Airwash experiment

[pell it]

I was cleaning the burn chamber today and happened to glance over at the package of half inch rope door gasket, then back at the airwash slot, and it happened! A brain fart! I proceeded to cut a length of rope gasket and lay it in the airwash slot to impede the air flow. We shall see what a difference in burn characteristics I get. It's been six hours and the glass is still clean. I have already noticed more burnpot ejection of spent fuel.

Okay, feel free to let me know all the reasons to not do this now!

 

[DexterDay]

Make sure the glass does not get hot enough to crack. Its happened before. People have "plugged" the airwash and this super heats the ceramic glass.

Is it open on the top and bottom of the glass? If so, then you only sealed one side, if not, then it may get hot. The air flow being restricted will put more air through the pot, causing better fly ash ejecting. But may overheat the ceramic..

It may not also. Some stoves have poor airwash, or others like the Baby Countryside (Magnum) can block 80% of the airwash and barely effect the visibility of the glass, yet increase the amount of air for combustion, thereby giving it greater efficiency and still keeping a clean viewing window.

Always take caution when "Modifying" anything.

 

[pell it]

Make sure the glass does not get hot enough to crack. Its happened before. People have "plugged" the airwash and this super heats the ceramic glass.

Is it open on the top and bottom of the glass? If so, then you only sealed one side, if not, then it may get hot. The air flow being restricted will put more air through the pot, causing better fly ash ejecting. But may overheat the ceramic..

It may not also. Some stoves have poor airwash, or others like the Baby Countryside (Magnum) can block 80% of the airwash and barely effect the visibility of the glass, yet increase the amount of air for combustion, thereby giving it greater efficiency and still keeping a clean viewing window.

Always take caution when "Modifying" anything.

I do not think the airwash on the front "Main" window was doing much, as the slot would fill with ash and the openings for the fresh air are closer to the corners where the side and main windows meet. It appears that the majority of the air came up along the side windows. I did leave small gaps at the ends of the airwash slot with no gasket material. (because someone cut the damn thing a bit too short!)

I will be aware of the glass overheating now that you have brought up that point. Maybe put a call in to US Stove for a temp rating of the glass used. I would imagine that an overheat would be more likely with a high burn in cold weather. The stove ran on #3 all night without issue.

I plan to fabricate a "mask" with a smaller airwash slot eventually. (if the experiment proves out)

 

[slls]

Wood stoves have ceramic glass, no air wash that I know of.

 

[firebroad]

Wood stoves have ceramic glass, no air wash that I know of.

Mine does

 

[DexterDay]

Wood stoves have ceramic glass, no air wash that I know of.

My wood stove has an air wash, but its not the same as a Pellet stove.

Also, pellet stoves have ceramic as glass. Been talked about several times here.
Tiss why you should not use Windex on either (or any ammonia products). They both have High heat atmospheres inside.

Wood stoves air wash, is basically the Primary air. It comes in just above the top of the window. On the Englander line, it looks the same on the inside of the door, whether its a pellet or wood stove. Just how it gets there and what controls it, is different.

 

[slls]

Always willing to learn. I forgot to mention a lot of Castile and Santa Fe owners
on another web site have all sealed their air wash to get heat, with no ill effects.

 

[shisits]

I have sealed the airwash on my Quad for 2 seasons. Way more heat output and have had no problems. I use the leafblower to clean it ever 7 to 10 days,also been doing that for the last 2 seasons,no problems. :coolsmile: YMMV

 

[DexterDay]

Always willing to learn. I forgot to mention a lot of Castile and Santa Fe owners
on another web site have all sealed their air wash to get heat, with no ill effects.

Huh.... Ever tried it yourself on the Classic Bay?

Giving it more flow through the burn pot could be bad (or good). But my thinking, is that its gonna expel pellets before there fully burnt. It already sends very large embers (burned pellets) out the pot when more drop in. With more air, you will prematurely eject them. Losing heat.

In some stoves (low air flow) I could see how one would benefit from it. But a Quad gets Copious amounts of air through the pot.

I might try plugging just the sides of the Bay Window one day (or just one side).

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Always willing to learn. I forgot to mention a lot of Castile and Santa Fe owners
on another web site have all sealed their air wash to get heat, with no ill effects.

Huh.... Ever tried it yourself on the Classic Bay?

Giving it more flow through the burn pot could be bad (or good). But my thinking, is that its gonna expel pellets before there fully burnt. It already sends very large embers (burned pellets) out the pot when more drop in. With more air, you will prematurely eject them. Losing heat.

In some stoves (low air flow) I could see how one would benefit from it. But a Quad gets Copious amounts of air through the pot.

I might try plugging just the sides of the Bay Window one day (or just one side).

Dexter, I would think it would depend upon how close to the limits their quad are operating and the pellets they are burning.

It is the equivalent of playing with a damper it depends upon all of the conditions and the fuel.

 

[jtakeman]

My Quad nova 800 has a damper of sorts. Its a simple disc that covers the incoming air under the burnpot. The round plate is larger than the round hole and has a sheet metal screw on the top. You slide the plate to the left to open up the hole for more air. Right will close it off. Then tighten the screw. I usually left it alone. And adjusted the burn with the fuel gate in the hopper. But it is closed off about 3/4 or so.

I'll try to snap a picture of it if you all want? Might be a mod if the newer quads have a similar hole under the burnpot. You have to peek through the ash pan door. Look to the back wall on the left side.

 

[DexterDay]

Always willing to learn. I forgot to mention a lot of Castile and Santa Fe owners
on another web site have all sealed their air wash to get heat, with no ill effects.

Huh.... Ever tried it yourself on the Classic Bay?

Giving it more flow through the burn pot could be bad (or good). But my thinking, is that its gonna expel pellets before there fully burnt. It already sends very large embers (burned pellets) out the pot when more drop in. With more air, you will prematurely eject them. Losing heat.

In some stoves (low air flow) I could see how one would benefit from it. But a Quad gets Copious amounts of air through the pot.

I might try plugging just the sides of the Bay Window one day (or just one side).

Dexter, I would think it would depend upon how close to the limits their quad are operating and the pellets they are burning.

It is the equivalent of playing with a damper it depends upon all of the conditions and the fuel.

Yeah, but Quads are built with LOTS of combustion air. Actually doing something like Jay said (in above post) is worth trying. Slowing the air some. The pellet quality (in my stove) will just produce more or less ash and more or less heat. The burn pot always stays clean for the most part. The color may change, but I know a couple Santa Fe owners (freestanding and insert) and a couple more Classic Bay owners (freestanding and insert). All have the same "Angry" tornado type burn.

To increase this burn (closing airwash) would only increase the air flow. Again, maybe the.blowtorch effect is amplified even more by doing so. Which creates a hotter fire, because less room air (cold) is brought into the firebox.

Again, I am interested now. I will start small and do one small Bay Window. And if my results (ash expulsion and heat temps) improve, then I may do the other small window. Wont even try the entire window. I enjoy the view of the Fire. Because of warmer temps, the Quad will maybe see some action. Furnace is to much above 35°-40°…

 

[slls]

Always willing to learn. I forgot to mention a lot of Castile and Santa Fe owners
on another web site have all sealed their air wash to get heat, with no ill effects.

Huh.... Ever tried it yourself on the Classic Bay?

Giving it more flow through the burn pot could be bad (or good). But my thinking, is that its gonna expel pellets before there fully burnt. It already sends very large embers (burned pellets) out the pot when more drop in. With more air, you will prematurely eject them. Losing heat.

In some stoves (low air flow) I could see how one would benefit from it. But a Quad gets Copious amounts of air through the pot.

I might try plugging just the sides of the Bay Window one day (or just one side).

You just need to put a restrictor under the hose adapter. It will blow the pellets out of the burn pot before they become fly ash.
Leave one side open if you want to see the fire.

 

[Czech]

This is an interesting topic, and one I never pondered with just my quad. Since the addition of the Baby which has a damper, I've had to re assess. I've now come to the conclusion that it is possible to have too much combustion air on some stoves, thus moving the air to quickly thru the exchange and sending over heated air out the exhaust. So it comes down to the question of how well a stove extracts the heat and how much volume of air you have, too little extraction and too much air may look like it is burning really well but really you may be losing btu's out the exhaust. Just my theory since I added the Baby to the mix, whole different animal that the quad which does extract very well regardless of the high volume of incoming air. I really didn't help much, did I?

 

[DexterDay]

Well... I tried it. I did one side and thought it was helping, (although no change in temp), then did the 2nd side and had a drop in temp, and almost whole pellets being ejected out of the pot. Not to mention really dirty glass. Ive only cleaned the windows once a month ago. But the 2 side windows, got toasted with only a few burns (couple hrs total) .

My conclusion is, that Quads provide plenty of air already. Any more air will hinder the performance. Unless you have an underlying problem. Such as a bad gasket, etc.

Yeah, the front window is dirty, but it has prob over a dozen bags, and been ran here and there when needed. The side windows were not even as bad as the front. But without the wash, it didnt take long.

Also noted a lot more clinking when heating up. Although my output temps didnt go up (I did clean the exchangers with my bottle brush), its seems like its just moving the air to fast, it may ne hotter air, but if its moving faster, it has less exchange time to soak.
I only ran on Low, but on High, it might have extinguished the Fire (blowing pellets out). Also, witg so much air, a clinker may not ever build up, do to all material being flung out of pot ;-P

Anyways, I used a thin strip of aluminum foil and slid it inside the gap. Definitely be removing them.

I tried it.. Didnt really work for me (for temps anyways) worked at mucking up the glass really quick. Even though it was pretty dirty anyways, you could still see through it.

 

[FFRKing]

I have only burned about 30 bags so far thru my Quad Castile insert but am learning a lot.
I settled on one brand after experimenting with 5 different ones. Heartland Wood Pellets out of Spearfish, SD.

Tonight I decided to try blocking the airwash to see what would happen. Mine is open across the top and I was able to use a 3/16" steel rod to just lay across the opening. I actually used 2 rods that were just about an inch short of covering the entire opening. I used an infrared non-contact thermometer to measure the temps of the heat exchanger tubes about an inch from the top on the inside. I held the thermometer the same distance away from the stove for all of the tests.

After installing only 1 rod to partially block the airwash, I noticed virtually no change except that the flame rarely rose out of the firepot and it had more of the "tornado" effect. Before, flame was consistently 3-5 inches over the top of the firepot. Temps went up a few degrees on some tubes.

After installling the second rod to block all but about an inch of the airwash, the flame was a little lower in the firepot and had even more "tornado" effect. After 15 minutes I checked the temps and found they had increased about 20-30 degrees on a couple of tubes, 40-50 degrees on a couple of tubes and little change on 4 tubes.

At this point I felt that I had come onto something and would let it burn for a while and see how it acted over a longer period. 3 hours later I rechecked the temps and they had gone up on the 10 tubes, 82, 82, 73, 69, 68, 70, 82, 92, 91, and 83 degrees respectively. The tube temps ranged from 275-334 degrees before the test to 358-408 after 3 hours.

These tests were made with the insert running on High and no adjustments were made to the feed slide after installing the rods.

The glass did become dirty much faster and a lot more ash was ejected from the firepot.

At this point, I am hesitant to leave the airwash blocked for long periods, like overnight, until I read more and learn more about pellet burning. I do feel as though this experiment was very successful.

My house is 1680 square feet, well insulated, insert is centrally located in the family room in the basement. I run the furnace fan continuously to keep the air circulated and the basement is 75, upstairs is 73, outside is 36. Propane furnace doesn't come on until 66 degrees.
If I had bought an insert new, I would have bought the Quad Classic Bay for the higher output. I got what I thought was a really good deal on the Castile just planning to supplement the furnace, but now am addicted to the pellets and want to tell the propane guy to take a hike.

I know this is a long post but wanted to share what I had found out and would like to hear any other ideas people had tried.

Chris
www.theflagsaver.com

 

[pell it]

For me, so far, the block has been working at getting the ash out of the burnpot and not letting it drop thru the holes into the chamber below. Previous to blocking it I would get about 4-5 bags tops (depending on pellet quality) before the >1/2" area below the burnpot would fill to the point of cutting off airflow and destroying burn quality. Now after 5 bags of the same pellet, I have a thin layer of ash below the burnpot. (20-30% of pre-block amount)

The glass cruds up a bit faster, but not anything I can't live with. I would rather the peace of mind knowing I can go into a "cold" night where the stove will run on a higher feed rate without loading up with ash and losing the burn by morning.

I picked up a tube of stove cement to take care of a few more burnpot bypasses I have noticed. Once I can shutdown long enough to let the cement cure good. Then I can begin to find a happy medium with the airwash block.

As for increased convection temps, I didn't notice anything earth shattering, maybe 10-15 degrees increase. Every degree helps!