# Garn Deluxe



## heaterman (Dec 31, 2008)

We finished this WHS-2000 up the day before Christmas and I just have to show it off. It was a pleasure to work with this owner because he's the type of guy that takes a "no holds barred" approach when it comes to doing things right. I have to give him all the credit for the unique insulation on the Garn. He has a couple large boilers in his business and I thinkn he came up with the inspiration for covering his Garn in commercial grade mineral wool blanket from those. Frankly, I've been around and worked on 25MMbtu Cleaver Brooks units that were not done as well. He and a couple of the mechanics that work for him welded a lip on the lower edge that enabled the insulation to be tucked in and also welded an additional two inches to the manhole to raise the lid above the insulation. As you can see from the pictures they did a fantastic job. I really like how they formed a lip around the draft inducer housing to finish that area out. That took some nifty metal work around those curved edges. I'm familiar with how well this insulation performs and I'm going to investigate the possibility of supplying it in a prefab kit or package. The pictures don't do it justice.

The unit supplies heat for his house through a 300' run of 1.5" pex and through 120' of 1.25" for the "Last Chance Garage" which is the owners car building shop. We did the design work and furnished the tube, lined up the spray foam insulation for the trenches, plus did the requisite heat loss calcs, near boiler piping and tied it in to his existing house boiler. When the insulating contractor was doing the trench I asked them to "give it a little extra" and it appears they did. I could not measure any temp drop from the "Garn Barn" to the house, 300' away. Surface temp of the pipe was 150* at both spots when I checked it yesterday. Usually I can find at least a degree difference but after checking 3 separate times and coming up with the identical reading, I have to say that the insulation guys did indeed "give it a little extra". The same held true for the shop.    They were both reading 150* at the Garn and 150* at their respective destinations. 

The house has a perfect heating system to tie into in that it is all low temp radiant floor and complete Tekmar control system already in place. We did find that the original installer had the heating curve on the variable speed injection mixing set far to high for a radiant floor application. It was seldom a problem as far as over heating the floors in the house because the LP boiler didn't have the horsepower to overheat the system unless only 1 or 2 zones were calling. Most of the time the gas boiler would fire and the temp would barely creep up above 130* which is in the danger zone for a standard cast iron boiler. We noticed that the zone piping got very hot right away when we dumped the Garn into the system return and that tipped us off to the heating curve being set at 1.2. With the Garn supplying hot water instead of the LP gas boiler the house would have been 90* by morning. We dialed the Tekmar back to a .6 which should still be plenty of available btu's for the house. The "Last Chance Garage" is heated with a couple Modine fan coils. Both buildings are tied into side B of the LX110-70 heat exchanger allowing all the outdoor piping to be antifreeze protected. 

Going to sign off and hit the hay but feel free to ask questions on anything.


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## EricV (Dec 31, 2008)

what did that idiot on the Ram Truck advertisement  say on tv??? oh yea, SWEEEEEEEEET


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## muleman51 (Dec 31, 2008)

That installation make me want to cry. Your customer should be very proud of that. Only wish it were at my house. Fabulous job.


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## allan (Dec 31, 2008)

Nice job heaterman. How many inches of insulation did they install (thickness). Is this product available through a company like State Supply? I'm building legs for my unit so that I can get insulation all the way underneath.

Thanks

Allan


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## flyingcow (Dec 31, 2008)

I used to do a lot of HVAC work(tin knockin') and if you decide to use mineral wool, be aware. It can be nasty, itchy, and down right rude stuff. But it's wonderful fire rated material. I wouldn't hesitate to use it, but use some coveralls, dust masks, etc. Wash all this stuff together with nothing else in the machine.

Damn nice looking job heaterman. Thanks for the info on temp drops in the underground.


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## heaterman (Dec 31, 2008)

EUP of MI said:
			
		

> Nice job heaterman. How many inches of insulation did they install (thickness). Is this product available through a company like State Supply? I'm building legs for my unit so that I can get insulation all the way underneath.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Allan



Thanks Allan

The owner placed the Garn on 4" of foam and the mineral wool is a full 4" thick. As you can see from the pics about 3/4 of the unit is bulkheaded into the mechanical room which is of course heated to a certain extent by the piping so heat loos from the jacket will be very minimal. There's only about 18" of it protruding into the presently unconditioned space in the Garn Barn/wood storage/machinery building. That area is un-insulated at present but does have tube in the floor and I would imagine at some point in the future it will be heated as well. All I can tell you on the insulation is that the owner bought it from some place downstate. I will be doing some research on sources and types and try to post my findings here.


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## Eric Johnson (Dec 31, 2008)

Beautiful. That is some fancy sheet metal fab work on the front. Looks like something you'd do in an automobile factory. I hear there's plenty of excess capacity at the moment.


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## Dave T (Dec 31, 2008)

Heaterman,
Looks like a good space saving install, on top of how good it looks, and with shutoffs everywhere..Nice install Heaterman..
I do have a question and it is out of lack of knowledge, is that a Y strainer mounted vertically? How well does it work?...
Every time I see one of those Garns I dream "maybe someday".. Thanks for the outstanding install pics ...Dave


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## heaterman (Dec 31, 2008)

TacoSteelerMan said:
			
		

> Heaterman,
> Looks like a good space saving install, on top of how good it looks, and with shutoffs everywhere..Nice install Heaterman..
> I do have a question and it is out of lack of knowledge, is that a Y strainer mounted vertically? How well does it work?...
> Every time I see one of those Garns I dream "maybe someday".. Thanks for the outstanding install pics ...Dave



Thanks Dave. 

It usually saves time, $$ and space if you plan first and pipe later rather than design as you go.  The wye strainer does the same job vertically or horizontally. When we remove the strainer to clean the screen some crud may fall off and that's probably the reason for your question. .....
What we do is simply remove it and them purge out a enough fluid to carry any contaminants that may have come lose. Not a big deal when there is a short vertical run ahead of the strainer. Best choice is horizontal but sometimes you work with what space you have.


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## brad068 (Dec 31, 2008)

This is exactly what I'm looking at on my next boiler. A local company builds Gencor tanks that the blacktop industry use. They wrap these huge tanks with high temp insulation and cover it with this aluminum skin just like you have. I talked to a worker there and I think he said that the Gencors heat to @ 1200*f. The insulation that I seen is a 4' wide roll must be 50' long, looks like some good stuff. I insulated the front of my unit with ceramic insulation (2600*F max rated) covered right over the clean outs ( it just hangs from the top header) so I don't have to worry about any hidden sparks. I can throw a coal on it and just watch it go out. Helps me sleep better.  

Some guys build street rods, some guys build boilers to look like street rods and this is one of them. Nice job


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## brad068 (Dec 31, 2008)

Oh, and heaterman, are you supplying from the top port on this unit?


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## Jim K in PA (Jan 1, 2009)

Excellent work Heaterman, and thanks for sharing.  That is certainly a job to be proud of.

It looks like they did quite a bit of customizing on the GARN.  They removed the stock corner lifting eyes and added a top center one, in addition to the other mods you mentioned.


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## vtquality (Jan 1, 2009)

You have gota' send a quick e-mail with your above bio on the project to Martin Lunde at Garn I'm willing to bet no one has gone to this extreme with a Garn before.
What would be willing to conservatively quess the the R value is for that jacket?
Ron


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## heaterman (Jan 1, 2009)

Garnification said:
			
		

> Oh, and heaterman, are you supplying from the top port on this unit?





Yep, top port is supply on this one. The temp at the circ actually runs about 3-4 degrees higher than indicated on the tank thermometer. I have another install we did about a year ago that we are going to go back and repipe in that manner. That particular job has a daily demand of about 800 gallons of 165* hot water and we need every degree of temp we can get through the HX to hit that goal.


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## heaterman (Jan 1, 2009)

Ron Brooks said:
			
		

> You have gota' send a quick e-mail with your above bio on the project to Martin Lunde at Garn I'm willing to bet no one has gone to this extreme with a Garn before.
> What would be willing to conservatively quess the the R value is for that jacket?
> Ron



When I figure out how to post pics on Garn's new forum I'll post this up there too. I think you have to post the pics off site on Photobucket or something like that. My son in law, the family in house guru of computing will probably give me a hand with that. 

I don't know what the rated r-value is on that stuff but I do know the surface temp of the jacket runs the same as the room temp/ The thing I really like is that it is so well sealed. No air movement through the insulation and no issues with the insulation getting moisture in it.


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## TCaldwell (Jan 3, 2009)

heaterman, great install pics, how many garns do you install per year? looks like fun, on the last two installs that you posted pics of i noticed that the heat exchangers are located close to the garn enclosures, basically closer to the garn than the back-up boiler. i assume that the demand side of the hx has a glycol type solution for freeze protection . my real question is if there is less headloss in the pressureized side of the hx loop when run this way, or is it the same as the garn side of the hx?  could you run a smaller circ on a pressureized, 15psi loop as opposed to a non-pressureized 6 psi loop, or is it the same. Also, have you added additional storage to a garn  and  how would you approach. thanks
                           tom


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## BrownianHeatingTech (Jan 3, 2009)

Very slick install.

How's the cost on the mineral wool insulation compare to fiberglass, for similar R-value?

Joe


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## pybyr (Jan 3, 2009)

WOW... As Mick Jagger said:

"Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."

you and your client did that.

speaking of those sexy Danish chip-burners that you (heaterman) mentioned in another thread, I think it is time for a small group of us to set up a real importer.

The Scandanavians are gun-shy about exports to the USA; I found that out several years ago when I tried to import a small quantity of pellet burner heads to replace Beckett oil burner heads.

But I bet we could win them over if we show them that we are for real and that we can take the requisite technical and legal steps to protect them and us

My head is at risk of exploding in frustration from working too long in a place where mediocrity is rewarded and innovation is punished, so I am ready to deploy technical and legal skills in new directions.

Let's go for it, folks, all interested, especially Joe B., NoFo, and Heaterman, please reply via PM


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## heaterman (Jan 4, 2009)

pybyr said:
			
		

> WOW... As Mick Jagger said:
> 
> "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."
> 
> ...



I have a good friend who is already in the import business, specifically heating related items and he has told me that the main roadblocks are basically these three.

1. Certification of the product for US/North American markets and the associated costs and..

2: A reluctance of European based manufacturers to deal with the litigious society we live in here in the good ol' lawyer driven US of A.

3. The perception, mostly true, that consumers in the US are nearly at the Neanderthal level when it comes to installation, maintenance and operation of heating appliances of all types, let alone solid fuel fired. 

After the past couple weeks which were mostly spent correcting installation related faults and errors in boiler piping, control application and shoddy workmanship, I sadly have to agree. Conservatively speaking, I'd say that probably 80-90% of "professional" boiler installers I have run into would not be let into my house to do a job. They don't have a clue.  I have three "installation updates" on the docket next week..........Installation update is about as kind as I can say it. Rip it out and start over is more like it.

That being said, I will pick his brain a bit to see what his thoughts are on the topic. It's been a year or so since we discussed that scenario and with the gyration in fuel prices recently experienced and more to come, maybe thinking has changed across the pond. Bottom line in all three of the reasons listed is that those companies would be here if they thought the reward outweighed the risk.


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## brad068 (Jan 4, 2009)

Heater, What/why do you need to import?, the Garn is already here!


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## leaddog (Jan 4, 2009)

Garnification said:
			
		

> Heater, What/why do you need to import?, the Garn is already here!


It's big and does't burn chips and it does'nt modulate. The Refo does.
leaddog


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## heaterman (Jan 4, 2009)

leaddog said:
			
		

> Garnification said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You heard it here first. There *is* a US manufacturer that presently has a modulating wood fired boiler in R&D;, complete with flue gas O2 sensor. It will be an ASME rated unit. Can't say any more at this point.


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## heaterman (Jan 4, 2009)

BrownianHeatingTech said:
			
		

> Very slick install.
> 
> How's the cost on the mineral wool insulation compare to fiberglass, for similar R-value?
> 
> Joe



I'm in the process of contacting various manufacturers for pricing on that stuff. IIRC, the owner said he had around $2K in the insulation but I don't know if that was material only or included the labor his mechanics put into the project.


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## brad068 (Jan 4, 2009)

leaddog said:
			
		

> Garn said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I wonder if my unit is as big as your 2200 gallon storage and boiler? What is the big deal with modulating. Show me a downdrafter modulating or not that doesn't have a creosote build up in the primary chamber. The New Kid on the Block has a garn style unit and he asks owb owners " Can you save a cup of that creosote for me 'cause I sure miss that smell!"  As heaterman said in the other thread (12 hr burns) about how a garns"overall" efficiency is 75-85% its pretty hard to beat that and justify the expense of modulation and let me know how well the extra electronics hold out for 20 years.

Just like the tractor industry. The value of the 15-25 year old tractors are increasing because those tractors can still be worked on by the farmers. And you can't compare the autos to the tractors: apples and oranges.

Alright, let me have it


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## TCaldwell (Jan 4, 2009)

leaddog, my garn modulates via a in situ fluegas analyser, allen bradley plc , hitachi vsd and 2hp 3 phase motor


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## brad068 (Jan 4, 2009)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> leaddog, my garn modulates via a in situ fluegas analyser, allen bradley plc , hitachi vsd and 2hp 3 phase motor



Hey Tom, 

How is that setup working out? Is it a big advantage? Does it ever get "confused?"


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## leaddog (Jan 4, 2009)

Hay guys don't get me wrong cause I REALLY REALLY like the garn and think that it should be looked at first in alot of situations. That said, There is a market for a residentual chip burner. Just look around and look at the available fuel supply. Chips are available every where locally. very little processing, cheap, easy to handle and you don't need to use valuable timber. You can also use cherry pits, peachpits, nuts, wood pellets, hay pellets. If you have one that modulates then you don't need storage and you are getting closer to having a easier boiler that everyone can run and understand. I'm getting older and someday I just might not beable to cut, split, stack, and handle wood. Thats one reason pellets was a very serious thought for me but pellets are still at the mercy of oil where chips are right here in my back yard.
leaddog


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## Boilerguy (Jan 4, 2009)

Heater man

Nice looking install, 

Glad to hear america will soon have a national board stamped gasifier. I am looking forward to seeing one. What a major inprovement over most of these owb smoking away and rusting away fron the inside out.


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## flyingcow (Jan 4, 2009)

leaddog said:
			
		

> Hay guys don't get me wrong cause I REALLY REALLY like the garn and think that it should be looked at first in alot of situations. That said, There is a market for a residentual chip burner. Just look around and look at the available fuel supply. Chips are available every where locally. very little processing, cheap, easy to handle and you don't need to use valuable timber. You can also use cherry pits, peachpits, nuts, wood pellets, hay pellets. If you have one that modulates then you don't need storage and you are getting closer to having a easier boiler that everyone can run and understand. I'm getting older and someday I just might not beable to cut, split, stack, and handle wood. Thats one reason pellets was a very serious thought for me but pellets are still at the mercy of oil where chips are right here in my back yard.
> leaddog




I have a 48ft open top trailer that is set up for wood chips/hog fuel etc. I do this when there is extra work to be had. I would be concerned about the wood chips freezing and sticking together. If i haul clean chips, which is already debarked before they're chipped, it isn't too bad. Still have to put fuel down to keep them from sticking to the plywood walls and floor. These are only in the trailer for a few hours. And they'll slide right out when put up on the dumper. But you never leave a load on overnight(unless you store inside a heated garage, then it's still a risk). Not only do they freeze to the walls, but freeze together. This is green or dry wood. The hog fuel, which is the bark and other junk is just a crap shoot sometimes, freezes solid very easy. Knowing nothing about this, seems like you'd have to store the wood chips in a heated building. I can get about 35 to 38 ton of green hardwood  chips in my trailer, that's 48ft x 8'6'' with a possum belly. Probably in the 135+ cu/yd range. If you  compare tonnage, I plan on using about 12/13 ton of hardwood in my Tarm. If all is equal than about  1/2 a trailer load of dry wood chips(even though the RFO says it can burn green, still going to perform better with dry). You mentioned burning cherry pits etc. I wouldn't think that that type of material will have the btu's per ton as good wood chips. Even that amount I know would freeze if not in some kind of heated building. Unless you want to chip as you burn, which to me takes away some of the convience of it.      My .02  but I haven't read anything for info in how they do it over there, so I'm sure they got it all figured out, they usually do.


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## TCaldwell (Jan 4, 2009)

chiptec in vermont makes several models of chip boilers,its not the cost of the boiler but the conditioning and delivery system of the chip that makes it out of residential reach. they use cleaver-brooks controls with a ametek  in situ flue gas analyser. my experimentation so far with cordwood  and 02 control is a ''estimated compromise'' because of the burning stages of cordwood , start-up, with a time period of 02 deficit , next stage a optimum combustion with a 2to 4 % 02 reading, next stage about 2/3 through burn, o2% will gradually rise to about 13% about 75%  coals and a few small logs left. the last third basically just coals will rise from 13 to 20.9% end of burn. in the garn when it puffs the o2 reading is at 0%, so in a nut shell with a static fan speed , under aired for first third of burn a good o2 range for second third of burn and over aired for last third of burn. this cycle can be manipulated with size of splits, frequency of reload and moisture content. i suspect most '' lambda controlled'' cordwood boilers are designed to try to limit theses ''estimated compromises''by carefully designing fire box capacities and reccomending  small splits, primary/ secondary air ratios and volumes to try to minimize the cordwood burn cycle swing. I am in the process of defining and testing programable runs in the allen bradley plc for different moisture content wood. one button for a program that will controll dry wood,another for average wood ,and a third for less than optimum wood., these programs basically differ in  initial static fan speed start-up time, also looking to end burn with a declining flue temp for a given length of time, and of course a overide toggle to run manually. this experiment, ongoing is leading me to believe that a continious fuel delivered system, pelletts or chips for example is more successfully controlled with o2 control. i would appreciate any comments or ideas that you think might be incorporated, thanks
  tom


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## brad068 (Jan 4, 2009)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> chiptec in vermont makes several models of chip boilers,its not the cost of the boiler but the conditioning and delivery system of the chip that makes it out of residential reach. they use cleaver-brooks controls with a ametek in situ flue gas analyser. my experimentation so far with cordwood and 02 control is a '' compromise because of the burning stages of cordwood , start-up, with a time period of 02 deficit , next stage a optimum combustion with a 2to 4 % 02 reading, next stage about 2/3 through burn, o2% will gradually rise to about 13% about 75% coals and a few small logs left. the last third basically just coals will rise from 13 to 20.9% end of burn. in the garn when it puffs the o2 reading is at 0%, so in a nut shell with a static fan speed , under aired for first third of burn a good o2 range for second third of burn and over aired for last third of burn. this cycle can be manipulated with size of splits, frequency of reload and moisture content. i suspect most '' lambda controlled'' cordwood boilers are designed to try to limit theses '' compromises''by carefully designing fire box capacities and reccomending small splits, primary/ secondary air ratios and volumes to try to minimize the cordwood burn cycle swing. I am in the process of defining and testing programable runs in the allen bradley plc for different moisture content wood. one button for a program that will controll dry wood,another for average wood ,and a third for less than optimum wood., these programs basically differ in initial static fan speed start-up time, also looking to end burn with a declining flue temp for a given length of time, and of course a overide toggle to run manually. this experiment, ongoing is leading me to believe that a continious fuel delivered system, pelletts or chips for example is more successfully controlled with o2 control. i would appreciate any comments or ideas that you think might be incorporated, thanks
> tom



Tom, which way does the fan speed good when it starts puffing? 

I get the same feeling that consistently sized wood, and equal MC would be necessary for the optimum control of the burn with the lambda system. I also think that with a Garn setup you will be needing to control the primary and secondary air to get better control over the burn. The Garn would have to be re figured in construction to completely separate these two air sources. But the original garn setup is so simple and so effective that I don't think it can be changed.

 Hey Tom, how's the guys with the switzers doing?  I haven't heard any updates.


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## TCaldwell (Jan 4, 2009)

Brad, at 70hz you get away from the puffing but will still read 0%o2 at 80 hz fan speed. i agree that the primary/secondary air would have to be reconfigured to optimize,  have not talked to or heard from the switzer boys, i should call them.
                   tom


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## heaterman (Jan 4, 2009)

leaddog said:
			
		

> Hay guys don't get me wrong cause I REALLY REALLY like the garn and think that it should be looked at first in alot of situations. That said, There is a market for a residentual chip burner. Just look around and look at the available fuel supply. Chips are available every where locally. very little processing, cheap, easy to handle and you don't need to use valuable timber. You can also use cherry pits, peachpits, nuts, wood pellets, hay pellets. If you have one that modulates then you don't need storage and you are getting closer to having a easier boiler that everyone can run and understand. I'm getting older and someday I just might not beable to cut, split, stack, and handle wood. Thats one reason pellets was a very serious thought for me but pellets are still at the mercy of oil where chips are right here in my back yard.
> leaddog



The biggest advantage of a chip burner is being able to vary the fuel load. When you can change the rate of fuel feed going to the burner as well as the air you have a bio-mass fired appliance which will be very close to the efficiency of the best gas and oil fired equipment. In addition, be able to throttle the firing rate can nearly eliminate the need for storage which as most of you know is expensive any way you slice it.

As far as burning cordwood goes, the Garn is an excellent choice due to the ability to burn wide open for the entire burn cycle. Could it be better? Yes, but at what cost and added complexity? The beast works so well and so simply in its present form that what little can be gained in efficiency may not support the extra mechanical pieces and costs. Gaining an additional 3-5% by utilizing O2 sensor and a variable speed blower would show marginal ROI in the long run but it sure is fun to play with and think about. You really can't get much more efficiency than that or a person would wind up with a condensation problem of epic proportions.


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## heaterman (Jan 4, 2009)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> Brad, at 70hz you get away from the puffing but will still read 0%o2 at 80 hz fan speed. i agree that the primary/secondary air would have to be reconfigured to optimize,  have not talked to or heard from the switzer boys, i should call them.
> tom



RE secondary air: I've often wondered what would happen if the secondary air stream in a Garn was "ducted" directly into the refractory chamber..........just thinking out loud.


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## Jim K in PA (Jan 4, 2009)

heaterman said:
			
		

> RE secondary air: I've often wondered what would happen if the secondary air stream in a Garn was "ducted" directly into the refractory chamber..........just thinking out loud.



Sorry to jump in here, but I thought about this too.  However, in the early stages, and/or when you have insufficient air supply (puffing) situations, you would want to have the upper nozzle air supply dump 100% into the primary chamber, then as the O2 readings improve, transfer or redirect the flow of air from the upper nozzle from the primary chamber to the secondary reaction chamber via some  heavy walled piping/duct path.  It sure would be nicely pre-heated by the primary chamber before it got to the secondary!

Just a thought.


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## brad068 (Jan 4, 2009)

Guys, I and High E experimented with all different setups and settled on the original concept. One test run, I made up a tubing grate that the wood and coals sat on and it was stuck into the bottom combustion air hole and ran at a slight incline to the start of the secondary chamber. It didn't do any better than the original and actually the thermometers that are in my flue passages read lower.

One experiment/ setup that I often tried and still do is to place a flat piece of cardboard with a piece of glass fastened to it and place it over the door opening. When looking through the glass you really get the full effect of the burn. What I noticed is that when the air exits out the bottom hole into the primary chamber it slams it the wood/coals and really strips off the gases and coals which in-turn causes great turbulence in the chamber for good mixing.

My opinion to split the primary/secondary is that you would have to take the secondary chamber and place it below the primary then exit out the back of it with the traditional garn flues. That way the wood is at a constant distance from the nozzle helped out by gravity.


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## Jim K in PA (Jan 4, 2009)

Man - my hat is off to you Captain G (and High E).  Thinking/theorizing/dreaming is cheap and easy.  You put in the time and $$ to try this stuff out.

I am sure Martin Lunde has thought of and tried most of what we are kibitzing about, and many more ideas as well.

I have no desire or need to modify my GARN, but I just can't help being fascinated by it and its function.






			
				Garnification said:
			
		

> Guys, I and High E experimented with all different setups and settled on the original concept. One test run, I made up a tubing grate that the wood and coals sat on and it was stuck into the bottom combustion air hole and ran at a slight incline to the start of the secondary chamber. It didn't do any better than the original and actually the thermometers that are in my flue passages read lower.


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## TCaldwell (Jan 4, 2009)

heaterman, gary switzer built a boiler for ed forest, a hearth member that i saw in action last may. It was similar to a garn in concept of a primary chamber/secondary reaction chamber, the dimensions were different than a garn, however it had a 2 inch dedicated secondary air supply that was damper controlled  by a flue stack thermocouple, it terminated on the back vertical wall about 18 inches away from the secondary reaction chamber. when the flue temp reached ? the damper opened introducing o2  next to the src, but not in it. switzer claims about 850kbtu/hr out of a 6'' id refractory chamber that is 5ft long. he has 3000gal water in storage. the best readings with the testo 327 were in the high 70% range.


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## EForest (Jan 12, 2009)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> heaterman, gary switzer built a boiler for ed forest, a hearth member that i saw in action last may. It was similar to a garn in concept of a primary chamber/secondary reaction chamber, the dimensions were different than a garn, however it had a 2 inch dedicated secondary air supply that was damper controlled by a flue stack thermocouple, it terminated on the back vertical wall about 18 inches away from the secondary reaction chamber. when the flue temp reached ? the damper opened introducing o2 next to the src, but not in it. switzer claims about 850kbtu/hr out of a 6'' id refractory chamber that is 5ft long. he has 3000gal water in storage. the best readings with the testo 327 were in the high 70% range.


Happy New Year Tom and all of you here at Hearth.com,
The Switzer has been a wonderfull addition to the Forest family. I burn for @ 5-6 hrs every other evening to bring my 3000 gal of water storage up to 200-220* depending on the weather report. If next day temps are predicted in the 40's then i'll stop @ 180*.
It takes 10 cu ft per load to fill the fire box and the average fire these days takes 2 full loads. We keep the house @ 70* first fl and 68 - 70* second fl. The kids spend most days running about sock-less and shirtless so 24 hr warmth in our 3600 sq ft cape is a priority. The wood I burn is a mix of pine, maple, poplar, oak, lumber scraps, and "mystery wood". I have it easy now but next year when the 3700 sq ft barn is on line I'll need to burn daily. I must say even with oil so cheap( which I haven't burned since May) I'm glad I control the fuel cost/demand for my home. My boiler is simple to use and easy to maintain. I spoke with Scott(smangold) recently and he has the same situation but without the additional storage he must burn daily.
correction: the secondary air intake is a full 4"at the rear of the fire box on the left side which is @ 18" from the ceramic lined secondary chamber. As you noted the secondary air is controlled by stack temp as is the primary upper and lower air .

another thing worth mentioning; the Switzer never blows smoke out the load door because the draft inducer is located outside of the boiler mounted to the masonry chimney. My boiler has a draft switch that kicks the fan on high whenever the top door is opened. I can almost place my head inside the 30" round x 36" long fire box at the beginning or end of a burn without MELTING the grey hair my wife considers sex appeal. Bottom line, I love my Switzer boiler. I'm hesitant to post these days because so many guys seem to struggle with there installs and I hate to sound like a braggard. But maybe I'm delusioned and burn way to much wood.

All you Garn Guys: how much wood do you burn for heat and DHW.

BTW I resolved the "puffing" issue if any are interested...


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## Der Fuirmeister (Jan 12, 2009)

heaterman said:
			
		

> EUP of MI said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Heaterman,

Here's a link to the Roxul......http://www.roxul.com/sw42877.asp

Click on the blanket type


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## Jim K in PA (Jan 12, 2009)

Ed-it sure sounds like you have an excellent setup.  Glad to hear it.  And don't be "afraid" to post your positive experiences.  It gives others the inspiration to keep trying.  I am very happy with my GARN, but have room for improvement.



			
				EForest said:
			
		

> All you Garn Guys: how much wood do you burn for heat and DHW.



With temps in the high teens to low 20s, I burn twice daily, probably 40-60 lbs each burn.  I am keeping my GARN in a fairly narrow window between 150 and 190.  I am very happy with the performance.  Each burn is ~2 hours, seperated by anywhere from 9-14 hours.



			
				EForest said:
			
		

> BTW I resolved the "puffing" issue if any are interested...



Do tell.  I have figured out how to keep my GARN from puffing when burning small scrap wood 90% of the time.  It's all technique on loading.


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## TCaldwell (Jan 13, 2009)

with my heatload, i average2 cords per month in the winter, ok ED, how did you do it?           tom


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## EForest (Jan 13, 2009)

Tom and Jim K
The Switzer is a GARNlike vessel for the most part but the controls are very different. Gary uses limit control switches by Honeywell that are set into the stack before the draft inducer. He uses 4 limit switches with different settings. Some break on rise only or drop only, some break and/or open on rise/drop. 3 of the switches control the 3 Dayton shutter motors that open and/or close the 3 draft doors on the face of the boiler depending on stack temps. Upper and lower primary air on the load door and ash door, and secondary air to front of firebox. The 4th switch is for draft inducer control. The inducer is two speed and can be forced to stay on high via a timer switch or it will drop to low on stack rise until end of burn when stack temps drop and the limit control switch turns the inducer to high until stack cools enough to turn the entire system off.

As for the puffing. I don't know if this will help with a garn because of the different controlls but the solution was very simple for me.
fill the beast with as much wood as you can but never put wood closer than 10" to the load door both vertical and horizontal.
My fire box is 30" diameter x 36" long but my splitter can only handle 25" logs so this is convenient. I have loaded the box from front to back with shorter splits and the puffing was so bad that the fire fire dept showed up after my alarm went off. It was a little embarasing but they thought it was a "grilling mishap" so my pride was left intact until I did it again a week later and had to fess up.
Since then I rarely experience puffing with careful loading and if it does puff it only does it for a few seconds after the lower primary draft door closes on stack rise (after loading or reloading only).

Jim K
How do you raise 2000 gals of water 40* with only 40-60 lbs of wood? the math doesn't work. Are you using other sources to heat the water? I burn @ 300 lbs to raise 3000 gals 70* ( this is a guess based on cu ft because I've never weighed my wood).


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## brad068 (Jan 13, 2009)

One thing that I didn't like with the switzer design is that the primary and secondary combustion air is from inside the room, right? I think that is why your smoke alarm went off? The garn uses a direct vent from right outside so when the puffing starts the blow back goes outside., on my unit with the door latch that I have.

I would be interested in knowing what the secondary temps run in you unit. I don't know what mine will run right in the sec. chamber but it will glow bright orange and I have a 200-1000*F thermo in the first clean out and it will pass 1000 on start up and usually run @ 950*F.

Another thing that I think is of dislike is that the secondary chamber is to high in the back of the primary chamber. I found that lowering the chamber keeps the wood closer longer throughout the burn. Like the DD's gravity pulls the wood down to the nozzle where most of the refractory and heat is keeping the wood hot and releasing gases maintaining a good, hot, consistent burn.


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## Jim K in PA (Jan 13, 2009)

Ed,

LOL - "grilling mishap" - I gotta remember that.  Sounds kind of like a "wardrobe malfunction".




			
				EForest said:
			
		

> Jim K
> How do you raise 2000 gals of water 40* with only 40-60 lbs of wood? the math doesn't work. Are you using other sources to heat the water? I burn @ 300 lbs to raise 3000 gals 70* ( this is a guess based on cu ft because I've never weighed my wood).



I never actually weighed the wood, so my estimate is probably off by some, but not a lot.  The GARN WHS2000 specs say that there is actually only 1860 gallons of water in an operating unit (I suspect the actual tank volume is 2000, but you don't fill it all the way).  My delta T is in the 30-40 range.  On most days (like this morning) I usually run it from about 152 to about 185-190.  SO, I am raising 1860 gallons 35 degrees, on average, twice a day.  I load in about 10 lbs of dry scrap lumber, and then 4-7 pieces of cordwood.  So, perhaps 60-80 lbs is probably a better estimate.  So, 1860*8.33*35= approx 542k btu.  If I am getting 7k btu/lb of wood, that yields about 77lbs consumed.  So, I am in the ballpark.

My wood is extremely dry, well seasoned hardwoods.  I frequently get flue temps in the last pass of the GARN HX in the 425-475 range, without puffing.  Depending on the heat load at the time, I can get a 10+ degree rise in less than 30 minutes from first light.  This is consistent with the Dectra specs of max input for the WHS2000 of 425k Btuh.


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## EForest (Jan 13, 2009)

Jim,
you and I are burning the same amount of wood overall but I get it done in one burn every other day vs 2 burns daily. That is one advantage of a pressurized system. But never getting smoke in the house from puffing is great. Garn definitely has that situation under control. Switzer boilers must draw air from the room because of the numerous draft doors and their locations and therefore puffing puts smoke in the building.


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## stihlgoin (Jan 17, 2009)

My Switzer 1450 has been doing very well.  This last cold spell has me burning between 400-500 lbs/day to get the temp up to 220F, but I'm heating a 2400sq ft. well insulated house and a 3000 sq.ft barely insulated house for my inlaws.  (and hot water)  The thermopex is doing well, no appreciable loss in a 250ft run to my inlaws' and a 75ft run to our house.  This month will be almost a 2 1/2 full cord month, but 3 cords got me from Sept. to Jan 1st even while some plumbing bugs were being worked out.
The only time mine puffs back into the room (outside building) is when I've loaded too close to the door (as Tom mentioned).  Even then the fire has to get the flue temp to 350+ so the primary air door closes before any puffing occurs.  Since it's not in our house, it doesn't bother me much.  All in all, a great unit, and I will post pics of my building.  Maybe I'll snap some this weekend.  -Too cold to do much else.

Chris


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## brad068 (Jan 17, 2009)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> heaterman, gary switzer built a boiler for ed forest, a hearth member that i saw in action last may. It was similar to a garn in concept of a primary chamber/secondary reaction chamber, the dimensions were different than a garn, however it had a 2 inch dedicated secondary air supply that was damper controlled by a flue stack thermocouple, it terminated on the back vertical wall about 18 inches away from the secondary reaction chamber. when the flue temp reached ? the damper opened introducing o2 next to the src, but not in it. switzer claims about 850kbtu/hr out of a 6'' id refractory chamber that is 5ft long. he has 3000gal water in storage. the best readings with the testo 327 were in the high 70% range.



Tom, whats the best readings that you got out of the Garn?

My unit has performed exceptionally well in the low temps up until now. I don't know how I'm going to fix the catastrophe I am in now. I just don't understand how this could of happened after all the thought and time I invested in it that this failure was not foreseen..... oh yeah, you guessed it, I broke a firebrick!   

 High E got me on this one!!


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## tigermaple (Jan 17, 2009)

Heaterman,
What was the cost of such an install?


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## heaterman (Jan 17, 2009)

tigermaple said:
			
		

> Heaterman,
> What was the cost of such an install?



In deference to the owner I don't think I'll make that public knowledge here without his permission. PM me if you'd like. I do not know what the cost of his insulation job is as he and his mechanics did that work themselves.


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