Eshland Wood Gun 140. Please Help! New operator with zero gassifer experience

[Green Mt Heat]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the helpful posts!
avc8130 thanks for the picture and all the help .Ac Could you please post another picture so that I can see how it is wired I have an old double aqua-stat from my old boiler, im just not sure how to wire it? My WG only has white black and red wires. I still have no idea how to wire in the "ready light"/ I will try to figure out how to post some pictures.
Update! Im on the right track thanks to all of you! 2 full nights of sleep with no smoke detector waking me up! I adjusted the hi limit to 190 and set 25 degree differential. I have also been careful to keep the fire grate/ air way to main combustion tube clear. Today I was home most of the day and I tested loading the firebox just over the bottom of the door wit a few un-split pc of hemlock 8-10" diameter. The WG did not puff once that I saw all day! I also took a shim out of the rear door as it seemed like it might have had a small leak? Today I don't think it got over 15 degrees all day so it cycled quite often. I have no idea why things have turned around so well? tomorrow it is supposed to warm up to 20 and I will see if the WG continues to run well.

I have an odd question no that things are starting to improve. Do all of the WG's have the same sized fan motor? Is a 1/3 hp the right motor for a E140? isn't that over kill for the size of the fan? because that is what is on my WG?

Thanks again everyone, what a great resource this is!

 

[Green Mt Heat]

 

[Green Mt Heat]

 

[Fred61]

Yes, I believe that's the original blower motor. The WG moves a lot of air. With that in mind and viewing your photos, please be certain that you have good clearance from that horizontal flue pipe to any combustables. The high air flow periodically blows burning coals up the flue and they will get trapped in any horizontal run. It can get hot enough to turn that pipe red. One WG owner on this site changed his pipe to about a 45 degree angle in order for any coals or ash that would get trapped in the pipe could slide back into the cyclone.

 

[avc8130]

Green,

Is your flue connector sealed up? I don't see any red silicone or tape on any of the joints.

Your splits are all pretty small. That might be "fun" for awhile.

I'd love to help you with your wiring, but you need to tell me what you have. I've never seen an "old" Gun in person, and I can see from looking you have a lot less stuff going on.

How many aquastats does your WG have right now?

Your damper motor is different from the new ones, does it have an end switch? If not, running a "ready" light is going to be tougher.

ac

 

[Green Mt Heat]

Hello AC & Fred

Just finished digging out from 10-12" snow storm...

Yes all of the pipe seems are now sealed up with hi temp rtv. One of the pictures was during installation. I have mixed size splits most of them are no bigger than 8". All of my would this year and a little for next season was processed for my old boiler so I will just have to make do?

When I got the WG the single aqua-stat was bad so I took an old double Honeywell off of my old Van Wert, It has setting for a hi lo and a dif setting to 25 degrees. Could you please post a larger picture of the whole aqua-stat that's on your WG.

To tell you the truth I have no Idea how the Honeywell damper actuator works. When the WG calls for heat the blower comes on and the damper starts to open (it takes 15 or so sec's) It seems that power is live to it and it just seems to open all the way and just hum there?

Fred thanks for the tips. I have a heat shield over part of the pipe and I will be extending that as well. Hve any of you WG owners ever had a chimney fire? is it common? I ran the WG for a week and cleaned about 2 cups of flaky dry creosote from the horizontal pipe. The chimney it self is clean completely. What are the normal things to expect with build up in pipes and chimney?

thanks

 

[Fred61]

You shouldn't have had any creosote in the flue pipe. What you will get is a build-up of fly ash similar to what you're getting in your cyclone drawer so keep an eye out for that. It builds up quickly.

 

[avc8130]

Hello AC & Fred

Just finished digging out from 10-12" snow storm...

Yes all of the pipe seems are now sealed up with hi temp rtv. One of the pictures was during installation. I have mixed size splits most of them are no bigger than 8". All of my would this year and a little for next season was processed for my old boiler so I will just have to make do?

When I got the WG the single aqua-stat was bad so I took an old double Honeywell off of my old Van Wert, It has setting for a hi lo and a dif setting to 25 degrees. Could you please post a larger picture of the whole aqua-stat that's on your WG.

To tell you the truth I have no Idea how the Honeywell damper actuator works. When the WG calls for heat the blower comes on and the damper starts to open (it takes 15 or so sec's) It seems that power is live to it and it just seems to open all the way and just hum there?

Fred thanks for the tips. I have a heat shield over part of the pipe and I will be extending that as well. Hve any of you WG owners ever had a chimney fire? is it common? I ran the WG for a week and cleaned about 2 cups of flaky dry creosote from the horizontal pipe. The chimney it self is clean completely. What are the normal things to expect with build up in pipes and chimney?

thanks

That picture I posted shows the part number right in the middle of the aquastat. That stat does the emergency "high" limit shut off as well as the "cold" limit shut off. Another aquastat is the "run" aquastat that controls the boilers firing within those extremes.

Can you post a better picture of your actuator? The newer one is a Honeywell unit with an end switch. What happens is power is supplied to the motor and it begins to open the door. When the door is full open it pushes on the "end switch" and that sends power over to the "ready" light. This is similar to how zone valves work in that when their end switch makes it powers the circulator pump.

As Fred said, you will get a build up of fly ash but there should be NO creosote.

ac

 

[Fred61]

I don't remember the manufacturer's name of the draft actuator but I do recall what it looks like and that appears to be the original. It was simply a spring return gearmotor that came up to a stop and stalled until power was removed. On those early models the ready light illuminated as soon as power was applied to the combustion fan and damper either by the spring wound timer or the normal operation when the aquastat was calling for heat.

I wish I had kept that motor when I sent the unit down the road. I've had numerous uses for that type of motor since it's been gone. I'm a tinkerer.

 

[muncybob]

I did have a small fire in my horizontal run and looking back on it I believe it was caused by me trying to extend the nozzle an extra season....lesson learned for sure! I think the highest risk for a pipe fire is doing what I did and also not checking the cyclone on a regular basis to be sure it's not plugged. I make a habit during my weekly cleaning to check it by sticking my thumb up into the bottom of the "cone". It has been plugged up only once in my 4+ years and that was probably a lot to do with wet wood.

 

[muncybob]

How old is that WG? Is it carbon steel or stainless?

 

[avc8130]

How old is that WG? Is it carbon steel or stainless?

"Very" and "carbon" I'm sure.

ac

 

[WireNut]

I just finished installing my Wood Gun and redoing ALL of my heating pipes last month, so I am by no means an expert. I recently went through the huffing/puffing (blow your house down) problems, and still get it a little bit but it's not crazy bad. I've also got a Carbon Steel E140 (I got the last one...all SS now). Some of the biggest problems I've had:

1) Sealing the pipe to the chimney. Dear god did I use a ton of silicone to seal the chimney. That and some 1" rope. The pressure from the fan in the gun will push smoke out of any hole it can, or so it seems. I found the best way to do it was to get a small smoky fire (cardboard) in the gun. Turn on the fan, and see where the thick smoke is coming out of. Turn it off. Silicone those areas till you think you're using too much, and then put some more on. Let it dry. Don't try to test it again until it dries, or you'll just push the smoke through the wet silicone. Repeat until you have all of the leaks. I had to put silicone on the outside of the joints, putting it in the joints wasn't enough.

2) Puffing out of the air intake. I had this problem at first, and it was really bad. The guys here helped me out quite a bit on it, and it seems that my problem was that I was burning maple I cut last year, and it was ~15% moisture content....far too dry. So the fuel was all vaporizing quickly and the boiler was heating up to a high temperature. This caused more gas....and finally the mixture was too much gas to oxygen, and the firebox was too hot (like fred said). I was using small splits (the branches) and found if I put more then a 1/4 to 1/3 firebox I would run into the problem about 20 to 30 minutes into the burn (I batch burn). The solution I've been using....since I can't make the wood bigger...is to increase the overall moisture content in the firebox. So now I only put about 1/3 of the firebox with that low moisture maple, and I stick a 30% moisture oak log (or some splits) in. This has really decreased the amount of puffing I get out of the air intake. On the down side, the ash in my pan is wetter (consistency of mortor/wet sand) and I'm starting to get some creosote where I didn't with the dryer wood. Next year I will pipe the air intake outside.

3) Get a smoke hood. I ordered one with my boiler, but they forgot to put it in the shipment. Rather then have them ship it, I got a refund for the hood. My mistake. I was planning to put the WG in the garage, but through a range of factors, it ended up in the basement. If I open the loading door when there's more then 1/3 of a box of wood, it will spit smoke out the door. Now I love the smell of the smoke, but not everyone does....my dogs for example. And it's eventually going to deposit soot and whatnot on the ceiling. So, get the smoke hood if you don't want to smoke yourself out as you experiment.

4) Boiler protection valve. This thing is the most annoying thing I've ever used. I will most likely remove it next year. My spring check valve on the supply side of my WG -> heating manifold constantly chatters. If the WG is pushing 180 degree water to the radiators, and the water in the radiators coming back is at 60 degrees, the thermostat in the boiler protection valve (140 degree thermostat) constantly swings back and forth to keep the return to the WG at 140. This works, I can see the return temperature at 140. The problem is that the spring check valve doesn't like the constant change in pressure. So I've got 4 zone pumps fighting with the WG pump for the water. It would be much easier just to push the 60 degree water back to the wood gun instead of worrying about the boiler protection valve. I was all about worrying about the thermal shock to the boiler, but I've gotton over that when I've seen the boiler cool to a 130 temperature on the bottom and a 200 degree temperature on the top (I have some dallas DS18b20 temperature sensors in aquastat wells in the boiler).

5) Don't clean the "big" tubes with the boiler running. The fan doesn't like the ash rake. Speaking of that, I didn't notice it in the pictures, did you get the tool from the guy you bought the boiler from? I clean my tubes once a week, sometimes twice since I'm still learning the operation and what wood does what to the boiler....and the rake does a great job. So far only 1 3 gallon pail of ash in about a month of running the gun.

6) If you install a boiler drain instead of a plug on the front of the WG, make sure that it will clear the bottom door. I initially had mine set up normally, but the door wouldn't open, so I had to give it a 90 degree turn and the door barely clears it. I used this to fill the system, which was much faster then a 1/2" fill line.

 

[maple1]

On 4) above: is that a Danfoss valve that's causing the chattering? I think I would want to keep a boiler protection valve in to limit boiler condensation, especially if you're seeing temps as low as 60 coming back. It's more about condensation than thermal shock. I thought the thermostat in those opened & closed gradually rather than a lot of quick cycles - maybe try a different one?

 

[WireNut]

On 4) above: is that a Danfoss valve that's causing the chattering? I think I would want to keep a boiler protection valve in to limit boiler condensation, especially if you're seeing temps as low as 60 coming back. It's more about condensation than thermal shock. I thought the thermostat in those opened & closed gradually rather than a lot of quick cycles - maybe try a different one?

It's a Termovar. I'll have to look into the condensation, I haven't had an issue with it up till now....however I do have that valve in pace, so you could very well be right!

 

[Fred61]

Maple is right!

 

[avc8130]

I put a drain on the front of mine. I had no interference, but I used a 1/4 turn ball valve. I originally had it so the handle was perpendicular to the floor but that made it annoying to sweep under as the broom wouldn't fit so I turned it parallel to the ground.

I spoke to the guys at AHS about the Termovar and Danfoss. None of them had anything good to say about them.

If I was batch burning to storage I would use a real "loading unit".

ac

 

[WireNut]

I put a drain on the front of mine. I had no interference, but I used a 1/4 turn ball valve. I originally had it so the handle was perpendicular to the floor but that made it annoying to sweep under as the broom wouldn't fit so I turned it parallel to the ground.

I spoke to the guys at AHS about the Termovar and Danfoss. None of them had anything good to say about them.

If I was batch burning to storage I would use a real "loading unit".

ac

Not sure I know what you mean by a real loading unit? I have the loading unit made by Termovar....which consists of the valve and a pump....and that's what's causing my chattering check valve (but only if the return is below 140)

 

[avc8130]

Not sure I know what you mean by a real loading unit? I have the loading unit made by Termovar....which consists of the valve and a pump....and that's what's causing my chattering check valve (but only if the return is below 140)

Oh, that is what I meant. Haha. One of my coworkers has that unit (CoalReaper). Maybe he will chime in.

ac

 

[maple1]

I've got an LK810 loading unit. Also have a couple of check valves in my system (ordinary swing checks). I never hear them chatter, and the temps on the loading unit move gradually - never see any ups & downs. When starting from cold & the unit starts after my boiler gets hot, the cold return inlet on my boiler goes right up to 140 & stays right there until my storage gets above that on the bottom. Then it will rise further, slowly. I never hear the loading unit make any noise either. Wonder if it has to do with you having no storage therefore your return temps fluctuate a lot? Seems to me I read somewhere about taking the internal check valve that's inside the loading unit itself out under certain circumstances - wonder if this is when that was done?

 

[Coal Reaper]

its silent. so is the pump, have to touch it to feel if its on. LK810. is yours possibly seeing extra flow from another pump in your system that may be "competing" with the thermostat check?

 

[Coal Reaper]

its silent. so is the pump, have to touch it to feel if its on. LK810. is yours possibly seeing extra flow from another pump in your system that may be "competing" with the thermostat check?

I also run mime at speed two and use it ONLY to move water to and fro storage. Rather than hijack this thread further perhaps start a new one and post a sketch of your sysem. Maybe you are asking it to move too much water or head is too high? I dont think you could expect it to perform as well as a stand alone circ without the loading unit portion. I just never gave mine another thought after hooking it up other then selecting what speed to run. It operates smoothly just as maple described.

 

[Green Mt Heat]

draft actuator honeywelk

 

[Green Mt Heat]

label inside cover

 

[Green Mt Heat]

with cover off