Hissing noise from Effecta Lambda 60

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JBSheppard

New Member
Aug 25, 2014
1
Challis, Idaho
We have two Effact Lambda 60s providing heat for our greenhouse, we have been running them for about four months. Recently there has been a periodic hissing noise coming from the front of the unit, prior to this the only sound coming from that area was the clicking of the valves as they opened and closed. Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing it?
 
Are there any skins you can take off to get a better look?

Two things that come to mind are an air vent letting spits of air out, or an intermittent leak which I kind of doubt if you have seen no drips.

Pretty hard to diagnose a sound over the internet though.
 
First thing I would do is shut off my autofill and monitor to see if pressure drops. A drop in pressure would indicate a leak and therefore hissing water from hitting a hot surface.
 
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Maybe it is both?

Hard to tell from the OP. We don't really know much about the situation. If the Effectas have only been in operation for 4 months - maybe something else was used prior that burned wood, & some wood handling/burning practices that gassification units would be more fussy about were carried forward.
 
He said, "We have two Effact Lambda 60s"......
 
Also said 'from the front of THE unit..'

Scant info in the first post.

It's been a few days, wonder if we will see the OP again? A drive-by posting? :confused:
 
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I have heard hissing from an effecta before, and it was wet wood trying to come up to temperature. it doesn't have to be a load of wet wood, it can just be one or two pieces that were under a hole in the wood pile cover or something.
 
Even if this is a very old thread i thought i might comment on it since it might occur again and the reason for the sound is pretty simple. Boilers sold to the US 2013 and before didn't have a frequency converter for the combustion fan. (There is a few exceptions with customers who use our pellet burner in combination with the log boiler, they would run the full system on 50Hz.) For users not running the pellet burner the fan would use 60Hz instead of 50Hz giving a higher power to the fan motor. Since the fan motor isn`t linear in it`s output it will not make a 20% difference but there will be a slight difference.

The result of the higher fan speed gives is a slightly higher output of the combustion. From what we measured in efficiency it doesnt make a difference but the batch will burn out slightly quicker than we normally would see on a install in Europe. The burn will then consume more air over a shorter period of time as well as fuel. If the flue/chimney has a good pull at the same time the hissing sound might appear. The boiler is getting a bit to much air and as the Lambda controlled dampers regulates for the fact decreasing the primary air it might be a hissing sound as the air passes. If the pull of the flue very good it might result in the dampers having a hard time regulating down enough to prevent creating to much gasses. It will then make a hissing sound which varies, almost like a locomotive.

The solution for a too high pull of the flue is to use a draught stabilizer somewhere after the boiler and before the chimney, this will reduce the amount of air going over the boiler during the times that the chimney has a very good pull.

Our recommendation is to have about 10-15pa over the boiler.
 
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