can do for extended burn time. I downloaded the new manual and printed it and will be referencing it. Page 18 shows factory recommended settings for "primary" (9-12mm) pictured on pg 19, "secondary" (3,5 turns) pictured on pg 19 and "blower opening" percentage" pictured on pg 19 which are all variable compared to moisture content of the wood being burned. For me primary was almost open an inch when I got the boiler and secondary was open close to an inch as well. The blower opening was closer to 3/4" open. The boiler worked and was impressive. I was naive but my house was warm. It is my opinion that though the new manual is better than the old one I got with the boiler it is only the starting point. 10mm (middle of the road) for primary still seems over powering and I think that is because the blower is a bit robust compared to its purpose. My setting is now 9mm and still too strong as it doesn't seem effected by wood moisture content and there is a lot of blue flame in my secondary chamber and I really have to crank the secondary wide. Any how I am around 10 hours for my burn time with a good coal bed remaining per loading of hard wood without storage. My experience is for there to be coals in my boiler when I wake up I have to avoid sleeping more than 10 hours. Your heat needs are probably greater than mine but you can stretch the burn times.



Cave Man -

Is blue flame good or bad?


----------



## Duetech

Blue/yellow/white flame indicates a clean burn. Orange indicates an under oxygenated (too rich/cooler) flame like an acetylene torch before the O2 is right for the mix. Wood gas should in some regard be looked at as natural or lp gas while burning. Before you can get the hottest flame in ng or lp you need the blue that turns to white/yellow at the tips. Blue then is primarily an indicator you are getting a good mix with enough oxygen. I have no storage and have been running my boiler to get the longest sustained burn times and have had my blower set way low to keep from getting smoke and burn out pockets in the primary chamber. Those problems were because my primary was too wide for the velocity of a wide open blower. I'm down to 9mm on primary. To get the blue flame though it is better to cut the blower way back so you can actually see the blue. Once adjusted you can reset the blower to a wider setting of your preference. It appears that you get a quicker transfer of heat with a wider blower opening but a shorter burn duration which is ideal to some with storage. A smaller blower opening means a slower heat transfer but a longer burn duration with less idling which is ideal for my situation and no storage.


----------



## Kemer

Our situations and settings are the same and i'm getting the same results.It's 50 here and waiting for cold to load it up to see if things change


----------



## Tony H

Cave2k said:
			
		

> Blue/yellow/white flame indicates a clean burn. Orange indicates an under oxygenated (too rich/cooler) flame like an acetylene torch before the O2 is right for the mix. Wood gas should in some regard be looked at as natural or lp gas while burning. Before you can get the hottest flame in ng or lp you need the blue that turns to white/yellow at the tips. Blue then is primarily an indicator you are getting a good mix with enough oxygen. I have no storage and have been running my boiler to get the longest sustained burn times and have had my blower set way low to keep from getting smoke and burn out pockets in the primary chamber. Those problems were because my primary was too wide for the velocity of a wide open blower. I'm down to 9mm on primary. To get the blue flame though it is better to cut the blower way back so you can actually see the blue. Once adjusted you can reset the blower to a wider setting of your preference. It appears that you get a quicker transfer of heat with a wider blower opening but a shorter burn duration which is ideal to some with storage. A smaller blower opening means a slower heat transfer but a longer burn duration with less idling which is ideal for my situation and no storage.


So if I am following this correctly when I have mostly orange gasification I should OPEN the secondaries more to get more oxygen and a hotter blue flame.


----------



## Eric Johnson

Cave2k said:
			
		

> Blue/yellow/white flame indicates a clean burn. Orange indicates an under oxygenated (too rich/cooler) flame like an acetylene torch before the O2 is right for the mix. Wood gas should in some regard be looked at as natural or lp gas while burning. Before you can get the hottest flame in ng or lp you need the blue that turns to white/yellow at the tips. Blue then is primarily an indicator you are getting a good mix with enough oxygen. I have no storage and have been running my boiler to get the longest sustained burn times and have had my blower set way low to keep from getting smoke and burn out pockets in the primary chamber. Those problems were because my primary was too wide for the velocity of a wide open blower. I'm down to 9mm on primary. To get the blue flame though it is better to cut the blower way back so you can actually see the blue. Once adjusted you can reset the blower to a wider setting of your preference. It appears that you get a quicker transfer of heat with a wider blower opening but a shorter burn duration which is ideal to some with storage. A smaller blower opening means a slower heat transfer but a longer burn duration with less idling which is ideal for my situation and no storage.



Great observations and explanation, Cave. Do you check the flame color by opening the bottom door? I don't think there's any other way to do it.


----------



## Duetech

Tony H & Eric Johnson,

Yes opening the secondary will help cut back on the orange but you need to make sure your primary is down to 9-12mm before adjusting the secondary Tony. First however your blower should be cut way down to about 10%. The flame will still be big but rolling not torching. I wait for a call for heat from the controller then shut the boiler off and open the gassification bypass. It only takes a couple of minutes to make adjustments and the few degrees between idle and "heat" is a safety net. I make my adjustments while the boiler has a load and a fire with good coals in it but in the off position. Once the primary is set so you get a blue based flame and your panel is in place you can kick your blower back open and do the secondary adjustment.

Good guess Eric. It's the hard way but I don't have the Garm type eye in my secondary door. The results from the blower re-opening adjustments are really impressive and seem like you are supercharging the system each few degrees wider you go and the flame gets bigger and brighter.


----------



## sdrobertson

Update - first off, wow do these things put out some heat when they are getting close to burning right.  I opened the primary's to 1/2 inch (a little over 12 mm) and I did a quick fix on my secondary tubes by placing metal tape over the tubes and then cutting away where the cover disks hit them.  It ended up being almost 3/4 inch that my disks are to low.  This allows me to actually close off the secondary air.  Fan cover at 1 inch opening, primary's 1/2 inch and secondary between 4 and 5 turns(I forget as I was opening them up till I have white/blue flames).  For a permanent fix to my secondary tube covers being to low, I'm going to add larger disks as then I don't have to try and move them and then fill the holes.  There is enough room to add a inch to the diameter of the disks and then they will cover the tubes.  Once I do that, then I can play with the primary's and tune it up some more.  Seeing the stove burn the way it is now, Orlan must have had a machining problem when they drilled the holes for the secondary settings.  Even with the secondary's all the way closed-they were uncovered by almost 3/4 inch.


----------



## Dave T

GLAD to hear more people are noticing this POSSIBLE FACTORY ERROR make it right (the best way possible for you) and enjoy the heat these things put out it is untouched by any OWB I've ever seen...Dave


----------



## Eric Johnson

It gets your attention. The first couple of times I fired mine up, I couldn't believe the wood-to-heat ratio compared to any of my old rigs.


----------



## Dave T

I bought my EKO used and I have no ties to the product, But here is my opinion after about 2 weeks of use, I HATE the body panels their pressed in type nuts goin panel to panel get stripped out and are over all hard to deal with, I found myself using selftapping 1/2 screws just above the original screw holes to refasten the panels..I am not thrilled with the water supply out of the top of the boiler and the chimney out of the back I feel that is backwards.. But I believe in results, and I've been pleased with the heat this thing puts out consistantly,and plan to purchase a fan and controller for my EKO just to have on hand because it is a simple design and there are only a few things short of catastrophic failure that can go wrong with this boiler..Overall happy with the boiler itself,I find myself going down into the basement to load it and saying HOLYSH!T there is still wood..Dave


----------



## taxidermist

TacoSteelerMan said:
			
		

> I bought my EKO used and I have no ties to the product, But here is my opinion after about 2 weeks of use, I HATE the body panels their pressed in type nuts goin panel to panel get stripped out and are over all hard to deal with, I found myself using selftapping 1/2 screws just above the original screw holes to refasten the panels..I am not thrilled with the water supply out of the top of the boiler and the chimney out of the back I feel that is backwards.. But I believe in results, and I've been pleased with the heat this thing puts out consistantly,and plan to purchase a fan and controller for my EKO just to have on hand because it is a simple design and there are only a few things short of catastrophic failure that can go wrong with this boiler..Overall happy with the boiler itself,I find myself going down into the basement to load it and saying HOLYSH!T there is still wood..Dave



also get yourself a extra temp sensor as I fried mine in a over heat and I ordered it Monday morning and still have not seen it. My panels have clips and pins no screws thats on the top ones anyways. I also agree that the water pipe and the chimney is backwards the draft on these sucks well not really but ya know what I mean.


----------



## Dave T

Thanks for the tip Taxidermist (ring me up a temp sensor too) multi shipping may cost less!!Dave


----------



## barnartist

sroberson e-mailed me about this, I must have missed the thread. My secondary air adjusters was also 3/4 inch low. I noticed this before, but thought it was part of the design. Before I was never able to see and visible difference while adjusting the secondary air, so I pretty much left it alone after six turns back as Eric suggested. 
This morning I ended up metal taping the secondary air pipes as Srob did, then cutting away some of the tape as a temporary fix. However when I fired it up I had a wide and very orange flame much different than before. I took this as a victory, but after readding this entire post, I think Taxi says blue is better-which I had more of before. 
At least though, it looks like I will actually be able to make adjustments with the secondary air, so lets all try to clarify what the flame should look like ideally. 
I also end up with about 5 gal bucket a week of ash. This seems like way too much. I am not smoking much usually white but yet visible, and have been reasonably happy with wood consumption.


----------



## Dave T

Blue is hotter and this shows a more efficient burn, in my opinion any setting that can be obtained with the secondary inlets hitting low and always staying open can also be obtained by opening them up a little more and having the potential to fully close them and go way past where a good burn should be.. CAVE2 is right if you see yellow and orange flame you need more secondary air to get the blue see pics you can see the progression as I dial EKO in, and another pic of my secondary inlet permanent fix..Dave


----------



## barnartist

Thanks Taco. The thing with me is, as I make the secondary adjustment, nothing changes. Usually my burn starts out big, then later on no visible flame comming out of the nozzils. 
I will try and play with these settings when I start a burn tonight again, but if everyone can see significant changes to the flame while turning the secondary air screws, then maybe I need to look at the primary or other areas. I'm not really complaining much though about my burn, but always interested in any possible improvement.


----------



## Duetech

TacoSteelerMan,
   Impressive pic's. I have one nozzle in my 40 but that's what I am seeing. The change is a boiler that uses less wood and produces more heat. Just out of curiosity how wide are the blower settings on your 60?


----------



## Duetech

barnartist said:
			
		

> Thanks Taco. The thing with me is, as I make the secondary adjustment, nothing changes. Usually my burn starts out big, then later on no visible flame comming out of the nozzils.
> I will try and play with these settings when I start a burn tonight again, but if everyone can see significant changes to the flame while turning the secondary air screws, then maybe I need to look at the primary or other areas. I'm not really complaining much though about my burn, but always interested in any possible improvement.



If you're getting the orange it's because the primary *is* too wide open (too rich) and even with your secondaries wide open you might not get a blue-ed flame so it's not surprising you have not been seeing much change with your adjustments. Try 2mm a side (get radical) I'm at 9mm on the primary and still a little too orange for my taste and my secondary is 1 full turn beyond the manual suggestion. Try backing down your blower supply a little first so you can better see the adjustment you are making. Once you get the blue flame you can reset your blower tho where you want but these units are over powered where their blowers are concerned so a little works wonders.


----------



## verne

barnartist said:
			
		

> Thanks Taco. The thing with me is, as I make the secondary adjustment, nothing changes. Usually my burn starts out big, then later on no visible flame coming out of the nozzle's.
> I will try and play with these settings when I start a burn tonight again, but if everyone can see significant changes to the flame while turning the secondary air screws, then maybe I need to look at the primary or other areas. I'm not really complaining much though about my burn, but always interested in any possible improvement.




I originally did not see a change when I adjusted my secondaries . I then closed down my primaries from 7/8" to 1/2". now I can dial in the flame . I was burning a full load in three hours but absolutely no coals. now i get a longer burn with a full bed of coals.as stated earlier if you close down the fan and turn out your secondaries the orange will change to yellow white and blue. then you use your fan to throttle it up. get the primaries set off the new manual and go from there . also adjust when you have a good bed of coals so you get consistent fuel through the nozzle. this post has been very helpfull .


----------



## Dave T

I am runnin at about 60% open, and on my controler I have fan adjustment I am still playing but I find full throdle works good for now, maybe with better wood I could turn the fans down some but till then I keep fiddeling any way possible to prolong my burn times today I was at work and managed an 11 hour burn keep in mind everything was already up to temp with a good bed of coals and I loaded it to the gills I have no storage and idle a lot 73 degree house all day IT IS GREAT..Dave


----------



## Eric Johnson

I think this thread probably deserves to be stickied.


----------



## Dave T

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME FOLKS!!Well I had nothing better to do so I adjusted my secondary inlets all the way closed during good gasification, my inlets have been adjusted up to completely close off the inlet pipe(WARNING DO NOT CLOSE SECONDARY INLETS COMPLETELY, UNPREDICTABLE EXPLOSIONS OCCUR) the fire was snuffed out untill I opened the bottom door the oxygen hit it then..   Thats right POOF hot ashes all over LOL bad plan maybe the inlets contacting low is no mistake from a safety stand point but I am happy with the results. I'll say what were all thinkin DUMB ASS..Dave


----------



## barnartist

Thanks Taco and Vern. I have not adjusted my primaries for probably 1 full season or more, so I should have a look at that.
Taco, when I originally saw that those secondary adjusters were low I also thought that it would prevent an accedental full closure there, so I thought nothing further until this thread. SRobertson seems to like his results after adding a bigger flap at the end of the screws, but I can't quite say the same yet. 
Tonight I fired up and waited till I got up to cruising temp and then did some fiddling. I still could not make any adjustments to the flame with the secondary air screws, nomatter where I set them-even all the way in and out. Changing the fan openings did all the color change for me as usual, so I can get a nice blue flame when fan openings are just shy of 1" open. Now the only way I can really see what result I am getting right away is by reading my stack temp, and it likes the 300-350 reading. I know some guys like to run hotter, but I just cant do it. The other way is to see how much water I heated during the burn, so I need to start documenting what goes on during each cycle.
It sure would be nice to be set up like Nofo, I think it would be a snap to tune these puppies. I think a temp probe in the bottom chamber would certainly be of some help. Anyone know what and where to find such a gauge/devise? This way too you could leave the bottom door shut while adjusting the air, and go by the reading on the gauge-without burning heating your hand or making ...taco dip.


----------



## Duetech

For those of you with 60's who want to adjust the seeming mfg error in your secondary adjuster placement AND for all who wonder about power failure and over temping your boiler. IF you can close your secondaries off in a power failure you may be able to prevent a run away boiler. The secondaries are the only viable source of O2 for the fire when power is off. They feed the bottom of the fire through the nozzles which is the source of the heat that keeps the fire going and if the secondaries get turned off your fire should die.


----------



## Dave T

CAVE2 you are absolutley correct, during my sketchy experiment I was burning full bore with a bed of coals and temps rising steady, I choked off the secondarys and with in 10 seconds the roar of the fire was gone so I let it sit for a minute then SLOWLY opened the bottom door about 1/4 to 1/2 open, maybe 5 seconds and POOF I quickly had the door shut and the trial was over,  if I were to leave the door shut there is no question the fire would have fizzled to nothing..Dave


----------



## barnartist

That might be a nice option to have in emergency. So It sounds like we all agree that the screws should line up with the center of the secondary air pipes?
Since I have the older model, can anyone with the newer versions speak for there alignment?


----------



## Kemer

I checked mine and they are dead on except one tube sticks out further than the other


----------



## leaddog

Kemer said:
			
		

> I checked mine and they are dead on except one tube sticks out further than the other


make sure the tac hasn't broke and letting the tube work out. If is has you will need to tap it back into place and reweld the tac.
leaddog


----------



## Duetech

*You guys type fast or I would not have posted this much here.* 
The fire will consume the O2 above it in the primary chamber but the fire will continue to feed from the secondaries. Perhaps the placing of the suggestion was inopportune. Sorry, this is not related to your experiment because you were under power and fed O2 to the primary chamber and created Puff the magic dragon so please don't mix the two.  You are absolutely right in "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME". The scenario I was referring to is a power outage emergency situation where you get a run a way boiler and especially for those that were wondering if they want to move/fix the placing of their secondary air supply dampers so they could get a complete air lock. The huffing and puffing may very well occur even without damping down the secondaries. My statement was to identify the remaining O2 supply and stop it. The lack of O2 will extinguish the fire but remember the refractory is still VERY HOT so the wood gasses will still be produced by infra red radiation until the refractory temps are brought down. You will still get a hot boiler but it should be for a shorter duration. It sounds odd but IF you can safely remove the wood from the gassification chamber and replace it with cold and preferably moist wood you will dissipate the heat in your refractory much quicker and perhaps avoid even a short term overheat.

For fine tuning, on my EKO40 I now have my primary air intakes down to 7mm and my secondaries open to 5 turns and am jetting nicely. The very blue/white/yellow flame fills/covers my U blocks extremely well and my blower opening is only about 1/8th of capacity (12.5% open). Any thing above that on the blower needlessly consumes wood and blows out the gassification by over jetting. From cold to hot the boiler is a little more temperamental until it hits 140*.

Now that is done I intend to work on an external mechanism to adjust primary air with out always taking the 12 screw front panel off so adjustments can be done on the fly with out shut down. The mod will require one hole about 5/16-3/8" and one hole about 1/8" in the front panel.
Question/s for those of you with other than 40 sized EKO's: 
How far up from the inside face of the opening are the bolts that hold your primary air control slider plates? 
How far from the sides is center of those bolts? 
How far apart center to center are those bolts?
If there were a metal bar placed across those bolts would it interfere with the functioning of the back draft damper plate that is on your blower/s? 
How far do your slider plates move when full closed to full open (not total movement but just fully open)? 
How wide is your front cover panel? 
And (LOL) do you have a spare arm and a leg and how much time can you devote to conjectural, pivotal contemplative R&D;and how often? Would you rather split would or wood?


----------



## RDabate

Just fired up my EKO last night.  I'm still in the learning phase and trying to get it set correctly.  


Is it safe to adjust the Primary and Secondary air opening as well as the blower opening when there is a burn happening?  

I see in this thread people referencing how accurate the manual is for settings.  I’m looking at page 18, there is a diagram.  Is this what people are talking about?  If so, I have no Idea what my Chimney draft is and I don’t have a meter to test the moisture in the wood.  Should I get a meter and figure out what the Chimney draft is?  

How does the front cover come off?


----------



## Kemer

Cave 2 I'm thinking of the same thing with the primarys.Probly some kind of rod with locking nut  on the slider but I still think that sence the fans arn't used to there fullist If I could seperate the primary from secondary all could be controled from the fan covers


----------



## taxidermist

Superman said:
			
		

> Just fired up my EKO last night.  I'm still in the learning phase and trying to get it set correctly.
> 
> 
> Is it safe to adjust the Primary and Secondary air opening as well as the blower opening when there is a burn happening?
> 
> I see in this thread people referencing how accurate the manual is for settings.  I’m looking at page 18, there is a diagram.  Is this what people are talking about?  If so, I have no Idea what my Chimney draft is and I don’t have a meter to test the moisture in the wood.  Should I get a meter and figure out what the Chimney draft is?
> 
> How does the front cover come off?



Page 18 shows you the opening sizes for primaries and secondaries also shows the fan opening which on your 40 I belive you have should be 100 percent on fan opening NOT 10 like it shows. Page 19 shows where the location of where the adjustments take place. Remember thhis is a starting place for you depending on wood type and moisture in wood ect.

Rob


----------



## Duetech

Superman said:
			
		

> Just fired up my EKO last night.  I'm still in the learning phase and trying to get it set correctly.
> 
> 
> "Is it safe to adjust the Primary and Secondary air opening as well as the blower opening when there is a burn happening?"
> 
> I see in this thread people referencing how accurate the manual is for settings.  I’m looking at page 18, there is a diagram.  Is this what people are talking about?  If so, I have no Idea what my Chimney draft is and I don’t have a meter to test the moisture in the wood.  Should I get a meter and figure out what the Chimney draft is?
> 
> "How does the front cover come off?"



On the 40 there is a panel in front that the blower is mounted to. The panel is fastened with 12 screws. 

"Is it safe to adjust the Primary and Secondary air opening as well as the blower opening when there is a burn happening?"

Secondaries and the blower can all be adjusted from the outside of the panel but primaries are only accessed by removing the panel. Safe says you should wait until the fire is pretty much out before trying to adjust the primary air sliders and I would recommend that approach until you are well versed with your boiler.
Chimney draft is important and not to be ignored but because you have a forced draft (blower) you can still achieve an optimum burn setting.
Page 18 is the diagram and page 19 shows a "60" primary air slider controls. And we're all learning (or at least we hope we are)...Welcome to the forum


----------



## rickh1001

Superman, 

While the wood moisture content and chimney draft are important, if you stand back and take a look at the various numbers, they don't change that much with the chimney draft.  For example, the EKO 60 recommended setting is 10 mm opening for the primary air with and 0.04" draft, and 9 mm with 0.08" draft.  Barely enough to measure and set that accurately with the crude setup they have.  The same with the wood moisture.  

I agree with Cave and the others on this thread.  The factory settings will get you into the ballpark, and are a good starting point.  After that, it is a matter of trying to understand what each of the controls does, and to tweek the settings to get a clean, efficient burn.  This thread has been really helpful on that.  I am still making small changes to the fan opening settings, and the secondary air screws.  The changes are small though - usually only 1/2 turn or so in or out on the secondary, and small adjustments to the opening on the fan.  If the wood moisture changes by a lot, as per the manual, you would be enlarging most of the settings slightly with wetter wood, or the reverse of course if you wood is drying out further as the season progresses.  So the manual shows a starting point, and  a direction to take as your fuel conditions change.


----------



## Dave T

Kemer, you have a problem if the secondary pipes are not equal distance showing out of the front of the boiler but this is a common problem on these EKOs(see Eric Johnsons EKO pic with the front panel removed the pipes do not match he had his fixed also) ..The pipe has holes in it that lead to the refractory nozzles THESE HOLES ARE CRUTIAL AND MUST BE ALLIGNED PROPERLY which may require you to rotate the secondary pipe to reallign the holes..The pipe on the left should have the holes toward the middle of the boiler 3 oclock, the pipe on the right should also have the holes toward the middle of the boiler 9 oclock..Turn the secondary pipe to match the refractory holes and then lightly tap the pipe back into position, the pipe came from the factory tac welded in place you can retac it or run a good bead around the pipe but it needs to be fastened one way or the other..I want to thank everybody on this site for shareing their experiences good and bad, THANK YOU ALLDave


----------



## leaddog

Cave2k said:
			
		

> *You guys type fast or I would not have posted this much here.*
> The fire will consume the O2 above it in the primary chamber but the fire will continue to feed from the secondaries. Perhaps the placing of the suggestion was inopportune. Sorry, this is not related to your experiment because you were under power and fed O2 to the primary chamber and created Puff the magic dragon so please don't mix the two.  You are absolutely right in "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME". The scenario I was referring to is a power outage emergency situation where you get a run a way boiler and especially for those that were wondering if they want to move/fix the placing of their secondary air supply dampers so they could get a complete air lock. The huffing and puffing may very well occur even without damping down the secondaries. My statement was to identify the remaining O2 supply and stop it. The lack of O2 will extinguish the fire but remember the refractory is still VERY HOT so the wood gasses will still be produced by infra red radiation until the refractory temps are brought down. You will still get a hot boiler but it should be for a shorter duration. It sounds odd but IF you can safely remove the wood from the gassification chamber and replace it with cold and preferably moist wood you will dissipate the heat in your refractory much quicker and perhaps avoid even a short term overheat.
> 
> For fine tuning, on my EKO40 I now have my primary air intakes down to 7mm and my secondaries open to 5 turns and am jetting nicely. The very blue/white/yellow flame fills/covers my U blocks extremely well and my blower opening is only about 1/8th of capacity (12.5% open). Any thing above that on the blower needlessly consumes wood and blows out the gassification by over jetting. From cold to hot the boiler is a little more temperamental until it hits 140*.
> 
> Now that is done I intend to work on an external mechanism to adjust primary air with out always taking the 12 screw front panel off so adjustments can be done on the fly with out shut down. The mod will require one hole about 5/16-3/8" and one hole about 1/8" in the front panel.
> Question/s for those of you with other than 40 sized EKO's:
> How far up from the inside face of the opening are the bolts that hold your primary air control slider plates?
> How far from the sides is center of those bolts?
> How far apart center to center are those bolts?
> If there were a metal bar placed across those bolts would it interfere with the functioning of the back draft damper plate that is on your blower/s?
> How far do your slider plates move when full closed to full open (not total movement but just fully open)?
> How wide is your front cover panel?
> And (LOL) do you have a spare arm and a leg and how much time can you devote to conjectural, pivotal contemplative R&D;and how often? Would you rather split would or wood?



I've been thinging of a fix but haven't had time to try. since the primary air comes out in the upper chamber why not just make a slider to cover the opening that you could then adj like on the inside. You could make a cover and bolt it inside and adj it that way. I've got some stainless and as soon as I get some time I'll give it a try. Right now I'm trying to get my modulating valve and control system tuned in as well as installing my stack temp probes so I can get something to compare things to. Once I get my controler hooked up to the state I'll have to see if I can use that info also. I just need 26hrs in a day.
leaddog


----------



## taxidermist

[quote author=" I just need 26hrs in a day.


leaddog[/quote]

Les you should retire so you have more time.......... Oh yeah thats right you are retired LOL


----------



## Kemer

Tacosteelerman, I thought the same thing so I bought a flexable light probe.I pulled the front cover and shined the light in each nozzles hole .I saw light at each hole when I looked in the tubes. They might not be alienged perfectly but  are close enough till spring when I can shut it down.I also elongated the secondary adjuster because it wouldnt bottom out when I tryed to adjust it.


----------



## Nofossil

For what it's worth, I wish this thread had been around a long time ago. I've been running with my primaries wide open (as delivered) until a couple of weeks ago. I've never had the blue flame, although I'm sure I will now that I know it's possible.

Thanks to all who have done the hard work to get this information and share it.

I'll do another calibrated efficiency burn once I get it dialed in.

It would be great if someone wrote up a concise summary in a new thread to make a sticky.


----------



## sdrobertson

nofossil said:
			
		

> For what it's worth, I wish this thread had been around a long time ago. I've been running with my primaries wide open (as delivered) until a couple of weeks ago. I've never had the blue flame, although I'm sure I will now that I know it's possible.
> 
> Thanks to all who have done the hard work to get this information and share it.
> 
> I'll do another calibrated efficiency burn once I get it dialed in.
> 
> It would be great if someone wrote up a concise summary in a new thread to make a sticky.



You get it really dialed in and you'll be down to burning two medium sized bushes per season.


----------



## rickh1001

This thread is getting very long, so perhaps I should post this question as a new topic.  However, it is a continuation of the "EKO tweek" theme. 

Cave - I have been experimenting with the fan settings, following your suggestions of more radical reductions in the fan blower settings to reduce combustion in the primary air and the upper chamber, in order to reduce bridging and extend the burn. 

First off, I am not always sure of what people are referring to with the fan settings.  I have the newer controller, so I can set both my fan speed, in 10% increments, plus the opening of the pie-shaped covers (dual fans for the EKO 60), expressed either in % opening, or as estimated in inches for the outermost slot.  

While I have been getting good burns overall, and have adjusted the secondaries to get blue flames on both nozzles, I have still gotten bridging of larger loads of wood in the upper chamber, although overall, if I am careful loading, it has not been a major problem.  So I tried Cave's advice.  I have the fan pie-shaped openings set at about 40% open (estimated) which measures right around 1.25" as measured on the outermost slot.  The blower speed setting on the controller has varied from 100% to 80%.  Based on the high volume and jet-like sound of the nozzles, with a good bed of coals established, I cut the blower power back to 60%.  I still had blue flames out the nozzles, but as per Cave's observations, I found a lower fuel consumption, and no bridging - at least over the course of the day today.  I also noticed the heat output was just as good, and I found the unit running on idle frequently, as the tank was fully charged with 180F water with the boiler set at 190F.  

I'll keep experimenting with these settings, reducing the fan air volume even more.  However, I am wondering if there is much difference if I reduce the fan cover open area, vs. reducing the fan speed with the controller?  Since the supplied air feeds both the primary and secondary circuits, it seems either method should produce similar results.  Splitting the supplied air between the primary and secondary circuits is accomplished with the primary air slides and the secondary tubes/shutters.  So does it make any difference if I close up the circular air slides, or just reduce the fan speed via the controller? 

I may try to reduce the fan speed even more.  So far, 60% fan speed, with a 40% opening seems to be working pretty well.  I am out at 4.5 turns on the secondaries - but given all the variation in the tube placement, this may not mean much.  I have the primary air slides at 10 mm.


----------



## sdrobertson

Part of the problem is that some are using older boilers with old controllers with only one way to decrease speed which is with the pie shaped fan covers and apparently the new boilers you can change the power setting which I didn't realize.  Pretty soon, we'll need road maps!!


----------



## Duetech

Boilerman,
    That's right on the money as far as air supply. Slower velocity or lower volume equates nearly the same. I have the old controller as sdrobertson points out so the only way I can slow velocity/volume is to cut potential volume with the slider. I'm yammering myself about getting the newer control (just as a back up of course). My blower has to be set (slider) near 10% open in order to keep from getting burn out pockets and my primary air is set at 7mm and I still have a bluish flame that fills my secondary blast blocks and jets real well. The secondaries are at 5 turns out from closed. Because of welding beads at the top of each of the primary slider openings I can't reduce my primary supply with out tailoring my primary slider plates.​


----------



## Dave T

GUYS am I confused as to which controler I have, I have EKO standard, when they first turned them from 220 Volt I have a transformer in mine to knock the power down if you want to use 220 I am going to up load a pic or two maybe you can tell me what is goin on???I always thought I had the old of the EKO design as you can see I have fan speed control..Let me know if you'd like to see the transformer..Dave


----------



## Tony H

TacoSteelerMan said:
			
		

> GUYS am I confused as to which controler I have, I have EKO standard, when they first turned them from 220 Volt I have a transformer in mine to knock the power down if you want to use 220 I am going to up load a pic or two maybe you can tell me what is goin on???I always thought I had the old of the EKO design as you can see I have fan speed control..Let me know if you'd like to see the transformer..Dave



I have the same controller Tacosteelerman and it is the old model . The fan controls on the back set the duration and interval for the keepalive / purge function where the fans kicks on every so often for so long to push air thru the system. You can check what yours are set at by pushing the test button and rotating the knobs.


----------



## rickh1001

Tacosteelerman, 

Mine has the adjustment knob on the right, with Stop Start buttons in the middle under the display.  It has the model RK-2001U in the lower right corner.  When you hold the OK button down, it cycles through the various parameters.  

EKO also have a yet newer controller, that is fully digital without the adjustment knob.  

I did an experiment last night, along the lines of Cave's suggestions.  I have been getting longer burn times and better coal bed formation by reducing the overall air volume, by cutting my fan shutters down to about 40% open area, then further reducing with the fan speed control via the controller.  Last night, at 1AM, I had a good solid hot bed of coals and some wood.  I loaded it up, and cut the fan speed down to 50% (down from the 70%, then 60% I had been trying).  This morning at 8AM, I found the Fuel light on.  The upperchamber had a deep bed of coals and quite a few pieces of wood left, but no real fire.  However, upon opening the lower door, I had a fire going and the coals glowing red again within a few minutes.  Within probably 5-10 min with splits on top, I had a strong fire going with great gasification, with a good blue flame, even using the 50% fan setting.  

So there is a lower limit to how much to cut the air supply, either using the fan shrouds or the speed controller.  I am back up to 60% on my controller now, leaving all the other settings the same.  I think I am looking for a setting that will give the wood in the upper chamber enough time to pyrolize and break down, while still maintaining a strong even fire throughout the load.  My situation is similar to Cave's however, in that I have a very large heat load with two homes to heat, and undersized storage (500gal).  So I am running the EKO almost like it had no storage at all.  At the other extreme is Nofossil's setup, with large storage capacity compared to the burner size.  In that case, a flat-out 100% burn is more appropriate.  Also a note here, that I am not seeing evidence of cresote formation even on the low air settings.  In all cases, I am getting a blue flame.  

Following everyone's thinking in this thread, it is like tuning a carburetor.  The ratio of the primary air/secondary air settings is controlling the blue flame and setting up the actual burn efficiency.  Then, it seems more or less independently, the total volume of air (via a combination of the fan shroud setting and the fan speed, if available) will control the overall rate of burn, plus impact ancilliary issues such as bridging, by burning holes in the wood load too quickly (which is of course dependent on the wood, its shape and size and how it is loaded).  

At least I think I'm starting to get a handle on what to change when I see a particular problem.


----------



## 88rxn/a

ok, i am trying to keep up with you guys. i haven't bought my EKO yet. i been lurking and reading so im not in the dark when i do buy it. but reading this stuff is all "german" to me. i hope once i get this EKO and actually see what you guys are doing it will come to me. 

but, a new thread for "fine tuning" and stickied would be a excellent idea. 5 pages is just to much and they will get overwhelmed like i am.


----------



## Hansson

Look at this eko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbUUGYbv8M&feature=related


----------



## barnartist

Alright I hope I can keep this short.
To recap, this is my 4th season with the Eko 60. When I got the boiler, I recieved a crappy manual. Since finding this forum last fall, time and time again many of you were referring to the new manual that I think Eric had much to do with the rewrite. Until today I never actually looked at it, so I blame myself for that.
Help me then understand a couple of items in the air adjustment page. What are the number readings for the chimney-what do they mean?
I am certain that it says to open the primary air to 9 (mm?). I have been running all of this time at about 3/4" opening.
Having said that, I went ahead and moved the opening where suggested. Now as of this post, I had lots of smoke and a really hard time on the restart. Seems to me the primary chamber now starves for oxygen, because when I open the primary door, I can get the flame to come back.
I am not able now with a load of wood to change the primary adjustments, so like you guys it wood be nice to have a way to do this without taking the panel off.
when I started up the fans I had gasification for a few minutes. I noticed right away howslow or labored the ball of orange was. I played with secondary screws and the fan openings but could not gain any blue.
I will give the burn some time to fester and see what happens when all is heated up, but I definately have taken a step back with the manual books suggested adjustments (very visible smoke still out the chimney too), so I'm not sure what to make of all of this now.
This is just my experience so far.


----------



## barnartist

Just to add to the above, I do not have a moisture meter so I don't know what my wood is, so maybe it is not as dry as I think it is, thus might explain why having the primarys open so far before worked for me. But man, I had them way open compared to what is suggested.

Also when I think of bridging now, does allot of primary air push some of the good ashes through the nozzils and result in more ash at the bottom chamber, and help create more bridging possiblities? Maybe. As I said above, I have been conditioned to hear and see a more forceful blast than what I just saw at these settings. Maybe the flame is soppose to be a more kinder-gentler flame. I just am not sure now.


----------



## sdrobertson

A couple of questions - did the tape stay on the secondary tubes so that the covers will cover it?  9 mm is .345 inches which I found hard to figure out so I went with 7/16 (12ish mm) as I could use a regular builders scale to measure, as a starting point.  I had better luck with the tape covering the tubes but now that I replaced the metal disks with the electrical covers it seems to regulate the air better.  I closed by fan covers to about 1 inch and I am pleased with the outcome.  Its hard to figure the sweet spot but I'm seeing that the primary's are the key(which is a pain as this adjustment is harder to get to).  Another thing is check to make sure that your not leaking any air out of the front cover around the gaskets and our old stoves have allot fewer screws holding them in place as the new ones do.  I ended up using the metal tape to seal the front down the sides where there is only one screw holding it.

I would open the primary's between 3/8 and 7/16 and figure out how to fix your secondary tube covers.  Without that fix, I don't think you'll get very good results as the secondary's are allowing way to much air through.  3.5 turns on the secondary and 1" to 1 1/4 on the fan covers.


EDIT-just read your next post-The bridging is partly because we're burning the secondary's way to hard.  If you question your wood, start with 7/16 to 1/2 inch.


----------



## barnartist

I just seem to be having the opposite effect than you for some reason. I did the tape trick for a while, but I gained more orange and labored flame. 
I was not sure about mm either, so I simply used a 10mm open box wrench as a guide. When I really looked at it hands on, I could not believe I was suppose to bring in the primaries that far.
I've got to say I am going to put everything back closer to where I had it-I think. But maybe all things are equal, because I usually liked the fans opened only 1/2 inch most of the time(again at where I had my previous settings).


----------



## Duetech

There is a lot here.  So first: Primary air control sliders are the major control for primary air but blowers set too high can skew even the best primary and secondary settings. Over turbulent primary air is initially responsible for burn out over the nozzle. (Unless you have a way for secondary air to go up through the nozzle and exit the primary chamber. That would mean secondary air has to over power primary air to create burn outs unless there is enough secondary air to create a vortex. If secondary air can create a vortex it is too strong and the only thing that can make it that strong is the blower and the secondary air settings. UNLESS you have a back pressure problem. Back pressure is caused by dirty or partially plugged chimney or heat tubes at the back of the unit. Plugged heat tubes will cause gassification problems. Plugged heat tubes can be caused by improper gassification/burn settings and lots of idle time and I've had them). Before any of us is willing to pass off our burn problems as unique we should be sure all of the fundamentals are in order. Are the heat tubes clean? Have the secondary air tubes broken free and moved or are they plugged? (Some 60 owners have found that their tubes have moved and the tack weld that held them in place is broken which also means they could have rotated and are now not in alignment with the holes in the refractory.) As per the new manual for all EKO models 9mm to 12mm is the recommended setting for primary air that is roughly 11/32 to 7/16" variable gap and any opening above that is apt to over pressurize the primary chamber. Unfortunately some of the 60 owners have adjusters that do not come in complete total contact with their secondary tubes. This means that the adjusters really shouldn't have to be opened as far as the manual suggests because the tubes are already partially open.  Are the holes for secondary air in the refractory clean or partially obstructed? Are the back draft damper plates on the back side of the blower/s moving freely? My tubes on my 40 have not moved but I have found ash deposits in the tube. Over all we are talking about certain laws of physics that apply to the gassification process and those laws are the same for all of us if our units are built and remain as the design was intended. If primary air is not overpowering and secondary air is not over powering and if the blower/s are not over powering we should be able to get an adjustable flame that can be set to the hottest possible temperature and burn the least amount of wood possible. Those who have tubes that have moved/broken free might still be under warranty and should probably seek aid.

The tuning principle: Primary air pressure (supply) should be consistent but not too forceful or the fuel ratio will be skewed. Secondary air should supply enough oxygen to permit a jetting flame that is blue based in color that turns to white and yellow and fills the nozzle/s. If your flame will not change from orange to blue no matter how you adjust your secondary air you have too much primary supply. (unless your secondary supply is blocked or partially blocked or your heat tubes/chimney are plugged). Cutting your blower/s back is the first part of fine tuning your EKO. (it is hard to see what you are adjusting when the unit is running full bore). Setting your primary air according to the manuals recommendations is  necessary for proper carburetion. Secondary air should be set as per the manual (where mechanically possible) as well as too much secondary air can create excessive turbulence that can cool the fire and hinder output as well as prevent  a complete burn. (All units need to be clean and mechanically correct to achieve proper gassification). If the flame turns back to orange or the unit smokes when you start readjusting your blower/s it is probably because your heat tubes are restricted and need cleaning. Once again over adjusting your blowers can frustrate the adjustments you have just made in fine tuning your boiler flame. Bring the blower/s up slowly until the blued flame fills the nozzle and the fire blocks. You should be good to go but you may find you need a little more blower supply if you come back and find your boiler calling for fuel and you have a good bed of coals.

Because of design primary air settings should only be done when the boiler is cold so it may take a few times to get the settings where your boiler will function best. This is just my two cents but I hope it helps...


----------



## barnartist

Thanks Cave, everything you said is good stuff.
I had a phone coversation with Srobertson, and now I have things moving in the right direction. I re taped the secondary tubes to restrict air, and have the primary set at 1/2 inch. I had to hurry because I had a partial load in the chamber and it was getting hot. Upon restart I saw something beautiful. I had a gasification mushroom like I had never had before during my 3+seasons of burning. Now I have been conditioned to not get to excited, so I am going to be tweeking and studying the burns over the next several days. 
I have been used to a tight straighter flame with some power behind it. Now I have a more gentle cloud with a mixture of nice colors. Lots of blue and light yellows. Makes sense that this setting could be a mojor wood saver, but again I'll have to report.
If this all pans out, I owe you guys a solid.


----------



## sdrobertson

Wow, I'm thinking Cave2k has gotten it pinned down and its ready for the sticky.  Excellent and easy to understand.  It was a pleasure to talk to Barnartist last night and to get these older stoves figured out.  It was frustrating for both of us to read on the forum how people could move the secondary air a half a turn and see results.  With the disks not covering all of the secondary tubes, we could move the damn things 6 turns and it wouldn't make any difference.  I honestly figured that you guys were just kinda making up how well you were burning.  I was coming from a Central Boiler owb and I was happy with the cut back in wood I was using so I really didn't know any better.  I wish there was a way to figure out how many boilers were sent to the US with the secondary's misaligned.  I'm afraid there is allot of unhappy boiler users out there that haven't found this forum yet.  To those individuals that are reading this and wondering why someone would spend so much time on a supposedly simple and efficient to use boiler - it is simple and easy to use - its just a learning curve and its well worth it.


----------



## Medman

There's not too much info here for those of us using the EKO 25, so here are my results and observations so far:

Silicone sealant on every surface possible - I am still having a small problem with smoke pushing past the seal at the flue collar when I first close the bypass damper.

Primary air set to 9 mm open each side
Secondary air 4 turns out
Draft fan shutter 1" open across widest point
Burning good dry Sugar maple and red oak

I have been able to achieve incredibly powerful gasification with the speed setting of the draft fan at 60%.  Any higher than that and the flame turns orange instead of blue and I get burn pockets in the upper chamber which lead to bridging and burn times are also reduced.  Of course, with this setting it takes longer to reach a good working temp from a cold boiler, which in my case is above 170*.

Using these settings, I get burn times of 9-10 hours with a good bed of coals left, even with the wind blowing to 50 mph and the temp hovering around 10*F like last night.  I have a lot of idling due to the lack of storage.

Stack temps run right around 300*F when gasifying at maximum.  I usually leave bottom door open with bypass open and fan on when starting the fire, and I wait until the stack temp is above 400*F before closing bottom door and bypass.

I have been burning continuously for the past week and I have filled one 2 gallon metal pail with ash. Given the amount of wood loaded in the unit during that time - about half a face cord - I think this is fantastic.

My next test will be to reduce the primary air openings even more.  I am curious to see how long I can push burn times by reducing the primary air.

Hopefully this will help those running the 25.  The smaller firebox presents some different challenges and settings seem to be slightly different than the 40 or 60.


----------



## barnartist

Medman, I too had a hard start from cold, a harder start than with my previous "too open" settings.
Looks like your settings are not too different from the settings on the 60, but reading the manual on New Horizon is a good idea.

I plan to utilize my timer to leave some unburned coals for the next loads. This does add some ashes, but I'll trade a little for an easier restart. Since my wood is outside, not only does it get some moisure on it from snow, it is like putting icecubes into the boiler, so this probably also leads to a harder restart.

I think if this boosts efficiancy like it looks to, I will simply put less wood into the boiler. Probably less chance of bridging then too.

Now it does seem like it might be a benifit to be able to adjust the primary air without taking off the panel.


----------



## Duetech

barnartist,
"Now it does seem like it might be a benifit to be able to adjust the primary air without taking off the panel." 

Next project............................soon. Stay warm


----------



## Tree farmer

I'm with you MM at same settings but have the fan shutter at 60% open and primaries at 10mm I set them to the moist wood recommendations but they were pretty darn close to this already and I have the fan speed set at 60%.  Observed a real good blue flame (formerly orange fireball) when it got up to a good burn after adjustments.  The new manual is a real manual now thanks to other posts I found it and have downloaded it.


----------



## rickh1001

Eventually, I suppose there should be a new thread, part 2 on this subject.  However, it is good to group everyone's experience so far in one place.  So if it's ok, I would like to add my latest update on the EKO saga.  

With the 50 F weather that passed through yesterday, I shut down the EKO 60 for a cleaning, inspection and re-adjustment.  It has been about a month since I last did this.  First off, despite both good and bad burns, and after nearly 2 cords of wood through it, the smoke pipe and metalbestos chimney were absolutely clean.  No cresote whatsover, and only a handful of sand like grey dust residing in the stovepipe.  This is the second time I have inspected the chimney thus far, and even with some bad burns, there seems to be no cresote formation.  The HX's are dry and clean, except for the same sandy dust hanging around on them. 

The upper chamber is another story.  I am so used to looking at the ashes under the wood, everything looked normal.  However, this time I attacked the upped chamber and cleaned it our down to the firebricks.  I emptied out about 10 gallons of ashes!  It has just been building up and building up, so it looked normal when I loaded the firebox.  I wondered why the gasification on the front nozzle seemed weak - the fire was going down through probably 6 inches of accumulated ash.  So the firebox was a clean as new when I got done. 

I closed off the primary slides from 10-11 mm down to 9 mm.  I noticed that the bolt slot extends over to the air inlet area, so I am assuming that the EKO manual takes that into account with their settings.  The more you close the slide, the more the bolt slot is exposed, although it is much smaller area.  I checked the secondaries.  My boiler was built in Feb of 2007 according to the stamp on the top of the upper chamber.  My secondaries were aligned well with the closure disks.  Also,  shining a light down the secondary tubes, they were perfectly clean.  My secondary tubes do not have any holes in them, so I am not sure of Cave's observation that the tubes can be mis-aligned.  I think EKO has been changing the design over time, but for mine, there is only a solid run of tubing to the back of the boiler, but no holes or anything that can be aligned.  I reset the secondaries to 3.5 turns out, since I had removed the outer cover, and wanted to make sure all the settings were correct again. 

Firing it up (in my beautifully clean upper chamber), was normal.  It took about 30 min to get to gasification.  Initially I set the fan speed on its lowest setting of 50% as I built up a bed of coals.  After everything stabilized, and I got a bed of embers, I increased the fan speed to 70%.  Everything looks beautiful.  I am getting almost perfectly blue gasification, with a full hot flame, but not anything too roaring.  So the settings I have now are:

Air Supply:
   Fan Speed 70%
   Fan shroud opening ~ 1.25" at the widest measurement

Primary Air:
   9 mm

Secondary Air:
   3.5 turns out from closed

It is operating cleanly, and rapidly recharging the tank.  

With these settings, and with dry wood that is at about 18-22% moisture (stored indoors near the boiler) it is operating almost perfectly.  Any further tweeks from this point on will be minor, probably to compensate for changes in wood moisture as I move into different stacks.  

Putting it all


----------



## barnartist

Now that my settings are close to the manuals, I still can't see any changes while I adjust the secondary screws. I need to fix this I know since they are not lined up properly, but for now I have metal tape covering 2/3rds of the pipe, and I am just shy of 1/2" at the primary. I can only get a mainly orange flame with minimal blue colors, but maybe it is more orange toward the early part of the burn.


----------



## leaddog

barnartist said:
			
		

> Now that my settings are close to the manuals, I still can't see any changes while I adjust the secondary screws. I need to fix this I know since they are not lined up properly, but for now I have metal tape covering 2/3rds of the pipe, and I am just shy of 1/2" at the primary. I can only get a mainly orange flame with minimal blue colors, but maybe it is more orange toward the early part of the burn.



If you have 2/3 of the secondary covered you aren't getting enough air. Make some larger plates for the secondary, take off the tape, close the fan openings to about 1/2 to 3/4 in when you make your adj. and if you still have prob. close your primarys  alittle more. Also make sure you tape the cover so you don't get air leaking around the gasket. The older ones don't have as many screws and you will get air leaking which will mess you up.
leaddog


----------



## quinn0507

I've just started to burn wood in my eko 40 and I realize that there is a lot of tweaking and learning to be done.  I have storage pending, but I do not have the means to hook it up this winter.  Two things are apparent.  One is that there is a lot of smoke that come out the upper door during loading even with the lower door opened and secondly is the amount of idle time, when the boiler is smoldering without a call for heat.  Is this common for many of you?


----------



## barnartist

I got rid of the tape, added some bigger plates to the secondary screws by rivets. While in there I closed off the primary just a bit more, but I think too much now. I am back to blue flame, but still can't seem to see much difference in the gasses as I adjust. Sure seems to take longer to get steady gasification, but I think it might be starving the primary just a bit now.

Hate to tape it up when I have been removing the cover so often. 

I had thought today of cutting a hole out of the cover so I could get to the primary adjustment. I thought about using a heavy magnet material to cover the hole. Something like a truck sign magnet, but was unsure how it would handle the heat.


----------



## tuolumne

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried loading wood vertically?  I wonder what this would do to the startup time, efficiency, and burn times.  

Looking at the other posts, I actually think I must have mine tuned pretty well.  I can usually get to gasification in under 5 minutes from a cold start.  Most of the time I have a continuous fire going with no storage buffer, so this isn't necessary.   I have emptied out around 3 gallons of ash since this heating season started.  The boiler easily goes 12 hours on a load with good coals left.  I have my fan at 60% and I keep the boiler temperature set at 185.  Right now my primary is a bit under 1/2", the secondarys are 3.5 turns out and the fan shutter is around 1" at the widest.  I plan to play with the secondaries soon to see if I can change the flame color.  I've been burning sugar maple that sat in logs for a bit over a year and has been split and in the basement for a month.  I've also been burning a lot of green ash which I've been felling, bucking and splitting as needed to try to catch up.  I have no idea what the moisture content is.  I'm filling the twin 500 gallon tanks over the weekend, and I'll be welding on my fittings and plumbing things in on Monday.  Hooray!


----------



## Dave T

Barnartist,
You mentioned that you cleaned the EKO fan blades in another thread (which inspired me to do the same they were nasty and needed to be scraped) but all of the debris off of the fan blades dropped down into the bottom of the fan just like mine did, I was having problems getting back to good gasification untill it dawned on me that some of the fan debris had lodged in the nozzle and was partialy blocking the air flow..I was able to let the EKO burn out and used a right angle blow gun and light pressure and blow the debris back through the nozzles and I am back to blue and direct gassification give it a try it maybe where your problems are..Dave


----------



## Eric Johnson

quinn0507 said:
			
		

> I've just started to burn wood in my eko 40 and I realize that there is a lot of tweaking and learning to be done.  I have storage pending, but I do not have the means to hook it up this winter.  Two things are apparent.  One is that there is a lot of smoke that come out the upper door during loading even with the lower door opened and secondly is the amount of idle time, when the boiler is smoldering without a call for heat.  Is this common for many of you?



Burning without storage is an acquired skill. You'll find ways to avoid excessive idling as you get more experience with the boiler.


----------



## barnartist

Taco, 
I just cleaned my fans a few weeks ago so they are good. I knew they were dirty because they were so off balance and vibrating everything. Now they are nice and quiet.

Loading the wood vertically would be a tall order, unless you mean crossways, but that just would not work.

I think I'll have to open up my primaries a bit more. Today with my latest settings my boiler ran really close to how it used to before the fiddling started, lots of blue. But it was a weaker flame. I still cannot seem to get any visible changes when I turn my secondaries. I get the most change when I adjust the fan shutters.

Anyone here that thinks they have their Eko tweeked right and if you have a cell phone with video, send the video to me. 740 310 7494.

Also, is it common or not that you lose the visible flame for much of the burn. My stack is still at a reasonable temp (say 275-300) with no visible flame. Should it be a goal to have the visible.gasses untill almost all of the wood is consumed?

Once again I am reasonable happy with my unit this year, but want to take advantage of anything I can.


----------



## Eric Johnson

In the latter stages of many of my burns, I get no visible flame in the secondary combustion chamber. I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be, but as long as I get heat and no smoke and the wood gets burned completely, I assume everything is OK.


----------



## sdrobertson

Eric Johnson said:
			
		

> In the latter stages of many of my burns, I get no visible flame in the secondary combustion chamber. I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be, but as long as I get heat and no smoke and the wood gets burned completely, I assume everything is OK.



Do you see large temp swings with the chimney temps when you loose the flames?


----------



## Duetech

quinn0507 said:
			
		

> I've just started to burn wood in my eko 40 and I realize that there is a lot of tweaking and learning to be done.  I have storage pending, but I do not have the means to hook it up this winter.  Two things are apparent.  One is that there is a lot of smoke that come out the upper door during loading even with the lower door opened and secondly is the amount of idle time, when the boiler is smoldering without a call for heat.  Is this common for many of you?



Timing your burns so you know when your are mostly down to coals will help control the smoke as smoke with or without storage is common when there is a burn going on and you open the loading door. If you must load while there is a burn in process, shut off the boiler and open the bypass damper (idling causes abundant creosote in the upper chamber and the damper/flap will usually stick so this portion will always cause smoke while burning because you will probably have to open the loading/upper chamber door to bump the flap with the long poker, just do it quick and close the upper chamber door to "almost" closed) and let the boiler set for a few seconds tor establish draft through the draft in the upper chamber.

The bypass damper sticking problem will reduce noticeably when you get your boiler flame tuned and you use wood that only has a moisture as specified in the manual. Wetter wood than recommended tends to keep the creosote problem current and uses more wood.

As referenced in this thread adjusting your blower intensity and tuning your flame can allow you to use a smaller flame which causes the boiler to run longer but more wood efficient and with less idling time. There is a limit how far you can turn your blower down but generally (on many 40's anyway) the manual blower setting is too strong. PM me with your set up and I can share some of my "no storage" experiences and settings and maybe help you get "dialed" in.


----------



## Duetech

tuolumne said:
			
		

> Out of curiosity, has anyone tried loading wood vertically?



Yes I have and like barnartist says it's a hassle and because of the shape of the gassification chamber vertical loading tends more to cause hang ups and is next to intolerable unless you do complete burns be fore reloading. Reaching in to adjust/readjust the wood while loading, trying to avoid the creosote coated sides and a live bed of coals plus not being able to get a complete load  in the front because of log length and the extra time it takes to load make horizontal more appealing. I wasn't really scientific when I tried so I don't know if the unit was more efficient but it didn't see like it was so I stick to horizontal and let gravity help me load. Good question though.


----------



## VeggieFarmer

I'll add my two cents that this has been an extraordinarily valuable thread. Thanks everyone. I was on track to burn 8.75 cords this winter (when NoFo put out the "18% done" post) and now think I'll end up closer to 7 cords thanks to making the adjustments recommended here. I had been running the primaries all the way open, and while this created tremendous heat and a deafening roar in the secondary chamber, I know realize that much of the heat was being blasted straight through the heat exchangers and up the chimney.

I'll be interested to see if others are also noticing wood savings.


----------



## barnartist

Your right Veggie, much info to take advangage of here.

I'm looking at the ad at the bottom of this thread. Looks like its burning to yellow.


----------



## Dave T

I felt the same way that their ad is burning very yellow, but if you try to take a picture of the EKO gassification chamber it is very hard to show blue gassification in a picture, I took the pics shown earlier in this post in pitch black and had to take several pics to get one that actually showed the blue flame, also I looked at the youtube vids and saw mostly orange and yellow flames and a sound like a blast furnace, to me this is inproper gassification BUT I could be way off..Just wanted to say I am enjoying looking out and seeing lots of snow but not trudging through it to load the EKO..Dave


----------



## taxidermist

I cut my fan speed down to 50 percent and have good gassification no bridging and plenty of heat. primaries are at 1 inch and secondaries are at 4 turns out and chminey temps are around 250 to 300 so far so good. I cant say I always have blue flames but I do get blue during the hottest part of the burn.


Rob


----------



## barnartist

Taco your right about the pics of the burn, thought i'd see what some folks thought, but also your correct about the blast furnace. I used to be able to hear my gasification with the door closed if I stood reasonably close to the boiler, probably from the stack too.

Rob, how are your restarts going at those settings? Maybe I have lost my touch, but seems like I have a much harder time getting it up to heat and a steady gasser.


----------



## taxidermist

barnartist said:
			
		

> Taco your right about the pics of the burn, thought i'd see what some folks thought, but also your correct about the blast furnace. I used to be able to hear my gasification with the door closed if I stood reasonably close to the boiler, probably from the stack too.
> 
> Rob, how are your restarts going at those settings? Maybe I have lost my touch, but seems like I have a much harder time getting it up to heat and a steady gasser.



No problems as a matter of fact my wife started it tonight while I am at work with no troubles. I loaded it this morning at 5:00am ish and I had a great bed of coals from my 9:30pm fill My wife went out at 9:30 tonight and relit the fire. The water temp at boiler was at 158 and the incoming water at house was 150 and the tank water was at 160. Also my valve for my return protection(balancing valve?) is just cracked about 1 and it holds my boiler around 190+ while at steady state burning.


Rob


----------



## barnartist

Just an update...
Even with my bigger plates added to the old secondary plates that are suppose to help close off the air to the secondaries, I felt like I was still not mixing with the primary right. I went back in there and put metal tape over half of the secondary pipe, and moved my primariy out to 3/4". This seems to be a good operating level for me. I get much faster restarts and almost no visible smoke, and I seem to be able to change the gasification flame with the fan openings. When I cut the fan openings back now, I can change the color of the gas, which almost sounds like what some of you say the primary screws do.

Maybe I have greener wood than some, I don't have a moisture meter. (send it to me for Christmas Hearth). My wood was stacked in an ideal long single row with lots of wind and sun, and a very dry summer, but only for 7-9 months.

I don't realistically see myself ever getting 2 seasons ahead with wood, but I hope to. Maybe then I can close my primary air down to 9mm, but from here I can't operate well at that setting.


----------



## 88rxn/a

after reading the mini-coldsnap thread i wonder? do these settings account for ALL types of weather? or do adjustments need to be made each time it dips into single digits?


----------



## taxidermist

I think we will have to dink with the fan speed and air to the fans but I think you will not have to mess with the primaries. I too have some weird burning going on with all the wind and cold temps the fire seemed lazy so I bumped up the fan speed to 60 and opened up the fan shutter and it helped a little but when the wife went to start a evening fire the damper was stuck(telling me it was still a lazy fire). She started a fire and when I got home from work at 8:30 this morning the fuel was all gone but tank temps were at 140 also telling the fire was still lazy.


Rob


----------



## barnartist

Since I have the older Eko with no fan speed control, wondering what  difference there is in fan speed and the fan air adjustment (shutter).

We were down to 3 other night, definately took some more wood, but I happen to be into a softwood portion of my pile.


----------



## taxidermist

Your fan runs at 100 percent speed and you gate the volume of air with the shutters.

New controller you can run the fan speed down to 50 percent all the way to 100 percent by 10's and then we can also adjust the volume with the shutters.

I think of it as pressure from the fan speeds and volume of air from the shutters.


Rob


----------



## Duetech

The colder weather forced me to radically readjust my settings on my older model EKO40 Super as my boiler went into a tailspin and could not keep up with the high winds and colder air. I have built an external primary air controller so I can make all of my changing weather and changing wood moisture adjustments in just a few seconds. Next I intend to work on the secondary controls so they are more user friendly. I am looking to get one of the new controllers,  because of the lower blower settings, so that my adjustments will not have to be so radical when adjusting from one weather pattern to the next . As soon as I can upload the pictures for the external primary air adjuster I will post with a new topic...SEE "EKO External Primary Air Controller"


----------



## barnartist

very interesting Cave. We had 3f the other night now it is suppose to be in the 50's some this week. I certainly could not get enough heat until I opened up the primaries as well. Looking forward to your post pics.


----------



## Duetech

I ended up cutting back on the primary and secondary air controls and opening up the blower. In the past I have mentioned having a blower that just produces what I think is too much air. Now my primary air is about 6mm but my secondary is 1 1/2 - 2 turns and my blower is open to about 80%. My controller will not allow me to reduce blower speed. Having trouble uploading the pic's to my computer. It's a computer land software buggaboo but I am working on it and as soon as I can I will post. Thanks for the interest.


----------



## barnartist

Dear Santa...

1). Tweek my boiler as you slide down the chimney

2). Help Cave get his pics uploaded so I can adjust it myself till you come next year

3). Or forget all that and just leave me about 12 cords of wood in the driveway


----------



## CANUCK GLAZIER

I would def agree with Medman in regards to the eko25 being a bit of a challenge vs its bigger siblings. This thread has really helped me in getting my boiler dialed in over the past week. The wood I am using varies in moisture content so getting the settings right was tricky. I will be pursuing a similar design as Cave2k with an adjustable primary air accessible from the outside of the blower panel.

I have my primaries set at 13 mm, my secondaries set at 4 turns out, fan inlet 25 mm- 35 mm, and my fan speed at 60%. I find that in my case of varying moisture these settings work well as I can regulate the air with fan inlet and speed so that I don't get any bridging or burn pockets, as well as a nice steady burn averaging around 7 hrs with some idle time of course.

Hope this helps

Merry Christmas and God Bless you and yours

Rob


----------



## Duetech

EKO External Primary Air Controller Pics are up listed under new topic "EKO External Primary Air Controller". Oh and Merry Christmas to you all!


----------



## Dave T

I let the EKO burn out yesterday to change my circ and left it out for a while last night so the fat man in red would not burn his touchie on the way in , it worked he was here, he was here my son yelled wakeing me up this morning..All the money on my night stand was still there too so I guess this economy has not hurt santa to much..MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL and I hope Barnartist's EKO got the tweeking of a lifetime...Dave


----------



## Northwoodsman

Glad to hear that I am not alone in trying to fine tune my EKO40 system with 1,000 gallons of pressurized storage.

I have been running my system for approx. 2 months now and am starting to make some real progress.

I have my secondary air adjustment at 4 turns and have not had to have the cover off and thus do not know what my primary is set at (factory recommends 9-12 mm I believe).

The past few days I have been able to get full, complete gasification burns without any messing around. It seems like the most important item is that the fire gets nice and hot in the primary chamber and thus creates a good bed of coals. Also, I only load the wood box half full until I get a good gasification going at which point I load it up full. What I have been doing is opening the bottom door for 5-10 minutes after starting the fire and then closing the door. Then, I set my temperature controller to 180 F and let the wood burn (with all doors closed and no gasification) until it hits this temp and the blower turns off, let the temp drop to the cut in temp and repeat this cycle one more time. Once this cycle has been repeated 2X I use the poker and make sure all the charcoaled wood is nested tightly and then pull the gasification lever and off she goes. It is important to make sure that the first/lower 4-5 pieces of wood are split very small (2-3" in width) to ensure a good bed of coals are created after cycling for 2X in the non-gasification mode.

Hope this helps !


----------



## barnartist

All of that is good North if you are around to do it all. It certainly does help the burn when things can be adjusted on the fly. I think the main goal here is to find a sweet spot so we can "set it and forget it".
I am really liking the ideas in the new topics, probably will bring an end to to this thread. What a run though.


----------



## Duetech

Another fine tune tweak I was inspired to try was elevating the U blocks in the EKO40. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbUUGYbv8M). I did that this morning  and got some pretty good results. the video clip has the entire structure elevated off the bottom of the secondary chamber but mine is not that elaborate. But what I have I think is forcing a more complete burn in my EKO. By using  some standard fire brick as a flat platform I raised my U block 1 1/4" closer to the nozzle. It required a little adjustment on the primary and secondary air but I am getting a better blue flame than I have had and with reduce fan shutter opening I am getting fewer coals building up in the U block channel. The boiler is responsive to temperature changes and climbs quickly up to temps. Will have to see about efficiency.


----------



## leaddog

Cave2k said:
			
		

> Another fine tune tweak I was inspired to try was elevating the U blocks in the EKO40. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbUUGYbv8M). I did that this morning  and got some pretty good results. the video clip has the entire structure elevated off the bottom of the secondary chamber but mine is not that elaborate. But what I have I think is forcing a more complete burn in my EKO. By using  some standard fire brick as a flat platform I raised my U block 1 1/4" closer to the nozzle. It required a little adjustment on the primary and secondary air but I am getting a better blue flame than I have had and with reduce fan shutter opening I am getting fewer coals building up in the U block channel. The boiler is responsive to temperature changes and climbs quickly up to temps. Will have to see about efficiency.



It seems like someone else did that but he was having problems with the refactory of the nozzels breaking down. Thought the high heat closer to the bottem and reflecting it back was causeing it. It was mentioned here some were but I don't remember where. it will be interesting to see how you turn out. ((One word of caution about getting these things to hot as you will have to develope a special material to contain as the steel and refactory will melt into a pool, sort of like a nuculer reactor)) Keep up the good work
leaddog


----------



## Duetech

If I remember correctly I think Nofossil was experimenting with firebrick to re-route his fire path and was having problems with standard fire brick being unable to take the heat. This just elevates the U block so I keep the best refractory closest to the flame. The air turbulence in the U block is forcing a very blue flame so I think I am getting the best over-all ignition I have consistently had. Blower shutter is at 1/2" open. Primary is at 6mm and secondary is now avg. at 1 3/4 turns. The flame torches even at these low settings but like I have said the blower really pushes air.


----------



## sled_mack

I thought the idea was to have more volume for the gasses to combust in the lower chamber?  Raising the blocks would do just the opposite of that.

My U shaped blocks were crumbling apart so I tried something different this year.  I ordered 11.5 inch square blocks that are 2 inches thick from a place that makes industrial refractory.  (11 inch square would have been better, I had to grind them to fit.  The bottom of the chamber is not flat.)  I got six blocks.  I place one across the back, wide face facing front.  I then place two along each side.  The first one in goes tight against the block across the back and the second one goes tight against the first.  Looking down from the top would be a U shape, forcing all gasses to the front.  The last block sits just inside the door to keep the gasses from eroding the door refractory.  I have some regular fireplace firebricks on the bottom to protect the bottom of the chamber.

This has been a huge improvement for me.  I get secondary burns much more quickly than I ever did before.

There should be a picture attached to give you and idea of how it goes together.  (Or maybe not.  I cut the file size down to 63kb, but I still get the error msg saying it's too big and must not exceed 450 kb.)


----------



## Duetech

Hi sled-mack,
This link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbUUGYbv8M) was sent to me because of a question I asked in another thread. Notice the height of the bottom of the combustion refractory. There is passage below the combustion refractory for burning gasses to flow through on their way to the heat tubes in the back. That is flow through and flow around design. The fire is very blue, is intense and probably one of the best btu producing mix configurations possible without a vortex. My blower (1/2' open), primary (6mm) and secondary (avg 1 3/4 turns) air settings are lower than the standard recommendations in the newer EKO manual and the fire I am now getting is close to the one in the video clip but with a vortex.

While my U block rested on the bottom in the secondary chamber I was having trouble with turbulence from my secondary air blowing the flame around in random fashion. Placing the U block closer to the nozzle forces the gasses into a vortex before they leave the U block channel and that forces a more complete mix and combustion. For right now I want a long consistent fire to heat my home because I don't have storage and I want to reduce idle time but I also want the cleanest burning fire I can get. It is quite possible that higher air flow requires a larger chamber for combustion to achieve a more complete burn but I also think that the larger flame setting is fitted to the storage concept. I am interested to see what the configuration I have will do where storage is concerned. There is also talk of a new design possibly coming out for the EKO that eliminates the turbulence of the big secondary openings in the refractory by utilizing a larger number of smaller diameter holes. The video clip is also supposed to be one of those new nozzle designs.

As far as your U blocks crumbling apart I am curious if you shut your boiler down for the summer? I run mine for dhw and have had a fire in it almost 24-7 since Thanksgiving week end in 06. I wonder if the down time effects the refractory??? Thanks for the input.


----------



## leaddog

Cave2k said:
			
		

> Another fine tune tweak I was inspired to try was elevating the U blocks in the EKO40. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbUUGYbv8M). I did that this morning  and got some pretty good results. the video clip has the entire structure elevated off the bottom of the secondary chamber but mine is not that elaborate. But what I have I think is forcing a more complete burn in my EKO. By using  some standard fire brick as a flat platform I raised my U block 1 1/4" closer to the nozzle. It required a little adjustment on the primary and secondary air but I am getting a better blue flame than I have had and with reduce fan shutter opening I am getting fewer coals building up in the U block channel. The boiler is responsive to temperature changes and climbs quickly up to temps. Will have to see about efficiency.



https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/13880/P60/  page five shows the bottem of sled_macks refactory that was coming apart with the fire brick added. It took a while to find but I would watch how much I would direct the flame back at the underneath at the nozzels.
leaddog


----------



## sled_mack

Pics of what I have now.  (The paper is sticking down because I was just about to light a fire when I remembered to take the pics.)

I do shut down for the summer, so that could have something to do with the U blocks crumbling.  Maybe that is related to my issue with the refractory at the top crumbling too?  If I can end this winter with enough wood left over, I may burn all summer for DHW.  I can go almost a week without a fire with my large storage tank.

In the thread that leaddog linked, the U blocks are on the bottom, but I used fire bricks along the sides of them to channel all gasses to the front, then along the sides to the back.  It made an improvement way back then when Zennon told me to try it.  However, it made an even bigger improvement this year when I went to the new config.

At Barnartist's encouragement, I finally took off the front cover and adjusted my primaries this weekend.  They were full open, now about 10mm.  Secondary's were about 6 turns out, now about 2.5.  Fan covers are open about 1/2 inch at the wides part of the pie.  I basically kept turning down the secondaries till I got a nice gentle flame out the bottom.  It still gets secondary burn quickly.  It seems to burn much longer per load of wood, but heats the storage tank at almost the same rate per hour.  I just restarted the boiler yesterday after being away for a few days, so I'll have a better feeling of how it is working as the week goes on.

One other thing worth noting - with my large storage my boiler sees almost the same conditions every day.  Typically, the tank is between 165 and 170 when I restart the boiler, and the timer I use cuts it off when the tank is approaching 180.  This is pretty much regardless of outside conditions.  The benefit (I think) is that I don't see changes in how my boiler runs due to weather conditions.  The only difference is that if it is warm enough I can go to one load a day, but the tank temps are still pretty much the same.  So, now I'm curious - for others with large storage, do you have the same experience?  Or am I just not noticing subtle differences?


----------



## quinn0507

Why do they recomend the fan opening be 100% for the EKO 40 for the range of wood moisture contents in the manual?  This differes from some of the other models.


----------



## Duetech

Probably something to do with the art of manufacturing based on cost effectiveness. It would take a pieces/parts comparison but the likelihood is the blower for the 40 is the same as the one used for the 18 and 25 and that would mean they believe the maximum out put of the blower is more suited to the size of the 40. I wonder if the blowers in Europe run at a slower rpm because the AC runs at 50 cps (cycles per second) rather than the 60 cps here in America. I find for peak efficiency, at some more economical settings, the blower on my EKO40 is over sized. EKO has developed a newer control module that addresses blower speed so it would seem they see the need for a wider settings application than the general set-up recommendations listed in their manual.????????


----------



## sdrobertson

sdrobertson said:
			
		

> Question for you before I tear down front of stove tomorrow while cleaning everything.  I've always had a problem staying in complete gasification.  What I've been doing is after stove is up to temp and running well I start to get smoke out the chimney.  I would go out to the stove and stir up the wood and it would burn really well for about 5 - 10 minutes and then start to smoke alittle again.  In a hour or so I would go back out and stir and again good gasification.  What I was thinking was that I couldn't keep hot coals by the nozzles so I would loose gasification.  Today I decided to screw around with the secondary air and I went from fully closed to fully opened.  Not much difference.  I then opened the top and let the smoke clear out like I always do and then stirred the wood.  It occurred to me that maybe I was getting to much fuel (smoke) and that maybe the primary's were open to far and letting to much air in the top chamber.  I have a fire going so I can't work on the primary's so what I did was open the secondary's all the way and closed down the fan shutters to about a 1/2 inch.  Its been about a hour and still in gasification but its not roaring like it does when I first close up the top after stirring the wood.  I set the primary's to the manual specs so what I wondering is how much should I close them so that I can start closing my secondary settings and fine tuning?  Does any of this make sense or am I spinning my wheels like usual?



Its been almost a month since I started this thread and I thought I'd update it.  First of all I need to thank my father and everyone on this site for all of your help.  As you read in the first post I was having difficulty keeping my boiler in gasification and I was questioning if I was getting to much fuel.  I have made several changes and I think its a combination of all so I'll list them in order:  Secondary Covers-I replaced the small disks with metal electrical covers as the screws were located 3/4" to low and even when I closed the secondary's all the way they were still open allot.  This seemed to work some and I could change the flame slightly and I was getting better burns.  I was still getting smoke out of the chimney and I would loose gasification eventually and create pockets around the nozzles.  I closed the primary's and was starting to get better burns again but I still seemed to have to much fuel even when the primary's were closed all the way.  I removed my cap off the top of the chimney and this greatly increased my draft which helped "clean" out the bottom chamber and I could turn down my fan air settings to slow down the rate of air going through the stove without losing my stack temp which helped with the pockets around the nozzles.  My chimney is 5' of regular black pipe to the ceiling and then 7' of insulated up through the roof so I don't have much draft to begin with but I was still not happy with the ability to fine tune the boiler.  The last change was done all together and included changing the metal electrical covers back to the small metal disks and moving the screws up into the proper positions (the electrical covers were heavy and with the flimsy fan cover I think they would bend down and I couldn't control the air to the secondary's very well) and set up the primary's with the bent rods out the side of the stove that was in a post by Dean Zook allowing adjustments to the primary's while the boiler is running.  Problems I had was not enough draft, inproper secondary air control(from factory), and not enough really dry wood.  
With all of the changes I have made I can happily report that I am extremely happy with the system I have set up.  I went from a Central Boiler to this system and my wood consumption was pretty close to half before I started making all of the changes so I can't wait for the rest of the winter to see what I end up with.  I was happy with the boiler but frustrated because I knew it could be better.  I want to stress to everyone who reads these posts and starts to think that all of the gasifiers are a pain to run and take allot of time to set up and run this is not the case.  With all of my problems I had, I was still burning allot less wood and producing allot less smoke than the OWB but these boilers become addicting and its enjoyable to see what can be tweeked here and there to get the best possible burn.  It's not mandatory to spend the time but it turns into allot of fun.

Thank You all again for your great posts,
Shannon Robertson


----------



## barnartist

Thanks for the update Shannon. I'd like to get to where you are, but like you said it is a border line addiction to mess with these boilers.

I still am using the electrical box covers on my secondary plates, so I suppose at some point I should just move those screws up as well.

When I squeeze back the air to close to where everyone is trying to run the boiler, like you It all burns well for a while then I lose the flame and gain some smoke. No trouble heating my tanks, but looks like room for improvement here.

Today I cleaned out my exchanger tubes (I have the old model that does not include the exterior cleanout arm) and my stack dropped about 100F at normal operating, so I must be making a better air to water echange back there. I was lazy this year to get back there, so I should try and clean out more often.


----------



## stee6043

I'll add my initial experiences to this thread:

My break-in burn's were completed using "near factory" settings per the manual.  I ran 1/2" open on the primaries, 6 turns out on the secondaries, 100% fan power and 100% fan shutter open.  I did get decent gasification (very orange flame) but my boiler temps wanted to stay in the 160's most of the time.  I did get her up to 190+ for an hour or two over three days.  My flue temps held just under 400 degrees.

Before my fourth day of burning I adjusted my primaries down to 9mm, secondaries to 5 turns out, fan speed to 80%, fan shutter opening at 50%.  Huge improvement in my ability to maintain 180+ boiler temps.  My flue temps also increased to between 425 and 450.  I still have a fair amount of orange in the flame but it is blue in the center.  I'm still working on tweaking but this was a huge step in the right direction.  Great thread


----------



## Tony H

My settings are at 1/4 primaries 2.5 secondaries fan shutter 1 1/4 and the flame is strong and mostly blue and white , thanks to all of the adjusting and testing by you the thing is running better and better.


----------



## Duetech

barnartist said:
			
		

> Thanks for the update Shannon. I'd like to get to where you are, but like you said it is a border line addiction to mess with these boilers.
> 
> Today I cleaned out my exchanger tubes (I have the old model that does not include the exterior cleanout arm) and my stack dropped about 100F at normal operating, so I must be making a better air to water echange back there. I was lazy this year to get back there, so I should try and clean out more often.



My boiler was down this summer for a cleaning and I have the 40 Super with the cleaners in the tubes. The cleaners are 1 1/4" twisted flat stock steel and the tubes are 1 1/2" diameter. Theoretically that leaves and 1/8" crud on the inside all the way around in each tube. My temp transfer was great for about a week and then dropped down to really nice and has stayed there since. I really need some 1 7/16"  or 1 3/8" twisted flat stock to keep the tubes good and clean with out having to take things apart since I have a lot of idle time and will have until I can get my storage up and running. I wonder how much the crud in the tubes effects the "ideal burn" we are all wanting to have????

Any way my point is the built in tube cleaner is really nice but I still have to clean my tubes too and I'm thinking all the time all of us has spent burning with less than the peak fire has left a lot more tubes cruddy than we would like to think. :cheese:


----------



## Eric Johnson

I didn't clean my tubes at the end of last season, but Zenon recommends doing it.

I'm pretty happy with the new controller. I think the greater temp range helps keep the boiler from going into idle. Think about it: you've got 20 degrees more range on the top end, so you get longer, hotter burns. Hotter water in the system makes everything more responsive, and a hotter-running boiler gets better, more reliable gasification. And I haven't even started fooling around with the settings. Probably should do that before the next cold front moves in the end of this week.


----------



## barnartist

Glad to see you finally installed that controller Eric. I really want one, im just too cheap right now to buy it.

Cave, I think there is a whole other discussion to be had on the tubes and the heat echange back there. Iv'e seen my stack creep up the last couple of days for similar burns, so Cleaning those suckers seems to be a necessary evil. Its a pain for me to take out my homeade spirals and do that, but when finished I really kick some butt on the next burn. It's tough to watch the top of the stack sometimes and see that "hot black summer road" look if you know what I mean. Seems like a waist. Lets catch some more of that heat.


----------



## Eric Johnson

I went out this evening and put square pieces of sheet metal under the primary air regulator plates, which in my case won't reach far enough to close the passages down to the 10mm size by themselves. That worked pretty slick and I set the openings for about 10 mm or 1/4-inch. I re-set the secondaries to 6 turns and set the sliders on the blowers to about one inch. Then I set the fan intensity to 60% and fired 'er up.

That didn't work at all. I couldn't get sustained gasification and the boiler didn't heat up. Well, it's a pain to take the blower plate back off, especially with a firebox full of burning wood, so I fooled around with everything else in an attempt to get it going right. No dice. After dinner I took the plate off and removed the sheet metal, leaving openings of about 1" on each side. I set the blowers to 100% and launched a beautiful gasification event. Orange and yellow flame roaring.

Then I started playing with the fan intensity. I found that 70% yields a beautiful blue flame and steady heat output. I'll load it up as usual shortly and see what we've got in the morning. I like the blue flame. I think that's the goal Cave and everyone else who has contributed to this thread is talking about. Getting a longer burn out of the same amount of wood is a worthy goal.

For those with EKO 60s and 80s with the old controller, I think you can get a similar result by shutting down one of your blowers after you get a good fire going. Turn on both blowers on startup, and then switch back to just one once the thing is up to speed. I bet you wring more out of your wood supply that way.


----------



## barnartist

Eric, your description sound allot like mine, I had trouble on startup, lots of smoke and could not get it to fire (when I closed down the primary more). So I also had to open the primaries back up, but more like 5/8 I think. However, I remember you always like 6 turn on your seconds, seems like that would need to be way down to match the primary opening, talking about when you tried to close it off more.

I can close off my fan openings completely and still get a lazy gasifying flame like others have talked about.. Don't understand that one. I just need to make the modification to adjust those primaries on the fly.

Oh, I cooked a chicken and some taters in the gasser this evening. Turned out nice.


----------



## Eric Johnson

I'll have to think about that one.


----------



## Duetech

barnartist said:
			
		

> Cave, I think there is a whole other discussion to be had on the tubes and the heat echange back there. Iv'e seen my stack creep up the last couple of days for similar burns, so Cleaning those suckers seems to be a necessary evil. Its a pain for me to take out my homeade spirals and do that, but when finished I really kick some butt on the next burn. It's tough to watch the top of the stack sometimes and see that "hot black summer road" look if you know what I mean. Seems like a waist. Lets catch some more of that heat.



It's been deleted now but I sent the dimensions on the cleaner arm, shaft assembly etc. of my boiler to someone so they could build their own. Was probably too much of a project. All I have to do is make some wider scrapers to go into my tubes and I haven't done it yet. So I am not surprised I haven't heard back on "their" project. Wider scrapers would allow the tubes to be cleaned more efficiently, allow the tubes to transfer more heat, open up the exhaust flow and maybe allow more heat/better burn. Kind of like taking the baffles out of an old 2 stroke dirt bike???? Another one of "those" projects. I'm still trying to get at building a flexible smoke baffle for the upper chamber. Days are too short I think but I'm glad they aren't any longer...........

Eric,  I measured my nozzle opening also. It is 8 1/2" x 1 1/2". It seems the 60 is a twin version of the 40. I was thinking of putting a short piece of firebrick , up top, between the secondary air outlets to see if I could force a better burn. Just have to scrounge to come up with some "test" materials........


----------



## barnartist

I remember that post Cave. Nice job on that one as well. It did seem like allot for me.

I'd like to have a quicker way to get that back cover off, skip all of thos bolts, but maybe they are necessary for a good seal. Seems like there is some kind of flip bolt hardware, or something with a small handle that you can pull up or push down by hand. Anyone know what I'm blabbering about?
Somebody on here uses a good wire pipe cleaner thats just the right size, im sure it does a much better job than the round iron tool provided (at least for the older Eko)


----------



## Duetech

I know what you're talking about but you probably have to do a search at Grizzly.com(found them at Grizzly. They're called toggle clamps #G1774), Northerntool.com or some specific hardware outlet. Ace or Tractor Supply might have something like them in a catalog. The ones I am used to seeing were used for covered grain augers. Some flipped up from the side and had an over center cam-lock you could really reef on. Others were on a flat surface that kept a heavy removable panel in place. Good idea.

I had a couple of pins in my Super's tube cleaner pop out that released the spiral cleaners and ended up plugging two tubes by about 30-40% and locking the cleaners in place this last summer. (idle burn times again) I disassembled the whole cleaner and built a special cleaning tool I could use in a cordless drill to clean the tubes. Using a 15" long shaft 1 1/2" wood bit, which I trimmed about 1/32" from the sides of the blade, and a couple long drill bit extensions, I came up with a tool that would go the full length of the tubes down into the secondary chamber and out again. Two passes per tube with that was all that was needed and probably didn't take over fifteen seconds a tube except for the really plugged ones. having a snap closed lid access panel for that would really be quick.


----------



## Tony H

Eric Johnson said:
			
		

> I went out this evening and put square pieces of sheet metal under the primary air regulator plates, which in my case won't reach far enough to close the passages down to the 10mm size by themselves. That worked pretty slick and I set the openings for about 10 mm or 1/4-inch. I re-set the secondaries to 6 turns and set the sliders on the blowers to about one inch. Then I set the fan intensity to 60% and fired 'er up.
> 
> That didn't work at all. I couldn't get sustained gasification and the boiler didn't heat up. Well, it's a pain to take the blower plate back off, especially with a firebox full of burning wood, so I fooled around with everything else in an attempt to get it going right. No dice. After dinner I took the plate off and removed the sheet metal, leaving openings of about 1" on each side. I set the blowers to 100% and launched a beautiful gasification event. Orange and yellow flame roaring.
> 
> Then I started playing with the fan intensity. I found that 70% yields a beautiful blue flame and steady heat output. I'll load it up as usual shortly and see what we've got in the morning. I like the blue flame. I think that's the goal Cave and everyone else who has contributed to this thread is talking about. Getting a longer burn out of the same amount of wood is a worthy goal.
> 
> For those with EKO 60s and 80s with the old controller, I think you can get a similar result by shutting down one of your blowers after you get a good fire going. Turn on both blowers on startup, and then switch back to just one once the thing is up to speed. I bet you wring more out of your wood supply that way.



After my earlier post where I had a nice blue high intensity flame on 1/4 primary opening I ran into some problems recreating that output and had results like Eric explains above. The beast would run and run and stay at 71c with poor gasification and water temp at 150 / 155 then sometimes go up to 73 then drop back to 71 .I tried for a several days to adjust the fan and secondaries and found I could get a nice burn some of the time but it took alot of tinkering. In  the end I have went in and opened the primaries to 1/2 inch and now seem to be back to getting  good consistent gasification going again with secondaries 2 turns open and fan opening at about 1 1/4 inches now I can keep it pushing out the heat while I try some more fine tuning


----------



## Eric Johnson

As I mentioned in another thread, I've had good luck in recent days changing the fan speed under different conditions. I start and rekindle fires with the fans at 100%, and then back off all the way down to 50% when I've got a good fire going. The you get the blue flame, long burns and a nice, clean secondary combustion chamber in the morning. Being able to modulate the fan speed is really nice when you don't have storage.


----------



## Bill the Dog

Gentlemen,
The background.  I’ve been reading this forum and others here for several years.  I’ve burned wood for many years where I used to live.  Currently I have an EKO 80 that I’ve been running for about 2.5 weeks now.  It is placed in a detached garage that I built this summer.  I built a 7X14 insulated boiler room in the garage for the boiler, pumps, piping and expansion tanks.  The rest of the garage is unheated.  I do not have any storage at the moment, but am working on 1000 – 2000 gallons of storage as soon as I find some tanks.  I have about a 110’ run through Logstor insulated PEX piping up to my house.  The house is a one story (2400 sq. ft.) plus a full basement (another 2400 sq. ft.).  I have a heat exchanger in my forced air furnace and a side arm on my hot water heater.  The house was built in 2001, has lots of high efficiency windows and 6” insulated walls everywhere.  We are in central Wisconsin so our temps are colder than some here and warmer than others.  We are burning maple that was cut and split over a year ago and stored under cover.

Now, the good news.  I started with the following set up for the EKO 80, essentially the “factory” settings.  Primary air at about 3/8” open (about 9.5 mm) which is as closed at they will go by the way, secondary air at 3.5 turns out and fan openings at 100% open.  I ran a couple of smaller fires for a day and then loaded the sucker up full.  It is a big firebox in case anyone cares.  It holds about 50 pieces of averaged sized split 16” long wood.  Running these settings, I normally have 24 hour burn times.  The shortest has been 21 hours and the longest has been 28 hours.  I have been keeping the house at 72 F and the entire family is very happy.

Now the bad news.  This things smokes all the time.  It smokes a little bit while idling.  It smokes like a Central Boiler when it’s running.  I can get decent orange to blue flames out of the nozzles some times but it still smokes.  Normally it only gasifies out of one nozzle, but not both.  It always smokes out of at least one nozzle.   I’ve tried changing the secondary air inlets anywhere from 2 turns out to 6 turns out.  I’ve tried moving the fan openings from 100% open to 25% open (about ½” open at the widest point).  None of the changes I’ve made have done anything.  I think that the secondary air adjusters line up with the pipes, but I won’t swear to it.  How do you actually check?  Also, I appear to have the “old” controller.  The back of the controller has knobs for fan speed control, but they don’t seem to do anything for fan speed.  I am not really happy to spend the $$$ that I did and get the “old” controller.

In summary,  I love burning wood and we all love the warm house and long burn times.  I am disappointed that I can get some gasification, but this thing always smokes, and sometimes smokes a lot.  I really, really would appreciated any help or advice anyone can give me to help adjust this thing.

Bill the Dog


----------



## Duetech

I'll PM you.


----------



## stee6043

Bill the Dog said:
			
		

> Gentlemen,
> The background.  I’ve been reading this forum and others here for several years.  I’ve burned wood for many years where I used to live.  Currently I have an EKO 80 that I’ve been running for about 2.5 weeks now.  It is placed in a detached garage that I built this summer.  I built a 7X14 insulated boiler room in the garage for the boiler, pumps, piping and expansion tanks.  The rest of the garage is unheated.  I do not have any storage at the moment, but am working on 1000 – 2000 gallons of storage as soon as I find some tanks.  I have about a 110’ run through Logstor insulated PEX piping up to my house.  The house is a one story (2400 sq. ft.) plus a full basement (another 2400 sq. ft.).  I have a heat exchanger in my forced air furnace and a side arm on my hot water heater.  The house was built in 2001, has lots of high efficiency windows and 6” insulated walls everywhere.  We are in central Wisconsin so our temps are colder than some here and warmer than others.  We are burning maple that was cut and split over a year ago and stored under cover.
> 
> Now, the good news.  I started with the following set up for the EKO 80, essentially the “factory” settings.  Primary air at about 3/8” open (about 9.5 mm) which is as closed at they will go by the way, secondary air at 3.5 turns out and fan openings at 100% open.  I ran a couple of smaller fires for a day and then loaded the sucker up full.  It is a big firebox in case anyone cares.  It holds about 50 pieces of averaged sized split 16” long wood.  Running these settings, I normally have 24 hour burn times.  The shortest has been 21 hours and the longest has been 28 hours.  I have been keeping the house at 72 F and the entire family is very happy.
> 
> Now the bad news.  This things smokes all the time.  It smokes a little bit while idling.  It smokes like a Central Boiler when it’s running.  I can get decent orange to blue flames out of the nozzles some times but it still smokes.  Normally it only gasifies out of one nozzle, but not both.  It always smokes out of at least one nozzle.   I’ve tried changing the secondary air inlets anywhere from 2 turns out to 6 turns out.  I’ve tried moving the fan openings from 100% open to 25% open (about ½” open at the widest point).  None of the changes I’ve made have done anything.  I think that the secondary air adjusters line up with the pipes, but I won’t swear to it.  How do you actually check?  Also, I appear to have the “old” controller.  The back of the controller has knobs for fan speed control, but they don’t seem to do anything for fan speed.  I am not really happy to spend the $$$ that I did and get the “old” controller.
> 
> In summary,  I love burning wood and we all love the warm house and long burn times.  I am disappointed that I can get some gasification, but this thing always smokes, and sometimes smokes a lot.  I really, really would appreciated any help or advice anyone can give me to help adjust this thing.
> 
> Bill the Dog



Question - why did you decide on an EKO 80?  That sucker is huge.  With my EKO 40 heating 3200 square feet I don't get to the full-on no smoke operation until my boiler temps are up to 160 and the flue hits 400 or so.  It typically takes me about an hour from a cold start to get to this point.  It smokes a fair amount for the first 10 minutes (not like an OWB, however) and for the next 45 minutes or so I have a smoke trail that completely dissipates within 20 feet of my stack.  After an hour - no smoke at all and she runs like this until she runs out of wood.

I think perhaps an EKO 80 is way too big for your heat load???  Others will likely chime in.  Get that storage online so you have somewhere to send the gazillions of BTU's that thing creates...


----------



## Eric Johnson

If you're not getting gasification out of both nozzles, then you're going to get smoke. One thing to make sure of is that both nozzles are clear before you put in a new load of wood. You can do that with the hoe cleaning tool they provide with the boiler. Another point is that 2.5 weeks is pretty early in your gasification career--and early in the boiler's life. There is moisture in the refractory that takes awhile to work itself out. When it does, you'll get more reliable gasification. The 80 has lots of refractory, so that might be why it's taking longer than normal. Back to the nozzles: You want to make sure that your fuel is on the nozzles as much as possible. I rarely fill my 60 up all the way. Instead, I make pyramids of wood in the firebox over the nozzles. Finally, you want to keep your boiler as hot as possible at all times. The new controller (you're right--you've got the old one) allows you to go up to 195 degrees and it reads out in F. I just replaced the old one with the new one a few weeks ago, and I'm getting a lot better performance at high temps and by controlling the fan speed, which is something you can't do the the old one. I'd try to ding the dealer for a cheap or free replacement. It's definitely worth it. Out other member with an 80 and a couple of guys with 60s have tried disconnecting one blower, since the two-blower arrangement is apparently too powerful for most conditions. With the new controller, you can modulate the fans down to 50%, which I suspect accomplishes about the same thing, plus you can set it higher at 10% increments. Another thing you can try is to block off one nozzle with a piece of firebrick. That effectively cuts your output by half, but it sounds like an 80 is way more boiler than you really need, so it's certainly worth a try.

Bear in mind that some what you're calling "smoke" is probably just steam. That's the stuff that dissipates 20 feet from the stack and it's usually white. Even "dry" firewood has 15 percent moisture, and it has to go somewhere. You notice it more on very cold days.

Finally (and I mean it this time), if you wood isn't really dry, you're going to get smoke--usually whispy blue stuff. You can get around that to some extent by building a small, hot fire with dry wood, and then toss a couple of not-so-dry chunks on top. If I were you, I'd experiment with smaller fires and more frequent loading just to see if you can get a consistently clean burn. Then take it from there.

BTW, I'm originally from Coloma.


----------



## leaddog

With the big boiler you need storage as you are not even starting to run that thing with your load. If you are getting 24hr burn times you are just running it like an OWB with lots of idle time and that is creating ceosote. Then when it starts to heat up it tends to burn off the deposit and shuts down again. Also you need a GOOD bed of coals to gasifiy good and running the way you are you never have time to build up a good bed of HOT coals. With my 80 it will run GOOD when I have a 3 to 4in bed of hot coals and the boiler water is 180+. I have my modulating valve set for 185* so any water leaving the boiler is that hot so I keep the boiler temp high. I also have the pump temp to come on at 170 to help keep the boiler hot. 
When you start a fire you need to use SMALL pieces and then put a few larger ones on top (2in dia) and let them burn down into coals. Remember you have alot of refactory to heat and you need the hot coals to lite the gases and keep gasification going. If you have bare open nozzles showing you will smoke.
You can try the one nozzle, I did , by taking a fire brick and placing it over the back nozzle and then load the front like you would with one nozzle. Just don't fill it up and exspect to get 24hr burns. Any thing over 10 to 12 hrs is way to much. 
I'm running with my fan at 70% speed, 1 fan only, primarys at 10mm, secondarys 4turns, and the fan opening about 3/4's open. 
leaddog


----------



## Duetech

Hi Bill the Dog,

Without storage, even though you are trying to heat 4800 sq ft maybe you should:

(1) block off one nozzle (like some others with larger EKO's are doing) 

(2) Disconnect one blower (by putting in an on/off switch to select/de-select its usage like some others with larger EKO's are doing).

(3) Reduce remaining blower output to around 35-50%. (")

(4) Reduce primary air to 6-8mm. (reduce further if flow is still too strong)

(5) Turn secondary air controls down to 2-3 turns (maybe open a little more if all you get is an orange flame).
And load conservatively until your unit is up to temperature.


----------



## Eric Johnson

I didn't think the blower output setting went below 50%, Cave. Does yours?

Leaddog makes some excellent points, as usual. I've noticed that the bed of coals is critical to reliable gasification. Getting a good bed of coals is a lot easier if you run the boiler hot, like 185-195. You can't get that high with your controller. It maxes out at 176 (80 degrees C). And, it's a good idea to set your main circulator so that it won't kick on until the water is really hot. I have mine set to run only when the return is above 160. Leaddog's setpoint is 170 at the top of the boiler; so we're probably about the same. It works really well. These things like to stay hot.

I'm starting think that gasification boilers aren't really most efficient when you have to continually start fires from scratch. It seems to that all that time spend cooling down and heating up is counterproductive. Instead, I think you should size your boiler/system in such a way that you can run the boiler continuously within a certain temp range. Not sure what that is, but if you're always loading onto a nice bed of coals and getting instant gasification, seems to me that would be the optimum.


----------



## Duetech

Eric:
No my blower won't slow down and neither will Bill the Dog's as we both have the old controller I was referencing his blower opening. OOps sorry about that. I've edited that response now to address him.  It was kind of general without any real directions to who it was for and while I wrote it leaddog must have posted. Thanks for pointing that out.

Nofossil gets a good deal out of storage with just one burn but if I remember correctly some of them are weather related "long" burns like a load and a half. Maybe we need to hybridize the EKO with the Greenwood concept as Greenwood has lots of refractory "to hold the heat" as they say. With storage having a hot boiler secondary would save on burn time to achieve gasification and might/should have an overall efficiency benefit if you can achieve optimum gasification in shorter time.


----------



## sled_mack

Eric,

I've got a work around for always having a bed of coals for the next fire.  I have a timer on my boiler.  Right now, it is set for 5 hours.  So, I load the chamber, reset the timer and let it go.  I load it once in the morning and once in the evening.  

The coals won't always look very hot, but a little air gets them fired up quickly.  Upon loading I open the fan shutter all the way for about 2 minutes.  (Gassification starts within the first minute.)  Then I close them about 50% for about 15 to 20 minutes.  By then it is burning very hot and I shut the fan shutters down to maybe 20%.

Doing this requires that the circ pump has an aquastat to prevent from overheating the boiler when the timer stops and shuts the controller off.  Or, just shut the fans off with the timer.  Just make sure the pumps can run if the boiler gets too hot.  I have an aquastat set for 190 deg on top of the boiler jacket.

This method has worked like a champ for me.


----------



## barnartist

I stole sled_mack's timer idea, this has been one of my favorite modifications. Lots of coals left for a restart. I use a simple 12 hour countdown timer, and tie the conroller's power to it. I usually set it for 5-6 hours. Champ champ champ! Thanks Mack!

All of my fine tuning has paid off, I don't want to touch any setting it has been so good. Tons of heat, deep blue gases- life is good even in the -11 temps last night. Still a 12 hour cycle and warm tanks and lots of leftover coals. Last season I would have needed 4 loads of wood in 24 hours in these temps. Sadly, I'm running out of things to experiment with...


----------



## Dave T

Barnartist,
 Good to hear your EKO is performing up to par for you,the big question is do you dare reinstall the blower shield???Dave


----------



## barnartist

Yes! I did just that 2 days ago! What does that tell you?
Also, I have been leaning a big piece of bubble foil around the doors- my thought is to help insulate the area, and the intake air might be a little warmer for the mix. Don't know if it does anything or not.


----------



## stee6043

sled_mack said:
			
		

> Eric,
> 
> I've got a work around for always having a bed of coals for the next fire.  I have a timer on my boiler.  Right now, it is set for 5 hours.  So, I load the chamber, reset the timer and let it go.  I load it once in the morning and once in the evening.
> 
> The coals won't always look very hot, but a little air gets them fired up quickly.  Upon loading I open the fan shutter all the way for about 2 minutes.  (Gassification starts within the first minute.)  Then I close them about 50% for about 15 to 20 minutes.  By then it is burning very hot and I shut the fan shutters down to maybe 20%.
> 
> Doing this requires that the circ pump has an aquastat to prevent from overheating the boiler when the timer stops and shuts the controller off.  Or, just shut the fans off with the timer.  Just make sure the pumps can run if the boiler gets too hot.  I have an aquastat set for 190 deg on top of the boiler jacket.
> 
> This method has worked like a champ for me.



Are these mechanical timers you're using?  If so, any chance I could trouble you for a model number and a source?

EDIT - Are you guys simply using an Intermatic style in-wall timer for your fans?  Seems way too easy...but GREAT!  I may have something to add to my list of things to do this weekend.  You guys may have eliminated my least favorite part of my EKO - cold starts.


----------



## Eric Johnson

When it's cold like this, I'm always throwing wood onto a bed of coals. Instant gasification is the result.

I've been wondering if this is really less efficient than starting from scratch once a day. Seems to me you waste some fuel getting the fire going and getting the boiler back up to temp. You sure waste less time, and it seems to me, less chance of inadvertently leaving the bottom door open and overheating the boiler. You know how it goes.

In this sense, operating a gasifier is really no different than a conventional boiler or furnace. The main difference is lack of smoke and more heat out per pound of fuel.


----------



## Tree farmer

Eric, I agree this is how I have been running with no storage I may have idle time but I feel I make up for it in the almost instantaneous gasification when I reload on a nice bed of coals, warm boiler 170+ and hot refractory in the burn chamber.  Maybe I'm silly but I'm happier than a pig in, well you know what I mean (without storage) because I'm getting instant gasification and yes gratification as well.


----------



## Hansson

The Orlan 40 one guy in Sweden order from kottly.com have the primary air intake in the lower part of the fireroom.
Not in the top like the old one.The max temp in the controll are 97C
Just a note
http://www.perhot.eu/bilder/


----------



## jdboy9

Do the eko or any other gassy boilers do well on standby?  If you load it up in the morning and there is little to no demand all day will is stay lit?


----------



## Duetech

My EKO40 Runs different lengths of time depending on wood used and seasonal load. With pine I get 4-6 hours with oak 8-12 hours and I've never had pine last any longer but I have had hard woods last 13-14 hours in warm weather (I use my boiler to heat my homes hot water). People with boiler hot water storage tanks usually have shorter length full throttle fires but then storage takes over when the fire goes out. Some people can go up to 24 hours per fire/burn some a little longer some less. Depending on the size of your boiler storage tank it can take a load and a half just to get it up to heat levels where it will carry on for you. Some people do not need a full load of wood to burn to get their storage up to temps. I am on my third season without storage and average about 9.5 hour burn times. At around 20*f half of that time +/- is in stand by or idle and it stays lit until it is out of fuel.


----------



## Eric Johnson

I'm not sure about the other brands, but the EKO keeps the fire alive during idle by periodically turning the blower on to keep the bed of coals alive. IME, the boiler idles just fine. You get a little bit of smoke during idle and less efficiency, but the fire stays lit.

BTW, you learn pretty quickly how to load it depending on conditions, which keeps idling to a minimum.


----------



## barnartist

You can run your EKO like any other traditional outdoor wood stove. It will heat, but you don't get the full potential of the boiler, and lots more creasote, ash, etc.

Ive gotten to a portion of my wood pile that is all hardwoods. Oak, red oak, and cherry. I think I need to adjust the air settings for this because it has behaved a bit differently. What is the thinking on this-more air or less? Maybe some of it is due to a bed of dead ash in the upper chamber I need to clean out too. I figure some of you have the air setting down pretty good by now.


----------



## sled_mack

Eric Johnson said:
			
		

> When it's cold like this, I'm always throwing wood onto a bed of coals. Instant gasification is the result.
> 
> I've been wondering if this is really less efficient than starting from scratch once a day. Seems to me you waste some fuel getting the fire going and getting the boiler back up to temp. You sure waste less time, and it seems to me, less chance of inadvertently leaving the bottom door open and overheating the boiler. You know how it goes.
> 
> In this sense, operating a gasifier is really no different than a conventional boiler or furnace. The main difference is lack of smoke and more heat out per pound of fuel.



Eric,
I don't think it is much less efficient using the timer to shut the fans down.  If I look at the amount of wood/coals in there when the timer stops and compare it to when I load up hours later, there is very little change.  And, I have the aquastat that runs the pumps when the boiler is off set for 185 on top of the boiler jacket.  This helps keep the coals and the internals of the boiler relatively hot.  After adding wood I have gassification well inside of one minute.  I let the fan shutters open a bit more than normal for about 10 minutes to get the bottom really hot, then close them down for the rest of the burn cycle.

Considering the difficulty I have starting a fire from scratch, and the inherent smoke in the face I get trying to load it after starting a small fire, this solution is perfect for me.  The coals are hot when I add wood, but not so much that they start to burn instantly when I add wood, so I don't get much smoke at all while loading.

I guess I'd have to say that even if I was losing a bit of efficiency, there are just too many positives to make up for it.


----------



## Duetech

barnartist said:
			
		

> You can run your EKO like any other traditional outdoor wood stove. It will heat, but you don't get the full potential of the boiler, and lots more creasote, ash, etc.
> 
> Ive gotten to a portion of my wood pile that is all hardwoods. Oak, red oak, and cherry. I think I need to adjust the air settings for this because it has behaved a bit differently. What is the thinking on this-more air or less? Maybe some of it is due to a bed of dead ash in the upper chamber I need to clean out too. I figure some of you have the air setting down pretty good by now.



Cherry, bl. walnut and elm are fairly close in weight and btu per cord output according to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm. But I find my primary settings for the elm (probably red elm) if it hasn't gotten too old (not too aged/seasoned but starting near old-hard but pith-y) could be backed down in 20*+ weather because it coals really well. That is pretty true for red oak as well but I also find in colder weather I feel I need to bump up the primary air because the coal bed is so thick that it seems to obstruct the flow (I am only talking going from 6mm to 7mm here) but what  find that actually works best is just adding or reducing to the blower setting. Cherry and walnut don't burn as completely as the elm or oak and I get coals that fall through the nozzle where with the elm I seldom find anything but ash residue. The oak seems to burn completely no matter which of the two primary settings I use and I would probably have to set and watch and time to see if there is really a difference in idle time (not gonna happen) The elm and the oak both give me longer run times. Pine though is a whole different ball park.


----------



## Damammel

There is so many good things here to take in at once.  I fired my 40 up for the first time on Sunday and so far I seem to be burining 12 hrs with only supplying the 500 gal. tank which is uninsulated and in the shed with the boiler.  I will be putting the insulation in place once I know things are functioning properly.  I currently am set at 10mm on the primaries, 3.5 turns on the secondary and about 75% open on the fan.  I will be reducing the fan speed to 70% tonight to see how it runs.  I'm headed home to use an IR temp gun to see what I have going in an out of my storage tank.  Thanks for all the good info.


----------



## stee6043

Here is a crazy thought I'm not sure many folks have discussed: When reducing the fan output, if you have the new controller, why mess with the fan shutter??  I blindly tuned my EKO 40 with the shutter this winter until I received my first electric bill.  The higher than normal bill was a kick in the head which resulted in my realization that I could run the fun shutter 100% open all the time and tune only with the fan speed setting on the controller (talking about fan output only, not the primary and secondary air openings).

When I cold-start my EKO I crank the fan to 100%.  With the fan shutter open all the way I get nice quick fires.  Once the flue temps get up there and my boiler temp hits 160-165 I run the fan speed down to 70% and let her ride.  If I want to get a longer/cooler burn I'll run the fan speed all the way down to 50% or 60%.  

I just thought I'd share that.  I'm sure many people have realized this but I can't recall ever seeing it discussed.  Slower fan speeds result in less power being consumed.  More money in my pocket can't possibly be a bad thing...


----------



## Duetech

Actually some are doing both the shutter and the speed and getting good results. Whether it is moisture content or type of wood or both and settings would take a lot of on-sight inspection by everyone to determine not to mention the list of other variables. But it's great when people relate what they have done/are doing as that actually helps everyone get the biggest bang for their buck.


----------



## barnartist

I have one of those "kill-a-watt" electric usage meters. I should check the fans. I didn't think those fans used much power, but I always wondersed if squeezing the air opening made the fans work harder. I should try to find out. What would 100watts 24 hours do to the elec bill? $5.00? If it turns out those fans do use some juice, add another reason to purchase the new controller for me.


----------



## stee6043

barnartist said:
			
		

> I have one of those "kill-a-watt" electric usage meters. I should check the fans. I didn't think those fans used much power, but I always wondersed if squeezing the air opening made the fans work harder. I should try to find out. What would 100watts 24 hours do to the elec bill? $5.00? If it turns out those fans do use some juice, add another reason to purchase the new controller for me.



I'm sure you're spot-on with your price.  I doubt the fan actually costs "that much money" on a monthly basis.  I just wanted to throw the idea out there.  I'll take that $5 and buy myself a six pack of Milwaukees Best Light....or a 12 pack on sale....ha.


----------



## VeggieFarmer

Cave2k said:
			
		

> Actually some are doing both the shutter and the speed and getting good results. Whether it is moisture content or type of wood or both and settings would take a lot of on-sight inspection by everyone to determine not to mention the list of other variables. But it's great when people relate what they have done/are doing as that actually helps everyone get the biggest bang for their buck.



Cave-- Your tuning observations here have made an enormous difference for me. Thanks. I now run the fan at 50% with a wide open shutter during startup, cutting the fan shutter back by a third once I have a nice coal bed established. My primaries are just under 1/2 open, with the secondaries 2 turns open. Wood is well seasoned and dry. I have a blue flame that is nice and smooth (as compared with the ferocious yellow flame I had with the factory settings, which basically were "everything wide open.")

Question: I'm seeing some blacker ash in the secondary chamber these days, and sometimes when I open the secondary door to check things out, I see that the blue flame is more like a plasma that fills the upper part of the chamber and less like a flame focused out of the jet. I'm tempted to think that things are becoming too rich under these conditions - that the flame is searching for additional oxygen. Any sense of that? The color still seems right on, it's just the look of the thing (and the darker ash) that have me wondering.

Thanks for any assistance,

--Veg


----------



## Duetech

VeggieFarmer,
Three basic things come to mind but they may only be one thing "air flow". Since your fan speed is cut down to 50% and your shutter is down to one third,but has been working, and you have a soft flame you either need a little more fan speed to produce more over all pressure or you need to check your heat tubes or primary chamber for obstructions. There is a possibility that you are experiencing ash blockage of the nozzle. At the heat generated by the hotter flame some woods can create clinkers kind of like coal or in corn burners. I like burning dry elm because of the long burn and the deep coals I get. But sometimes portions in the deep coals seem to solidify in to a hard residue (clinkers) that block the nozzle and also cause random ash buildup in the primary chamber. I have the 40 Super with the built in tube cleaner/turolators and cycle the handle every load but last summer I had a problem with flow from the nozzle and the soft flame and chimney smoke too. On inspection (shutting the boiler down and taking the tube cover off the top back of the boiler I found two of the turbolators had come off of the connector of the cleaning shaft and were stuck in the tubes (my unit idles a lot so I get creosote). I would have probably been okay if the blades had not come off). The turbolator blades are just clevis pinned in and the clevis pins are held in by small cotter pins and both were gone from the two stuck blades and a third was almost off as one leg of the cotter pin was missing and the pin was almost out. The soft flame says you need a little more pressure in the primary chamber and since it has been working well until recently I would bump up the fan to 60or 70% to see if that clears things up. If it still has trouble at those levels I would look for an obstruction in the tubes or in the primary chamber. If you have to look for an obstruction do not over look the secondary tube orientation. some secondary tubes are welded in some are not and the free ones move from thermal expansion and contraction and could be restricting secondary air flow. (EDIT) One other problem could be the back draft damper on the blower housing getting stuck closed???


----------



## Chris S

Perhaps I missed it, and this question was asked already.
Does the 2001 controller turn off the fan after the fire goes out?

Thanks, Chris


----------



## taxidermist

Chris S said:
			
		

> Perhaps I missed it, and this question was asked already.
> Does the 2001 controller turn off the fan after the fire goes out?
> 
> Thanks, Chris




Yes


----------



## mwk1000

It has taken a couple of months but I am finally getting the hang of it with my EKO 60 and the ideas discussed here. I have for the first time ever seen my tank reach 179. That is wonderful since it gives me a full day in very cold weather. For a while I did not think my system was going to be able to heat the tank that high. 

I have settled at 10mm on primary , 2 turns open on secondary. Set the fan shutter at 1/4 - 1/3 open and set the fan to 50%. I have been getting good temps at the boiler ( up to 195 ) even with my not very dry wood. I am burning ash that has been out in the snow all winter but that has been standing/laying dead for 2-3 years. I have been rationing the remainder of my good dry wood and filling the lower half with that and adding the ash after the boiler is over 175 under a steady load from the tank. A full chamber will last 6 hours and I add another half load after 3-4 hours in. That gets me about 9 hours to charge the tank.

This is creating a strong blue flame, more heat and longer burn times. I wasted a LOT of wood never getting above 165 with the fans wide open.

It has settled into a workable routine, start fire at 7pm, reload at 10pm and go to bed. Wake up in the morning and check the tank temp and make sure all worked well and I have enough to carry the day. The only thing driving me crazy now is why the fan 50% of the time is still running the next morning. Temp at 120 and the fan is on ? The other 50% I get the Fuel message.


----------



## Duetech

mwk1000,
I don't have the new controller and it sounds like you do. However there is supposed to be a setting that will allow you to control the fan via temp (?) when the boiler runs out of fuel. Otherwise the boiler does have a factory set time where the boiler will run then shut down if it has not been heating. That is usually when the low fuel light comes on. If the blower is still running it probably means the fuel lasted longer and has not hit the time limit yet.


----------



## Fred61

barnartist said:
			
		

> I have one of those "kill-a-watt" electric usage meters. I should check the fans. I didn't think those fans used much power, but I always wondersed if squeezing the air opening made the fans work harder. I should try to find out. What would 100watts 24 hours do to the elec bill? $5.00? If it turns out those fans do use some juice, add another reason to purchase the new controller for me.



Actually by closing the fan opening, the fan has less load. When you starve the rotor of air it actually speeds up. Think when you put the palm of your hand over the end of your shop vac, the motor speeds up because there is no air load on the vanes.


----------



## mwk1000

I do. I will have to look. If something is set to 140 then wait x min after dropping below then it might explain it. I have the pump set to 160 since it is basically designed to run full out till it drops. Anything below 165 is not useful to me since the tank stops charging below that. I will be getting a differential set point controller for next season to allow me to get more out of the burn and loos less on the back end.


----------



## Hansson

Do they sell this eko "orlanski" boiler in the US?
http://vvs-eksperten.dk/upload/3-orlan-wood.pdf


----------



## Hydronics

Hansson said:
			
		

> Do they sell this eko "orlanski" boiler in the US?
> http://vvs-eksperten.dk/upload/3-orlan-wood.pdf



I've never seen that model, as far as I know it's not available here.


----------



## B A Robbins

I have a HS Tarm solo plus 60 with a 1100 gal. accumulator tank and the most important factor in the gasification process is the o2 content of the wood. I have no problem running even in the summer for my domestic hot water. The tank has a domestic coil in the top and only have to burn 6-7 hr. every 10 to 12 days depending on demand. Your wood consumption should drop by 30% in the right operation. Good luck keep trying    BR


----------



## Hard at Werk

I don't have a huge storage tank but it takes about 3-4 minutes to go from 170 - 175. I wish I had a bigger storage tank, it wouldn't be in standby most of the time.


----------



## FinsterCT

Just wanted to say thanks in advance for all the great stuff here. I'm just starting to research gassification boilers and had narrowed down to an Eko....after looking through this thread, i can see its the right direction. I'm buying in the spring and looking fwd to a warm, oilfree house next year!


----------



## wayne49s

Hi,

Not too sure if this should be in the fine tuning section, but I have an EKO40 setup to use thermostatic control. When there is no request for heat, the EKCO is suppose to periodically activate the system pump for 30 seconds. I notice that it cuts short the 30 second interval, to just a second or two; it causes the temp to rise about 15 degrees in idle. This looks like a software problem. Has anyone encounter this problem? I talked to new horizon, and he seems to think that the thermostat connections should always be shorted which means the pump would always be on; I'm off grid and need to conserve the electricity. It's a RK-2001UA EKCO controller.


----------



## wayne49s

wayne49s said:


> Hi,
> 
> Not too sure if this should be in the fine tuning section, but I have an EKO40 setup to use thermostatic control. When there is no request for heat, the EKCO is suppose to periodically activate the system pump for 30 seconds. I notice that it cuts short the 30 second interval, to just a second or two; it causes the temp to rise about 15 degrees in idle. This looks like a software problem. Has anyone encounter this problem? I talked to new horizon, and he seems to think that the thermostat connections should always be shorted which means the pump would always be on; I'm off grid and need to conserve the electricity. It's a RK-2001UA EKCO controller.


 
I talked to the new horizon again (I couldn't get through because line was busy before), and he was able to identify that this was a capacitor problem on the controller, so problem solved. Apparently this capacitor overheated (electrolytic, 2200uF) for future reference.


----------



## JTWALL

I just finished the bonnet modification on my Eko Model 25.  Hopefully, this will aid in keeping the Controller a little cooler. 
Also, I did replace the 7-year old 2200 uf capacitor in the controller as a preventive measure.  I used a 35 Volt version this time; quite a bit larger, but there is plenty of room.

The meter and thermocouples have really helped me tune the boiler.  I discovered the "gasification flame" coming out of the nozzle was way too much and excessive amount of heat was being wasted up the chimney.  Stack temps approached 400 degrees.  The flame looked impressive, but it was wasteful.  It would be nice if the factory units came with something like this installed.

Enjoy.

JT Wall


----------

