# gasifier wood consumption



## barnartist (Dec 30, 2007)

I have been reading here for a while, just decided I needed to join in. I have had an eko 60 with 500 gal of storage, im in my 3rd season of burning.
I feel I have come to know my sytem better than my wife, and she would agree. I have plumbed and replumbed by trial and error many times in many different ways. 
I have even had to dig out my crappy homeade 75 feet of ground line and replace it with the good stuff from central boiler. I am asking for everyone who has a similar system, actually anyone who burns wood to let me know how much of it they are using. I have a well insulated 3200sq house, my sto tank is extremely well insulated,
and I cant keep enough wood around for it. As of today, I am officially dissapointed, and I am hoping that there is something I can do to burn less wood.
I know there are not alot of details here. Anyone with a comment will be helpful. I'd just like to see what everyone elso is consuming wood wise.


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 30, 2007)

Welcome to the Boiler Room, barnartist. Good to have another EKO 60 owner on board.

How much wood do you burn in a season? Did you have another wood burner before the EKO that you're comparing it to?

I've always burned a lot of wood. I love to cut it and handle it so I don't mind, but we like to keep the house nice and warm, and my basic approach has always been to put my meager resources into wood heating systems rather than things like new windows and doors.

Anyway, last winter I burned about 13 full cords with a conventional wood-fired boiler. This winter with the EKO I expect to go through around 10. But I'm heating more space this year and keeping it a lot warmer. We've got an 1865-vintage farm house with about three additons of varying age, for a total of about 3,000 square feet of moderately-insulated house, plus a single-pane glass greenhouse, which I am now using since I can afford to heat it.

So I'm pretty happy with the 60 so far. Like you, I'm always fooling around with it, trying to make it better. Do you get any smoke when it's up to temp? Sounds like yours is in an outbuilding, like mine. Details, man. Let's dig into it.


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## barnartist (Dec 30, 2007)

Wow, thanks for the reply.
Well, I started the season with 8.5 cords of wood, the good stuff cut split stacked last april. I was sure this year to have it ready so I did not hear my wood was green.
I use an air exchange in my furnace id does most of my heating. I have a flat plat for my DHW, and I have a portion of my basement in slab radiant, that I gave up on because it sonsumes so much wood. This is a seperate issue, one that I got some bad advice on, and understand the mistakes I think made on it.
Anyway, my boiler sits about 75 feet from the house, in a "lean-to" attached to my garage. Inside my insulated garage is my converted 500 gal propane tank. My plumbing is this, I send my hot from the eko with a leg to the house, and a leg to my garage (air)furnace. My garage furnace by the way never kicks on, mainly because I get heat radiated from my pipes, the 30x40 garage stays between 60-70 degrees this way. My demand return goes into the bottom of my virtically standing tank, and out the top for a return to the eko's bottom. I also have a laddomat installed there. 
My dissapointment is this, I started the season doing better than last year because of my new and improved ground line. Man, I wasted a ton of heat the previos years lost in the ground, and I have pics of the steam comming from the dirt as we dug up the old stuff. Anyone else reading this should not go cheap in the ground lines as I did. Meanwhile, it seems that I should only need to load twice a day, especially given it has been pretty mild. I have been running the system by loading wood when I am down to the last of the coals, or enought to ignite the next load. However, if and when I try to let my tank get down to say 160, so that I would cyle my eko less and burn hard more, I have a tough time recovering. 
Anyway, I have probably used 4.5-5 cord already, and probably load 2.5-3 times a day. I idle most of the time once the wood is at a good burn.
Maybe I have unreasonable expectations. My house is well insulated, r-40 in the ceiling. Again the house is approx 3200, less than Zenon's house and he uses a 40, but he may also use his coal heater.
Look forward to your thoughts.


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 30, 2007)

As I understand it, there are several places that you lose efficiency with a big gasifier like the 60. One is up the stack. Do you know what your stack temps are? They should average in the 300 degree range. If they tend to be higher, then you've got heat going up the stack instead of into the water jacket. You need an internal, stack probe thermometer for that. Or, you can buy a turkey thermometer at Walmart for $5 that will work just as well.

Does your boiler have the mechanical heat exchanger cleaner (the handle on the left side)? If not, you may need to clean your heat exchange tubes. When they get sooted up, the heat transfer is affected and your heat will go up the stack.

Another place to lose heat is by burning green wood. If you cut your wood last April and stored it outside, it still might not be dry enough to get good gasification, and you'll lose heat up the stack in the form of steam. Your firewood needs to dry for at least one full year in order to be completely dry--two is even better. I've burned plenty of wood cut the previous spring, and it's rarely dry enough to work well in a gasifier, especially if it's been a wet summer.

The reason I asked about smoke is that it can indicate green wood or an improper air adjustment, both of which can affect efficiency. I had to open my secondary air adjustments up a full 6 turns in order to get a consistently clean burn.

Idling is another place where gasifiers--and big gasifiers in particular--lose a lot of efficiency. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but they're much more efficient when loaded up full and burned full-out. If you have a 500-gallon storage tank, then your boiler really shouldn't idle at all. Sounds to me like maybe you have a problem with that setup, but I'm the wrong guy to ask about that. We have a few other members with pressurized storage and hopefully they can make some suggestions. Termite is one, and he doesn't live that far from you. I don't know anything about Tekmars or other mixing valves, but that could be something to check. And I've always found heat exchangers to be potential sources of inefficiency and heat transfer problems.

You might want to unscrew the plate that the blowers are mounted on and take a look at the secondary air tubes. They're tack welded to the boiler body and occasionaly the tack welds will break, allowing the tubes to move forward into the air adjustment valve. You know this has happened if you can't turn the adjustment screw. If that happens, it's impossible to get the right air adjustment resulting, I suspect, in less efficiency. I have a picture of that if you're interested, because it happened to me.

So that's my brain dump for the moment. Forgive me if I've made some points that are obvious, but I think we're all kind of still in the experimental stage, so there's no such thing as common knowledge. I'm sure others will chime in before long.


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## barnartist (Dec 30, 2007)

I keep close attention to all my temps. I agree about the stack. I try and keep it between 300-350. Much of the time its 250 because i suppose it is idleing.
I have homade inserts in my tubes, I made 2 kinds. The 1st set are metal strips that I twisted that mimic the new syle. I made them too wide though and they are 
tight to get in and out. I need to make a new set of these so they fit better. The second set works ok, they are thick rods with small washers welded every 5 inches or so. they seem to attrct more moist ash and I have to clean them more often. Early this morning, I removed them completely for a while, just to see how things go.
I have to believe my wood is dry, but you seem to have more years under your belt and would know as much. We had one of the dryest seasons here for years, and the wood seems to be most dry and cracked up. It is a mixture, but alot of cherry, some oak, poplar. 
How do you think you would do with say, a Central Boiler?


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 30, 2007)

Hard to say. My first year with my old boiler, I burned 21 cords and it couldn't keep up when the temps were below zero, which they were for a lot of the winter. I made some piping changes and insulated a little better, and eventually got it down to 13 cords.

It sounds to me like you've got a heat exchange problem. If your tank has trouble recovering and your boiler goes into idle at the same time (not sure if that's what you were saying), then obviously the heat isn't moving correctly and you're wasting heat up the stack and everywhere else your system is vulnerable to heat loss. The year I burned 21 cords, my flat plate heat exchanger was piped wrong, so that it didn't transfer much heat. The water just went round and round, exaggerating all my inefficiencies on every trip. But I suspect you've considered all of that already.

You can't tell how dry wood is by looking at it. The only surefire way is to put a meter on it. I think they're pretty cheap. You need to split or cut a piece of wood to take the measurement, because the surface might be dry, but the inside wet.


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## leaddog (Dec 30, 2007)

With the storage you shouldn't have your boiler idleing. It should be into a full burn untill it is out. If I understand you right you are trying to run the heat from the boiler thru your house and when you aren't demanding heat it goes into idle. That is the problem, you need to be then running the heat into the tank. I have my house pulling heat to the house going to my dhw tank and returning to my storage. The boiler is piped to a heat exchanger into the tank. if the boiler temp is up to 170 I have a valve open to also send it to the house circut. this is controled with a aqua-stat. The only time my boiler will idle is if I fill it up and my tank is completely up to temp and that is because I misjudged my use. This comes from experience that I'm hopefully getting. If it is idleing it will waste alot of heat from what I see with mine. With the big boilers it seems to be more so. I also think that with the big boilers it is more important to have cured wood because with two nozzels and alarge gasification chamber you will get more moist smoke so it is harder to get into gasification
I cut my wood last winter-early spring and I haven't put a meter on it but I don't think it is really dry enough to get the best efficency. I think it is in the 35 to 30 range. When I have had some good dry wood I can see the difference. 
I had a owb before and I feel I'm going to use about 40% less wood but it is hard to judge as I was burning alot of different wood with the owb. I hope to do better with even dryer wood next year.
leaddog


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 31, 2007)

I think leaddog is right. One thing some of have tried, that worked pretty well, was to block off one of the nozzles with a firebrick or some other obstacle. Then you've essentially cut your output in half, and your boiler should run harder--and longer--with the same amount of wood. Worth a shot, anyway, especially with a two-nozzle boiler like the 60, but I think he's right about the piping. With a tank you should only idle on rare occasions.


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## barnartist (Dec 31, 2007)

Thanks everyone. To clearify, I dont have much trouble getting my tank at full heat at 180. This tank water is basically return water from all my demand areas. I have another tank I can build and am wondering if this will help me extend my time out of a load. I seem to have enough heat to fill another one I think. It seems like as long as I keep a fire from getting to low to start a new one, I have no problem keeping heat in the tank, but, if I try and stretch it out, and let the tank water get below 160, I fight to get things hot again, particularly during high demand times. 
For example, I just fired up, and my guess is that in another hour or two, I will start idling. But if I wait too long and things get a bit cold (tank down to 160) it will be a new battle. 

As I sit here and type and listen to myself, I am realizing that maybe I need to plumb my eko directly to the tank, and let all demand areas pump from the tank rather than feed strait to my demand from the eko. I am wondering if the house loop pump keeps the Laddomat from doing it's job correctly.  It is in the same loop. The problem with this is if I would get behind on a fire, I might have to wait for heat.
Anyone have a hookup like that?


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## barnartist (Dec 31, 2007)

Also, I almost never see my back nozzle actually burn, it seems to be the front one.


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## kuribo (Dec 31, 2007)

Is it possible you do not have enough capacity to satisfy both your home heat loads and warm the tank at the same time in a short time period??? What is your heat load of your home?


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## barnartist (Dec 31, 2007)

I do not have a heat load number for you, But I do know if we shower and the furnace (exchange) runs, I see the boiler temp fall. It recovers when the furnace shuts off.


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 31, 2007)

As you describe your system, I can see a couple more places where you might be having problems. First, I think you need to put your supply water directly into the tank hx. The way I've always heard it described is: Worry about heating the tank--everything else will follow. You can put in a bypass (either manual or automated) that will allow you to bypass the tank entirely when the house heating takes priority. Or use a ball valve to try to split the flow between the house zones and the tank.

Both nozzles should be firing. If you have a nonfunctioning nozzle, it seems to me you'll get smoke and soot accumulation in your chimney and hx tubes. You might want to take off that blower mount plate like I suggested earlier and make sure that your secondary air tubes are still in place. You also have some primary air inlets under that plate (in the upper corners) that might need adjustment. Next chance you get, put some red hot coals over that nozzle and try to get it to fire. With only one nozzle firing, you've only got half the capacity, which is a pretty serious reduction.

Finally, when I was speccing out my 60, I learned that 1" pipe is not enough capacity to move the output of the boiler. I think that's why you're idling so much, leading to excessive wood consumption and difficulties getting enough heat out of the system at times. The 60 is a big boiler and you don't have a huge heat load, based on your description of your house and the climate where you live. Not compared to me, and my boiler is arguably oversized. I've got a 1" and a 3/4-inch line coming off my boiler. You could add another 3/4-inch line and pipe it directly into your tank. I think that might fix your problem. Doubt your wife will want to hear about the extra expense, but I think that might be it. You might want to run that by Zenon and see what he says.


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## Nofossil (Dec 31, 2007)

Do you have anything set up that lets you draw heat from your storage tank when the boiler isn't firing? As mentioned earlier, these things run better when they're going flat out. I have an EKO 25 that I'm using to heat a 3500 square foot house, DHW, and a hot tub. It burns an average of 7 hours a day, and the rest of the time I'm living off the storage tank.

I'm in Vermont, and my wood consumption has been 3.2 cords the first year, 4.5 cords last year, and I'm on track to burn about 4.5 cords this year as well.

I'd start by making sure that you're getting a clean burn. Should be no smoke, no odor, and clean white ash in the bottom chamber when you're done. If it's not burning clean, we can work on that.

Once we know that you're getting a clean burn, we can try to figure out where else you could be losing heat. I agree that you're burning way more than it seems like you should.


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## TCaldwell (Dec 31, 2007)

barnartist, i have a garn plus external inline storage on the supply line, the garn is 1960gal ,external storage is 2 275gal oil tanks for a total of 2510gal,once up to temp 185+ i can run off this most all day, when i added the inline storage , depending on the flow rate, i will get a rebound effect, at lower gpm that is to say the garn tank will become a homogonized mix of unused supply water that has not left the tank and cooler return water, the temp in the inline storage will reflect what left the garn, 185+. this is exagerated if you have a high demand making the return water cooler. during a extended period of no demand  the temps at all locations will equalize.If i increase the system gpm this stage of events will diminish.  this represents a primary storage of 4 times the size of a inline storage, both on the supply side,if i am experiencing this with a 400k+btu burn/hr boiler, i would think putting your supply into the storage and investigating the system gpm, to see if you are circulating it fast enough. the gpm will also affect the btu:s delivered to the hx, here is a formula gpm x 8.34lbm/gal x 60min/hr=lbm/hr x delta t=btu delivered
       example                 13gpm x 8.34lbm/gal x 60min/hr=6505lbm/hr x 20deg =130,100btu/hr delivered to hx.
 use this formula to figure if you are covering your demand, if not another reason why oil boiler is firing. also  follow the thermostat wire and check to see if it only goes to control the zone circ, and not wired to automatically fire the boiler whenever the thermostat calls


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## barnartist (Dec 31, 2007)

This is all good stuff and I hope you guys can stick with me, it does sound like there might be improvements that can be made. I should reset my setup once more.
From the eko( I have the Laddomat with a built in pump that I have no idea its GPM) I have 1" black pipe that splits to go to my garage loop, and my house loop. These loops are 3/4 inch pex, and their pumps run continuous. The house pump is a taco 011, a big one, it has about a 200' loop. The garage pump is a 007, its loop is about 90 feet.  Both loops go into a air exchange, with the house loop also going through a flat plate DHW exchange. Its possible the flat plate slows down the flow. All of my return water goes into the bottom of my storage tank (I can by-pass the tank), and then returns to the eko.Anyone familiar with a laddomat will know that it is suppose to close and open its valves to keep things equal for the eko, now since these loop pumps ask for water all the time, they probably fight each other when water temps get cool.
I do have alot of tar in the upper chamber, and dark color ashes with some chunks of unburned coals in the bottom. I probably take out 5-8 gallons of ashes every week from the bottom. I added spiral inserts to the rear tubes of the eko, these need cleaned about every 3 weeks.
Again my garage furnace never kicks on, it stays nice enough in there from heat radiating from my plumbing.
Are you able to burn such small amounts of wood by using radiant or baseboard heat? I have probably used 4 cords already and I did not start burning until halloween.

Fellas please keep it comming with your thoughts. Remember I have another 500 gal tank I could weld up if this will improve things. I can take photos of my setup if it helps anyone. 
THANX!


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 1, 2008)

We're not going anywhere, barnartist. Rest assured that if they're not out getting trashed on New Years Eve, some of the guys are thinking about your setup at this very moment. Maybe some pics and a piping diagram would be helpful.

I think you may have several issues that are combining to cause the problems you report. To reiterate my previous two points, I don't think you've got enough capacity in the way of piping off the boiler, and I think you should be putting supply water into the tank, instead of the return. Maybe somebody knows what the theoretical capacity of 1" pipe is at a given temp and rate of flow. My guess is that it doesn't approach 205 Kbtu.


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

No trash here, pizza hut, tap water, kids in bed thanks to wife, and back to study what you guys said. Exciting ay? I will get some photos in the morning, how can I load them to the forum? So glad I found this place.
I am willing to drive to see somebodys setup to get it right this time. I have had it plumbed every way possible in the past. Hate to think about tearing into it again, but what ever it takes. Can someone explain their setup?


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## heaterman (Jan 1, 2008)

Barnartist: 

It would be helpful to see some pics of your piping layout. Not to say I've spotted a major problem........it just helps me to understand what's going on a bit better. One clue for me is the amount of ash you're generating. A properly functioning gasification boiler burning 15-25% moisture wood will leave very little in the way of ash. Maybe a gallon or so in that time Think of it this way. Ash is wasted heat in the form of unburned fuel. Get a moisture meter, split a chunk and test. I'd make a WAG you're not under 30%.  

Eric: 
Flow rates for pipe (copper)  that are generally accepted as "good design" are as follows:

3/4" = 4 GPM,  1"=8 GPM  1 1/4" = 15 GPM,  1 1/2" = 23 GPM, 2" = 45 GPM.

Given a 20* temp drop from supply to return you can figure the actual BTU's being transfered by simply multiplying the listed flow rates by 10,000. If a person uses those flow rates and designs the "load" side of the equation for that 20* drop, they will find that a 007 Taco or 15-58 Grundfos will move an enormous amount of heat. 

Black steel will flow slightly higher for a given size and pex nearly the same, especially when you account for fitting loss with the copper.

I see many systems, not just wood fueled, that are handicapped by the ("This oughta' do it") design method. Piping design isn't rocket science but there are rules to be followed as in any other endeavor.


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

Heaterman, I will snap some pics as I load this morning. If you can check in again a bit after 10 I will try and have them here.


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

I took many pics, I am loading them now. I will put the link here where they can be found


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## Nofossil (Jan 1, 2008)

I'm not too worried about the pumps fighting each other. I'm just trying to figure out whether you're losing heat somewhere, or whether you just have a big enough heat load so that you need to burn that much wood.

The top chamber gets lots of creosote. If you look through the bypass damper into the stovepipe, you should not see any creosote in the stovepipe at all. Mine is just light gray ash. 

Some questions:

Is your flue gas clear and odorless coming out of the chimney?

Can you get return temps from each loop at a known supply temp?

Do you have a way to dra heat from the storage tank?


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

OK, I have pictures of my system located on my web page, www.barnartist.com In the lower right corner, there is a link W.S. click it and that should get you there.

I'll wait for everyones comments... hit me fellas.


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

I don't have a way at the moment to draw heat directly from storage, it must go through the eko's plumbing. My flu has a brown ash, probably because I idle alot and only burn hard for about 3-4 hours.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 1, 2008)

Thanks for posting those pics, barnartist. Looks like you have a neat business there.

I'm not the best one to comment on piping schemes or storage tanks, so hopefully some of the other guys will take a look at your pics and share their observations.

But I can comment on the boiler itself, which looks like it spends a lot of time idling. Ideally, you don't want a gasifier to idle at all, mostly for reasons of efficiency, but also to simplify boiler maintenance. It looks like you get a lot of smoke puffing back through the blowers, and presumably coating the hx tubes and chimney with soot and maybe even some creosote.

So I think you'll solve most of your wood consumption problem if you can figure out a better way to use the tank. I just think you have it piped wrong. Even if your piping into the house is too small for the output of the boiler, with the tank right there, you should be able to use the boiler to heat the tank, and then draw all your hot water from it, as needed. Since your house doesn't use 205 kbtu/hour, the 1-inch line should be plenty. That's a pressurized tank, right?

Ideally, you could fill the boiler up in the morning and run a load or two through it hard, dumping most or all of the heat into the tank. Then you let the boiler go out and live off the heat in the tank all day. Repeat the process in the evening, and you've got your daily heating cycle down. That's the way your system should work. And you'll be running your boiler the way it was designed to run, and undoubtedly burn less wood in the process. I think adding that other tank is a good idea with a 60KW boiler.

Unlike me, however, Heaterman has the advantage of actually knowing what he's talking about. So I'd wait to see what he says before drawing any firm conclusions.

So I would suggest running a bigger--or additional--line from the boiler to the tank and set it up so that supply water is pumped into the tank. Then hook up your plumbing to the house to the tank so that when there's a call for heat, your main pump kicks on and delivers hot water from the top of the tank into the heat exchanger at your house. The boiler heats the tank; the tank heats your house. Once you get it all set up right, you'll quickly learn the best way to fire it.


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## Nofossil (Jan 1, 2008)

Forgive me for being stupid in the head - I never asked about moisture content in your wood. It looks like you're burning wood with a really high moisture content. These things need really dry wood to do their magic.

Try getting a fire worth of really dry wood from somewhere - 20% moisture maximum, and see if it behaves differently. Based on the amount of condensation, I'd guess that it's not gasifying much of the time, especially when coming off idle.

If you open the bottom door when it's running, you should see a large bluish flame with orange fringes, and a sound like a jet taking off. Any gas that comes out should be odorless.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 1, 2008)

I agree with your analysis of the wood supply, nofossil, but I think his biggest problem is that there's an imbalance somewhere in his system, causing the boiler to idle most of the time. Really bad wood probably wouldn't get that hot, don't you think? I can't say because I've never burned wet wood in mine, though occasionally I'll get a moist chunk from the bottom of the stack, and that will send up a thin stream of blue smoke instead of burning clean.


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## barnartist (Jan 1, 2008)

My whole system is pressured, I run it about 20 lbs. I wonder if it would help to close off the rear nossle as you guys talked about until I figure a new piping layout.
Heaterman, i'll wait to see what you think too. If Nofossle can do what he is doing with a tiny eko 25, I know I should have some muscle here. Pretty impressive man.
I dream od a season I could go on 4-5 cords, and this is why I chose a gasifier. Can anyone say how much mileage 1000 gallons can get me if heated up? Do I need 1500? Nofossle, any way I can see a pic of your plumbing? Anyone else with photos I can see?
Thanks!


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 1, 2008)

There are a lot of pictures in the threads here. Some time browsing will get you lots of eye candy, as well as some ugly stuff.

I'd give the one-nozzle thing a shot. See if you can get a sustained burn in the 65-75-degree range without the thing going into idle.


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

I looked at your pic's and have a couple thoughts. It looks like you only have a 6in pipe and the eko60 should have an 8in. That could be choking it down making it harder to gasifiy. Also when I looked at the pic of the gasifing chamber it looks like you have the ceramic blocks in wrong. They are supposed to be stacked end to end under the nozzels. That way the gas is shot down in the bricks and forced back up to help mix the air and get it hotter.  The fly ash is then blown out the ends and around the sides with the burnt gas and then up the heat-ex. 
It also looks like it is idleing way to much because of all the creosote. You need to be putting the exsess heat into the tank. It sounds like now as the boiler comes up to temp it pulls the top of the tank water back into the boiler and that makes it shut off. The temp on the tank might be 180f but the bottem could be 120f. Either pull the water from the bottem or put a heat exchanger in the bottem. Now you aren't useing very much of your tank.
You said that you cut your wood in april and if you did that was after the sap had started to run. I cut mine in feb and march and it was stacked up in wire crates in the sun all summer and put under roof this fall and it really isn't dry enough. I estimate it to be 30 to 35%  The more moisture you have the cooler your burn is at the start and it is hard to get it to gasify and if you go into idle you WILL get alot of creosote.
Just a few obsevations and I'm sure others will chime in and help.
leaddog

Just reread where you said you have a pressurised  tank. Run your hot water from your boiler into the bottem of your  tank and take the feed to the house from the top and you shouldn't have any problem. If you want to have a faster buildup to your house from a cold tank you can pipe in a bypass manually very easily.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 2, 2008)

Good call, as usual, leaddog.

On the chimney outlet and on the bricks--I missed both. I don't know why you have the bricks stacked that way in the back, but like leaddog says, they should be end-to-end, front to back. That might be why your back nozzle isn't firing right. Also, I keep my ash pit a lot cleaner than that. I use that little hoe tool to clear out the valleys in the bricks every couple of days. Just rake it into a shovel. I think the gasification process works better if those bricks are fairly free of debris. And if the hx outlets are blocked, which they probably are in that pic, the boiler isn't going to operate right, either. So I think a little better maintenance might pay off as well.

And you do have a lot of unburned chunks in there. I get some, but not that much.

One other suggestion is that you take off the blower mount plate and check/clean everything out. 12 screws. I suspect your secondary air tubes might be clogged up from the backpuffing. You want to make sure to re-set your secondary air intakes. The factory setting is 3.5 turns out, but I've got mine at 6 turns and it works better than it did with 3.5. Take the plate off of there and post a pic. I'd like to get a better look at those secondary air tubes.

BTW, leaddog, I got mine retacked, per your excellent suggestion. It was hard to keep the air intakes set with the tube walking into the valve. Now it works like a dream. Dave reimbursed my cost, which was $40 to get a local guy over here.


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

OK, I did cheat with 6 inch pipe, my dad had some for free. I also added a "Majic Heat" in line with the 6" pipe to try and catch more heat for the garage. Any way that hurts much?
I am trying to figure out how you mean to place the fire bricks as you say. They have been there as they were when I bought it from Zenon. Do you mean turn them 90 degrees each? They are directly under the nossles right now. A third piece of cupped brick lies in the rear with the cupped end facing the front. Should I put this at the fron door then?
If I exchange heat at the bottom of the tank, will the top of the tank over heat? Will it not get to a temp over 180? I have a gauge in the middle, it reads 180 when I idle.
I just fired up and cleaned everything, even the upper chambers ash. Probably 6 inches thick with packed ashes, except around the nossle area where it was loos ash.
I cut my wood from timbered trees. they were down a year before I sliced em up. I will to try and cut earlier this year.
Keep it commin guys.


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

Thats what I get by letting my fingers do the thinking.  What I should have said was; With your pressureized tank you can pipe the hot water from the boiler to the top of the tank and get the return from the bottem. That way you will heat the tank from the top to bottem and use all the storage. Take the house heat from the top of the tank and return to the bottem. That will give you good stratification. To keep from having low water return to the boiler you need to either have an automatic system or you can install a manual valve from the hot to return. Once you have your tank up to temp and you fire it reg. you shouldn't have a problem with low water temp. I installed a manual valve that I open and close off the tank untill I once get it up to temp. and since I keep my tank up on temp it's no problem. 
leaddog


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted 2 more pics from last season, www.barnartist.com click on W.S.
Tell me how the bricks should be.


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

If you look at this thread at the pic that eric posted you will see the refactory u-shaped bricks. They are to all be facing the way his are. You should have three on the 60 and there is 4 on the 80. They are to be stacked end to end  so you can see the u all the way to the back. They are loose so you can take them out if you want but they must weigh about 50 lbs.        https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/12102/
Also these pic give you a good view of the air adj. read this over good as there is some good advice and a warning of a problem with the air tubes.
I think that useing 6in pipe and THEN using the majic heat will cause you some draft problems. You are only getting a draft temp of a bout 400f or less and alot of the time it is less, so if you start pulling off more heat it will lower your draft and you might start to condense the water vapor and that will give you ceosote and corosion problems. 
leaddog


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## hkobus (Jan 2, 2008)

Barnartist and all others,

Happy new year and clean burning to all. I have been a bit tied up with work the past weeks and just been following threads, just no time to respond. I think you are getting most angles covered here already, and the new picks show a nice flame, but if I'm right I just see one. 
My question is related to the Laddomat, I see it in the one pic, but can not see how it is set up. I think a piping and control diagram cam be helpful here. I am wondering if it may be part of the issue as well. 

Henk.


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

I am looking here and I dont see how mine are wrong. They are stacked as you described, but I only have 2 and then the U. My cousin, my unclle also only got 2. Should there be 3?


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

One other problem I noticed. Your door seals are bad. It shows creosote on the edges of the doors so they must be leaking. You can tighten up the doors. The instuctions are in the manual. Its a good thing to lube them once and a while as that keeps them plyable. 
That isn't black paint on the inside of your fan housing. It's creasote. once you get the idleing under control you won't have that problem.

I've been looking at your work and it is great.  I've always admired the barn art. My folks used to have a large barn of balloon contruction and we always wanted to have some art work done on it but never did. It went down in a bad wind storm a few years ago. It's too bad the old barns are becoming a think of the past.
leaddog


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Leaddog, I really love what I do. Something about painting the old barn I like.
I have leaks now around my upper door since I thought I would try and adjust the door to close better. Now I cant seem to get it adjusted proper. What is a good lube to use? I used to sit and try to read and read that "manual". I may have used it to start a fire. Not really.
Does anyone think my laddomat is holding back some power?


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

barnartist said:
			
		

> I am looking here and I dont see how mine are wrong. They are stacked as you described, but I only have 2 and then the U. My cousin, my unclle also only got 2. Should there be 3?



Maybe on the older ones they were different but the new ones have 3 for the 60 and 4 for the 80 all the same shape and they are put in back to back. You can ask zennon at newhorizon.com and he can tell you. I don't know what the u shaped one is unless it might be a broken one??????
How are your relatives boilers working?
leaddog


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## leaddog (Jan 2, 2008)

barnartist said:
			
		

> Thanks Leaddog, I really love what I do. Something about painting the old barn I like.
> I have leaks now around my upper door since I thought I would try and adjust the door to close better. Now I cant seem to get it adjusted proper. What is a good lube to use? I used to sit and try to read and read that "manual". I may have used it to start a fire. Not really.
> Does anyone think my laddomat is holding back some power?



http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/PDF/ekomanualNA07.pdf
Here is the new manual, It still is lacking but is better.

I used high temp silicone, but a graphite spray will work also. Anything to help keep it from sticking to the metal. If the seal is too bad you can buy new rope seal at most stove or hardware. I got some at menards for about $8 for another stove and also some at a yard sale for .50. 
leaddog


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

My uncle never connected his, and is willing to sell it. My Cousin has good burns, but he has to much demand and needs to load every 5-6 hours. He is looking to go bigger and might buy a central boiler. I on the other hand hope I can tweek mine and get more miles out of it heat wise. So if anyone know of someone looking for an eko, with storage, look me up.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 2, 2008)

leaddog--I rewrote that manual for Zenon. The one that came with my boiler was something I thought could be improved upon. It's still far from perfect. Basically all I did was dress up the translation so that it wasn't such a hoot. I'd love to convince Zenon to let me write up a comprehensive manual that covers all the stuff we talk about on this forum. You know, you'd think there would be some discussion of setting the primary and secondary air, stack temps, etc. Stuff you really need to know. I think that would be fun, and useful. Nowadays, the downloadable user/service manuals are sales tools. The better they look, the more boilers you sell. If I can talk the Z-man into it, maybe you guys can help me out.

barnartist: My 60 has three identical blocks in the gasification chamber. They're all like the one you show in the front, and stack end to end, front to back. It looks to me like you have the two back ones in kind of a t-shape, which is a little strange. But you've got an older version of this boiler, and I know they've made some changes in recent years.

Are we helping you at all? I think all the points raised so far are legitimate, and you'll seem some improvements if you address them. The pictures were really helpful. I think leaddog's piping suggestions on your tank are a biggie. That and getting a good moisture reading on your wood. Everything else so far is just maintenance, I think.


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

I so agree to re write that manual. I wish I knew then What I know now. Help the next guy from jumping a bridge.
Just a few adjustments since I started here have made some differences. I need to lears about auquastats and how they work/plumb.
What is sad id I have had my system set up the way nofossel described, using pex, it was a matter of hours for a change. My problem then was my hand made ground line, I lost so much heat in the ground. I would keep changing my plumbing, get mixed advice from Zenon, and do it again. Now I have it all hard piped, and dred changing it, but i'll take one for the team if it will help. Id love to have enough extra heat to restart my basement slab radiant again. More bad advice there, this time from a web site I found that sells stuff for radiant. 
I was able to gasify within 1 hour this evening, building a fire from scratch. This is good. I was at an idle within 2 hours, so I will in fact need to figure out how to plumb to store and use my tank correctly. I dont like all the smoke though from building new fires. Its really bad, then forget any relations with wife until a shower is performed.


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## hkobus (Jan 2, 2008)

barnartist said:
			
		

> Does anyone think my laddomat is holding back some power?



It should not, but when it is plumbed in backwards it will, as it has one way valves inside. Also if the thing is in right it can be an asset to the system you have with the pressurised storage. It wil also prevent the the boiler from running cold at startup or when cold water returns from the heating zones.

Henk.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 2, 2008)

I think you can greatly reduce or eliminate the smoke problem by putting going up to 8" on your chimney connector and getting rid of the heat saver. You don't need that with 300 degree stack temps. And 8" compared to 6" is huge. I'm not surprised you get a face full of smoke.


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## Nofossil (Jan 2, 2008)

barnartist said:
			
		

> My whole system is pressured, I run it about 20 lbs. I wonder if it would help to close off the rear nossle as you guys talked about until I figure a new piping layout.
> Heaterman, i'll wait to see what you think too. If Nofossle can do what he is doing with a tiny eko 25, I know I should have some muscle here. Pretty impressive man.
> I dream od a season I could go on 4-5 cords, and this is why I chose a gasifier. Can anyone say how much mileage 1000 gallons can get me if heated up? Do I need 1500? Nofossle, any way I can see a pic of your plumbing? Anyone else with photos I can see?
> Thanks!



Follow the link in my signature below. It has diagrams, pictures, and descriptions. Whether it makes any sense or not is a different question. Hope it helps. I've been following this thread, and it seems like you have several problems conspiring to give you trouble. If I were in your shoes, I think I'd approach it this way:

1) Get the boiler burning clean, with solid secondary combustion. May need to clean out secondary air inlets, decide on blocking second nozzle, determine whether wood is dry enough, etc.

2) Settle on a plumbing approach. Do you have a way to scan and put diagrams on line or on your site? There have been good suggestions, and perhaps there's a short term and longer term approach.

3) Make plumbing changes.

4) Fine-tune and learn the system behavior.

Good luck.....


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

when starting a new fire, its unbearable the smoke. Poor draft. Your right I should change to 8". what is the key piece though from the eko to the 8" tee? It seems to be an odd size to match up to U.S. 8".
Well, I was out of wood this morning at 6, fired up at 10:30 last night. It was cold, got into the teens. I had a pretty easy time restarting and good gasification. I raised the water about 8 degrees even with the furnace running, but it has kind of leveled off after ah hour and half, Im guessing the load is in its stage of combusting the new wood. Last night, got up in a hurry, I probably started to idle around midnight or 1. I must need more storage.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 2, 2008)

More good advice from nofossil.

I wouldn't let 2" of chimney diameter get in the way of my love life. I bet just by doing that you'd fix a lot of your problems. You shouldn't really be getting smoke in your face during startup. The only time I get smoke coming out of the boiler into my boiler room is when I'm loading wood, and that's only because I don't take the time to open the ash door and give it time to vent out. The older EKOs like yours had somewhat different hardware specs. I see you have flange connections instead of threaded pipe nipples, which is what the new ones have. So the exhaust diameter might be different. Mine takes standard 8" stove pipe, but you may have to modify your pipe slightly to make it fit. Shouldn't be too big a deal. What size is your chimney?

We have a member in southern Ohio--termite--who just got his Biomax 60 going. That's a very similar boiler to the EKO 60. I think you made a post asking if anyone in your neck of the woods is running a gasifier. I'd check with termite.


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## barnartist (Jan 2, 2008)

I will probably limp along until I have the coin for new 8" pipe. It's 6" but I had to ad an elbow horizontally when I moved my eko this fall, and it lined up right with a roof joist. I hated doing it that way, I should grit my teeth and make it work straiter. I dont seem to have problems getting to gasify, maybe the rear nossle, but I do smoke out my lean-to.
I'll look the guy up here see how its going. Thanks. Your like the mentor here.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 2, 2008)

I just hate to see a fine machine like the EKO 60 not performing up to its potential. In any event, get rid of that heat saver in the stove pipe. They're nothing but trouble.


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## Nofossil (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm attaching my suggestion for plumbing here rather than in the other thread where it would be off-topic.

Mr. Moderator, is there any way to move the post with barnartist's schematic from the other thread to here?

In this schematic, both pumps should be controlled by thermostats so that they're on when there is demand. The Laddomat will put heat into the storage tank if the pumps aren't running, and the pumps will draw from the tank if the Eko isn't running. I left out expansion tank, relief valve, air traps, and so on.

Comments, anyone?


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

That looks like a pretty easy change. Sorry about the odd post position. 
My house loop will always be pumping because of DHW. Thus really no stratification, but still heat stored...?


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## Nofossil (Jan 3, 2008)

barnartist said:
			
		

> That looks like a pretty easy change. Sorry about the odd post position.
> My house loop will always be pumping because of DHW. Thus really no stratification, but still heat stored...?



Don't know what your DHW system is, but perhaps you could use a sidearm so that it's heated any time water is circulating, and use the DHW aquastat to force the circulator on if it needs heat. Running the circ all the time doesn't seem like a good plan, especially a big one like you have.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

I would need to see how to tell a single pump to run when forced air kicks on, and DHW, and a radiant all in the house. Am I not thinking correctly ?
thats the trouble with storage away from the house.


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## Nofossil (Jan 3, 2008)

I missed that you have radiant in the house - how do you get the water temp down to an acceptable level? You don't want 170 degree water heating your radiant zone, but you do want really hot water for your other loads.

If you used a zone valve for each heat load in the house, you could use the zone valve contacts to control the pump. Plumb all three loads in parallel between the supply and return lines. I'm assuming that the radiant loop has some sort of mixing valve and it's own circulator - maybe I'm wrong. 

Zone valves have four terminals: two terminals are for 24vac to open the valve, and the other two are switch contacts that are closed wen the valve opens. Those contacts could be wired in parallel and connected to a 24vac relay that switches power to the circ. That way, if any zone valve was open, the circ would come on.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

You can run radiant zones @ 170F as long as they are in concrete, I've been running mine at that temp for 21 yrs without problems and I used polybutylene, before PEX was available. The only problem I had using the higher temps was that the fittings didn't last more than 10 yrs, they were a push & twist type made by Delta, the new style copper crimps work fine. If you have radiant in a wood floor, toss out what I just said, you need tempering valves, temps should not exceed 120F.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

I have my radiant mixed. I run it at 150, It is only 1/3 complete, it heats my addition, but mainly a bath. It would work well if competed, I think transfer plates would be better though.

I did not mention the radiant before, did not want to overload you nofossil. I also have in slab radiant in the entire addition, but have given up on it because it was insulated poorly, rather I had bad advice to leave the middle of the floor uninsulated for a bigger "heat sink". I dont have that room finished right now, so its not a top priority. I did run it my first year, heated great, but sucked the btu's.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

What insulation do you have? My garage is insulated at the exterior walls only, 2" styrofoam 2' in from wall and 2' down the wall, along the front wall 2", 2' in and 2' down again. The front wall is where the 16' overhead door is. My basement has no insulation. The theory was that the earth under the slab would stabilize in temperature over time, and 2' down the wall and 2' flat to the wall would prevent cold infiltration. Over the years I have been extremely happy with the performance of the radiant in my house, which is only the basement and garage. This installation was primarily an experiment since no one had radiant in my area, and using plastic tubing in concrete was virtually unheard of at that time. When you place insulation under concrete you also run the risk of settlement cracking which I was very wary of at the time.


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## mtfallsmikey (Jan 3, 2008)

Question for barnartist: how did you make your homemade underground lines? I've been kicking that idea around, but the CB lines are really nice. I will have 2 runs, one about 125' the other about 80'.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

I did not insulate the edges very well, 1" edges, and I insulated underneath with 1" 4X8 
sheets of foam board, but I left the center, about 0 uninsulated. I think this was a mistake because it may stablize, but the heat will be lost into the groud with no real way to come back up.
This slab is about 9' down though, while slabe on grade is really needing the edges done well as you said you did. I should have used 2" foam, and insulated the whole pad.

As for the underground lines, I used scedule 30 sewer pipe, PAP, pex-aluminum-pex lines, and foam
pipe insulation. Problems came when the earth that was dug up was softer than the dirt around it, lots of water accumulated and the seams of some of the sewer pipe let water in. Add to that my run was downhill to the house, and a big rain would let streaming water to my basement where it entered through the block. When I dug it up for replacement, we dug out the middle so water would lay there. I bought the $12 a foot stuff from Central Boiler, wish I had from the beggining. I lost lots of heat in the ground. I have pics of all of this, i'll try and post.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

I still think you're okay with your slab installation, around here what you did is standard practice and seems to perform well. It's important to remember that you are no insulating against really cold temps. What are ground temps, 53 degrees? Just my 2 cents worth.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

I hope your right Bartman. So most guys are doing it that way then? also, how can you run water at 170, meaning so hot through your floor? does this then make the floor cycle more on and off, rather than a lower temp and a steady pump? Your right, 52 degress, but won't there always be cold to attract the heat, maybe a 20-30% draw?
My cousin has grade slab, and pretty much no perimeter-edge insulation. It reaaaaaally draws power. Not sure how it can really be fixed. Dug out maybe.
Anyone have suggestions?


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

forgot to add cousin did insulate entire underneath though. Used that black rolled stuff with the different layers.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

The slab gets warm, and not too warm, my basement bathroom ceramic tiles are warm, not hot, the rest of the basement is carpeted, I don't think I would like the temp any lower. Remember, plastic doesn't transfer heat like CU, AL or steel, and when you are heating such a large mass like the slab, it' going to take a while to warm and cool.  My heat cycles in my basement maybe once a day it's hard to say, I've never relly monitored it. My future plans are to install a PLC to run the boilers/zones/monitor stack temps, maybe I should look into logging data, like monitoring zone run times. As far as your friend is concerned, I would dig out around the foundation's perimeter and drop in 2" insulation down along the wall, you could "stucco" all the exposed insulation above grade to look like concrete or stone.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

Bartman, are you happy with how your slab heats as far as efficiancy? How big is it? 5" thick crete?


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

Heaterman, any comments on my piping layout? I think alot of my ash is from idling all the time.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

I love my radiant heat, the efficiency seems good, but it's hard to say about the garage since I have a big heat loss, a 16' overhead door. The concrete was supposed to be 4" thick in both areas. This summer I installed a bathroom in my basement and had to cut the concrete for the drainage and ejector pump sump, I had a hell of a time cutting it out. When I set up for the pour a day earlier I sprained my ankle so I couldn't be everywhere and had to trust the idiot I hired to do the slabs, more on that later. Below the reinforcing wire and heat tubing I laid 4 mil plastic as a vapor barrier for under the concrete. The plastic produced a problem with the concrete setting up because we poured in March and the concrete had to have calcim chloride added to help it harden, I was not happy about that. Needless to say, we had to poke holes in the plastic to get the water to drain from the mix. As I was chopping out my concrete 21 yrs later, I found 4" above the plastic and 2" below the plastic with the tubing 2" below the surface, (at least that went as planned). Undoubtedly the 6" total thickness is not consistant through my basement slab, but it's pretty thick considering that most basement slabs are about 2" thick, around here anyway. My garage is 19x20 and has a trench dug across the middle in each direction in the shape of a cross dividing the slab in 4. Although the slab is poured as one, the "haunch" that runs across in both directions adds another 8" depth about 18" wide for reinforcement.


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## rsnider (Jan 3, 2008)

i always thought that you could run hotter water into the slab. i was told only 120 to 150 or the concrete would break up from the heat. i still installed a mixing valve to be safe. at 120 my brother in laws basement works like a dream and since insulating basement walls maybe kicks on once a day for 3 to 4 minutes at really cold outside temps. i learned allot from installing his radiant and did do some things different. i posted before but will post again radiantdesigninstitute.com is a great info site to use for all sorts of projects. i did my new house radiant using most of the ideas on setons website and makes allot of sense to me. most of radiant are just ideas and who knows what is the best way to do it.


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

I agree Rider, I was told that too, but if a guy has been doing it that long has to be OK. I have cracks in my floor, dont know if they would have happened anyway, but I ran pretty hot for a while before I got a mixing valve.
So yours (brothers)kicks on once a day you think? Sounds good. Any way you know or could find out what kind of return temp you get out of the floor? It would be great to know the return (water temp coming out of the floor) when the pump first kkicks on, and again the temp when the slab is charged. Id like to compare it with my cousins- he is always cold return. 

Anyone know a good place to find a contact temp gauge reasonable?


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## rsnider (Jan 3, 2008)

barnartist ill check it out tonight and let you know the temps. i see your sign on 70 all the time nice. checked out your site looks good. i live key ridge off of st rt 147 toward bellaire oh. 

ryan


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## barnartist (Jan 3, 2008)

Ryan, went to the link you provided and it looks like my floor is crap. Im pretty much losing a ton in the ground. My fault really. I will need to either poor another floor one day or find an alternate way to heat it. Maybe baseboards.


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## rsnider (Jan 3, 2008)

i dont think it is crap just works different in that you heat the ground and when the power goes out you have stored some heat in the ground for the floor. i would try to insulated around the outside of the foundation or slab if you could and insulate the walls if its a basement or garage if not already done. it should still work your just dumping heat in ground for later use.  that is the thought that ive read on the net.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

In the past I have done a few radiant jobs, each one a little different. In a wood floor I would never go above 120F, concrete takes a lot longer, I can't see how a radiant basement zone could run for a couple of minutes unless it's on a timer. To warm a slab that zone has to run for a long time, and then after that you have to satisfy the thermostat. My floor has no more cracks in it than normal, I can't see under the carpeting but the shop area is fine, no cracks. When I ran the basement loops I did 2, 1 loop on the north side of the columns, 1 loop on the south side. The loops are 1/2" polybutylene spaced 18" apart. The garage has 1 loop, starts out across the garage door (south wall), then travels along the exterior (east wall), then returns toward the south wall and goes across the door again, then returns back to the same path. Along the outer walls the tubing spacing is 6", this spacing is accomplished 3 times, then the spacing goes to 12", then 18", then 24" is the final spacing at the inside corner of the garage. The garage has a few cracks in the concrete but I attribute that to that same idiot that did my slabs. The garage and basement were to have 4000lb mix, and I was told yhat's what I received, until I spoke to the ready mix driver. The driver told me he delivered 2000lb mix for the garage, and 3000lb for the basement. When I installed the system I worried about cracking, but the garage cracking started before I ever had the heat operational.


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## Bartman (Jan 3, 2008)

Ryan,
 Could you send me the link you guys are talking about? I need to be enlightened.


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## rsnider (Jan 4, 2008)

www.radiantdesigninstitute.com 


i didnt have time today to get the temps going into the slab and out of the slab and i may have to use a strap thermometer to do it since he only has gages way before the radiant zones. his gages are located were the water is coming into and out of the house. i do know the thermostat shuts off way before the water coming out of the slab is hot. im only talking about the thermostat being satisfied when i talk about the slab working good. you are right that it would take a long time to get the temp coming out of the slab the same temp going into it. and it does take some time to get the slab up to temp like hours but this is mainly at startup. of course maybe i over shot my estamate it might be more like 15min to satisfy the floor zone ill check on that. now i do know his garages do run more often and for allot longer since they are not insulated much on the block walls and the 18' door.

im known to be wrong about numbers some times ha ha
(hope that web site helps) 
ryan


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## barnartist (Jan 4, 2008)

I wouldn't expect the return to be the same as the supply on the radiant, But would like to see what differences others are getting out of there slab. 
By the way, Since making a few adjustments on the gasifier, one being shoveling out completely all of the leftovers in the upper chamber-being unburned ash, I seem to get more time out of a load. 
It has been in the teens the past several days, 13 right now, and Im getting about 10 hours from a load. 
I bought one of those grill probes designed to be stuck in meat a while back. Its wireless, and will read pretty high temps. Anyway, from my house I can monitor my stack temp. From this I max at about 350, but it looks like I go into Idle quite a bit, with lows about 130. 

Can someone tell me the effects of covering one of the nossles of the eko-and which one I should cover for experiment?


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 4, 2008)

I'd cover the back one, though I've tried it on both with similar results. The reason for leaving the front one open is that the hot gas will linger in the chamber a bit longer before going into the hx tubes.

What should happen is that you'll get longer, harder burns putting out less heat than you would with two nozzles. This should give you a more efficient burn without going into idle so much. Just stick a piece of firebrick over the nozzle in the firebox. You have to be careful not to dislodge it when you add wood, etc.  You might have to monkey around with the air supply to compensate for one nozzle being idle, but probably not much. Note that the secondary air adjustment screws provide air to both sides of both nozzles, so you can't just close one; each nozzle needs air from both to function properly.

I can't see where this would hurt anything. It's worth playing with.


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## Bartman (Jan 4, 2008)

Rather than blocking a nozzle, can you get to the piping between the blower and nozzles? Wouldn't it be nicer to be able to shut off air flow at will instead of putting a fire brick inside. I'm thinking that I would rather stay away from the nozzle to lessen the risk of damage.


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 4, 2008)

That's the same nozzle you're tossing chunks of wood onto every time you load the stove, so I don't think you risk damaging it my putting a firebrick over the opening. If anything the brick protects the nozzle. Nozzle is a bit of a misnomer--it's basically just a slot in a piece of firebrick. The reason you need to physically block it off is that if you don't it's either going to fire, or if you can prevent it from firing, it will be a conduit for smoke to flow unburned from the firebox and out the chimney. Sometimes on startup, before the refractory gets completely up to temp, you'll have one nozzle going and the other one not going. The result is smoke out the stack.

It's a little tricker on smaller gasifiers with only one nozzle, because you have to try to block off only part of it. But with big boilers like EKO 60s and 80s, there are two nozzles.


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## dzook (Jan 4, 2008)

I have been following this thread, great info. I have a EKO 60 installed 90' from house. It has been using more wood than my expectations. I realize I was burning too wet wood and the unit is idling a lot. It is oversize but i plan to heat my barn when finished. In the mean time I'm trying dryer wood and blocking the back nozzle as suggested in this thread with a fire brick which I just did this morning. I also plan to add a 500g storage tank in the cellar of my house. I will let you know if i get less idle time and better gasification. it was common to only have one port gassifing before. 

I did not know about the secondary air adjustment until running it for about a month with them almost closed. couldn't figure out why it always smoked. info about the air adjustment should be in the manual. the handle to move the turbulators gradually got harder and harder to actuate. I had to remove the turbulators by "unthreading" them as they froze in place with the soot. I am leaving them out till I get the idling problem resolved. 

When I get ready to install the tank I plan to place a layout of my plumbing schematic to run it past those who have done this before to sniff out any potential gotchas


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## Eric Johnson (Jan 4, 2008)

Welcome to the Boiler Room, Dean. Glad to see another EKO 60 owner here. How far out do you have your secondary air valves set to? I've been running 6 full turns and it works really well. I also glued some modified (shortened) wire nuts onto the ends of the threaded rods. It makes it a heck of a lot easier to adjust them.

The manual definitely needs some work.

I've never had a problem with the turbulators. When I got the boiler, Dave from Cozy Heat said that it's important to move that handle "vigorously" every time you load the boiler. Because I'm cramped for space in my boiler room, I modified the handle lever by attaching an old snow shovel handle to it, so now it's no trouble to give it good, vigorous yanking a couple of times a day. Another modification I made was to turn the upper firebox door handle around so that I can push the bypass damper open from inside. I had a problem with it sticking with creosote for the first month or so, and it's impossible to get into the firebox with the bypass damper closed if you leave the handle in "stock" position.

I burn more wood than I expected, but less than I did with my old boiler, and now I'm heating more space and keeping it a lot warmer for a lot longer. Plus, I'm still getting my insulation wrapped up and working on my tank.

Let me know how it goes with the nozzle. I had good luck with it, but now I've gotten better at running the stove and it doesn't seen as important as it did at first. Maybe because I'm not paranoid about idling like I used to be.


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## dzook (Jan 4, 2008)

Thank you for the warm welcome. Of course it is a boiler room.

I had a heatmore before. That is what I am comparing it to, although it was about 135K rating i believe. 

I got the air adjust out at 3 turns or so.  I never opened the front of it up to see if the tubes had worked their way forward as i saw can happened in a thread on hearth.com. i will play with the air adjustment to see if 6 turns burns better. don't think i tried much further than 3-4.

I will get back with results with blocking the back nozzle.


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## barnartist (Jan 4, 2008)

Dean and others, I don't know about you guys, but I had a real problem with my damper seal. Took me a while to find it. The glue that keeps the rope on failed, and half of the damper rope was hanging. The newer models I am told dont have a rope, but I will tell you this is very important to have it close with a good seal. Really, I battled that thing for a whole winter. My cousin finally left his off, then we had to bend things around to make it shut flush. 
When this thing leaks, it lets out smoke, and it is harder to get to gasify. I lost alot of wood up the chimney until I found that.
As for the turbulators, get them back in there. This really makes a difference too.
For me, I realize I dont have enough storage, so I actually do better when idleing-as far as wood- but it is harder on stuff because it is not designed to handle tar and creasote.
There's my take.


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## barnartist (Jan 26, 2008)

A couple of thinks on this dead thread.... I reopened my rear nozzle, just seemed to have trouble starting a burn, and more smoke too. 
My Eko sits protected in a "lean-to" style roofline inclosed on my garage, uninsulated, and an open walk through door. Really air can freely blow through it, but depending on direction. Its cold. I recenly looked over the Eko flyer(pdf viewable at New Horizon, or Cozy Heat) and learned that the underbelly of the eko has a thin layer of water, not just refactory. So I added a thin layer of fiberglass ins., and then a 2" piece of blue foamboard.
Now its only been one burning, but I seem to have gained some time on a burn. I will report again on this after 2-3 more loads of wood.
I am wondering now if I should strip the whole Eko and insulate it in this manner.    Thanks to Sled_mack for the foam suggestion.


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## sled_mack (Jan 26, 2008)

Scott,

There is some, not much, insulation under the covers of the boiler.  And, there is an air gap between the insulation and the boiler.  I'm guessing the air gap is to prevent moisture from accumulating in the insulation and then rusting the outside of the boiler.  Another wild guess on my part.

My thought was to take the covers off, drill holes in them and put machine screws through from the inside out.  Run a nut all the way down to hold them in place.  use screws that leave about an inch sticking out, maybe more?  Put the covers back on.  Now, take the foam boards and press them against the screws to mark where to put holes in the foam.  Put holes in the foam and then press into place on the side of the boiler.  2 inch blue foam I think is R14.  That has to be way more than that little bit of rock wool inside the covers.  And, if you need to get the covers off, the insulation will lift right off.

It's on my list of things to do, just not a high enough priority yet....


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## barnartist (Jan 27, 2008)

2" blue foam is R10, just looked at some at Lowes.
Cant believe the results thus far with this change. Im thinking everyone should know about it, but gonna give it one more day to be sure. So how much better can it be if I add it to the sides? 
Sled, when would condensation be a problem, during the offseason? Can I just take the insulation off then and be ok?
How bout another coat of paint (high temp)?


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