gasifier wood consumption

[rsnider]

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

 

[barnartist]

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?

 

[Eric Johnson]

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.

 

[Bartman]

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.

 

[Eric Johnson]

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.

 

[dzook]

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

 

[Eric Johnson]

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.

 

[dzook]

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.

 

[barnartist]

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.

 

[barnartist]

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.

 

[sled_mack]

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....

 

[barnartist]

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)?