Loving that storage

[maple1]

As long as you've got good dry firestarter material and can get your fire going fairly hot fairly quickly, creosote buildup/formation on cold starts should be minimal. I haven't looked up my chimney yet since I started burning in early October, but did look in my barometric damper a few minutes ago when lighting my daily fire. There was a little bit just inside the damper - very negligible compared to how it used to accumulate there with my old unit.

 

[flyingcow]

No creosote problems in the last 4 yrs. i think with most gasser's you're only looking at 45 minutes from when you throw the match to when the boiler's shipping 165+ water, 60 minutes and you're looking at 190's.. Doesn't seem to matter how cold the boiler is.

Matter of fact, the Innova requires storage, I think you'll increase the creosote with idling. FWIW, have never seen any creosote in chimney.

 

[Fred61]

I rake the charcoal left from last fire over the nozzle, lay some of the smaller splits from the wood cart on the charcoal, hold propane torch up thru nozzle until charcoal is glowing (1 minute), remove torch, start combustion fan, close bypass and she's gassing in 15 seconds. No dirty fire or smoke means no creosote. Ahona has a youtube video on lighting a Vigas which exactly mimics my actions.

 

[logger6644]

No creosote here! Boiler is at 90 to 100 F every afternoon when I light my daily fire. Been doing it this way for 5 years. Where would you expect the creosote to deposit? When I shut down my boiler after the daily burn, there is only charcoal in the burn chamber and I purposly add a little more wood than I need so when I shut it down there is some charcoal left to start tomorrow's fire. Those glowing coals don't produce creosote and eventually extinguish because the master switch is shut off on the controller and the cycle timer doesn't cycle.

The firetubes only have white powder that would blow off and the black coating on the walls of the primary fire chamber is mostly dry and crumbly.

My understanding is creosote would form when you are bringing the boiler back up to temperature. It would condense on the cool walls of the main chamber until the walls got above 140 F. I had an early version of an Empyre Elite and it had problems maintaining these warmer temperatures because of some design issues and the resultant creosote would flow down behind the fire bricks and ultimately caused a leak after a little more than one season. As long as this creosote that is formed cannot get to places it should not, it would be burned off once the chamber warmed. I have gone to a lot of effort to seal the bricks on my warranty boiler to try to prevent this migration but I'm still a little paranoid. It sounds like your upper chamber may be sealed well enough that the creosote formed on start up cannot go anywhere and is ultimately burned off.

 

[logger6644]

I think part of my problem is design more then anything. My downstairs is one giant loop. There's alike 42 feet of 3/4" baseboard and I'm pretty sure what's happen is by the time the water is getting to end it's not carrying enough heat to do the job. I've wanted to break it up into two zones for a while, just need to take the time to do it. Just so many variables comparing houses.

The upstairs seems to stay fine. All that being said when I really noticed it was on those super cold mornings we had back in January, other wise I don't notice the house getting cold when the tank gets down to 140. 140 is also the set point for the loading valve, so I think keeping the tank up a bit higher makes for faster loading (I have no proof, just made sense in my head).

K

Baseboard fin tube depends on setting up conduction air currents to transfer the heat to your space. This process is not efficient below 160 F. Not hot enough to get the air moving well enough. You should try to keep the water hotter going to the baseboard,say 170 or 180 so you still have something around 150-160 at the return. That's probably how you start out when the storage is hot then coast out once you get below 160 with diminished efficiency.

 

[Fred61]

My understanding is creosote would form when you are bringing the boiler back up to temperature. It would condense on the cool walls of the main chamber until the walls got above 140 F. I had an early version of an Empyre Elite and it had problems maintaining these warmer temperatures because of some design issues and the resultant creosote would flow down behind the fire bricks and ultimately caused a leak after a little more than one season. As long as this creosote that is formed cannot get to places it should not, it would be burned off once the chamber warmed. I have gone to a lot of effort to seal the bricks on my warranty boiler to try to prevent this migration but I'm still a little paranoid. It sounds like your upper chamber may be sealed well enough that the creosote formed on start up cannot go anywhere and is ultimately burned off.

No, Not correct. I'm not creating any "running" creosote on the walls of the upper chamber upon start-up. Just have the same thin coating that is normal for this dual chamber gassification process. I must say that I don't know if this would occur if I were using wood with a higher moisture content.

 

[maple1]

Baseboard fin tube will no doubt put out more heat with hotter temps, but I kept my house warm with it all winter with routinely running storage down to 130-140 or so, every day.

 

[Nofossil]

Picture = 1k words. Here's my system from noon Friday - two 6-7 hour fires, which means 'Start fire, partial load after 20 minutes, full load after 2 hours'. Storage means I can build when convenient for me. House temp is constant, DHW endless. Life=good.

 

[WmFritz]

That graph is way cool.

 

[maple1]

I'm running almost identical to that right now re. storage temps charged & depleted. Except I'm still burning once a day.

 

[woodsmaster]

One issue that occurs to me that I don't see mentioned in these storage conversations is "How much creosote formation is caused by constantly letting the boiler cool off and then reheating the water?" Unless the water temperature does not drop below 140 F, it seems creosote would be generated whenever these restarts occur with a detrimental effect on the boiler over time? I'm presently avoiding this issue by keeping my water temperatures over 140F. Thoughts?

No problem with creosote. With return protection it don't take long to get above 140 F.

 

[woodsmaster]

You must be using some sort of radiant then?

I find my baseboard will work down to 130 or so but it's marginal at best, I have my back up kick on when the tank hits 140, during the dead of winter it seems to be the happy medium.

As things warm up and my load becomes basically DHW I'm going to lower my backup kick in to 125 and see how that works.

K

Panel rads. I love them. I couldn't do under floor in my house. It's the most comfortable, and quietest heat I've ever had. If the wind was blowing I wouldn't have been able to run the water temp so low. My house isn't the tightest, but not bad for 120 years old.

 

[logger6644]

No, Not correct. I'm not creating any "running" creosote on the walls of the upper chamber upon start-up. Just have the same thin coating that is normal for this dual chamber gassification process. I must say that I don't know if this would occur if I were using wood with a higher moisture content.

Thanks, I know a lot of my problem with my original Empyre was because of a design flaw, which they corrected in later models, that effected the air distribution to the secondary chamber. It's the reason they honored my warranty claim. I am still fairly new to the gassification boilers so I'm still on the learning curve. I have 300 gallons of non-pressurized storage and the new boiler is working well so far. After this season I will check for how much creosote I have inside. On my first unit I was chipping out one inch thick chunks and it had seeped everywhere it could.

 

[logger6644]

Picture = 1k words. Here's my system from noon Friday - two 6-7 hour fires, which means 'Start fire, partial load after 20 minutes, full load after 2 hours'. Storage means I can build when convenient for me. House temp is constant, DHW endless. Life=good.

Fantastic chart. It appears to me that you are firing every other day. or 48 hours more or less between burns. With 880 gallons of storage and approximately 60 degree drop that's less than 10,000 BTUH draw. You must have a super efficient house.

 

[Nofossil]

Fantastic chart. It appears to me that you are firing every other day. or 48 hours more or less between burns. With 880 gallons of storage and approximately 60 degree drop that's less than 10,000 BTUH draw. You must have a super efficient house.

The house is good but nowhere near 'super efficient'. Keep in mind that it's been warmer and at least partly sunny.

 

[kopeck]

Baseboard fin tube depends on setting up conduction air currents to transfer the heat to your space. This process is not efficient below 160 F. Not hot enough to get the air moving well enough. You should try to keep the water hotter going to the baseboard,say 170 or 180 so you still have something around 150-160 at the return. That's probably how you start out when the storage is hot then coast out once you get below 160 with diminished efficiency.

Sorry, missed this the first time around.

While you are right that BB likes hot water they do work fine under 150 degrees. Like I said before, at least with my setup I find them to work find down to 140 during the dead of winter. This time of the year they can go ever further with cooler water.

K

 

[mikefrommaine]

Sorry, missed this the first time around.

While you are right that BB likes hot water they do work fine under 150 degrees. Like I said before, at least with my setup I find them to work find down to 140 during the dead of winter. This time of the year they can go ever further with cooler water. Never got around to trying it though.

K

I had a crazy idea of using pc case fans on top of the fins in baseboards to boost the air flow and convection. Basically a hack version of Jaga's DBE. You could use a snap switch to turn them on and off at whatever temp you want.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119049

(broken link removed to http://www.jaga-usa.com/en/jaga-products)

(broken link removed to http://www.jaga-usa.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/banner/banner/1_0.jpg)

 

[bigburner]

A little off topic, but lends itself to the part of the conversation of water temp and load. My current project is a 8000 sq ft house [includes garage heated also] natural gas boilers. It has warmed up here,some just below freezing at night and middle thirties during the day. I have this system running with all the radiant on. [embedded and under floor] no t-sats it is just running off the water temperature which is set at 106F and the boilers are running at 30% to 50% to hold that water temp which is 90k to 150k The inside temps are floating around a little with all the construction traffic. but it's 70 ish. I could turn up the temp and if we had t-sats then it would shorten the cycle time. Base board will work at a pretty low temp, it just takes a lot of it. When I was a kid my dad would put a chunk of baseboard on every foot of outside wall that wasn't spoken for and the long walls in the bathrooms. With really poor insulation and really hot water and .23 cent oil back then you could heat your house nice and cozy.

 

[maple1]

Sorry, missed this the first time around.

While you are right that BB likes hot water they do work fine under 150 degrees. Like I said before, at least with my setup I find them to work find down to 140 during the dead of winter. This time of the year they can go ever further with cooler water.

K

Agreed.

 

[woodsmaster]

Got home yesterday after working 14 hours and didn't fell like messing with a fire. Got up to 101 F storage and 71 F house this morning, 25 F outside Boiler made it all the way down to 89 F. Still loving that storage and low temp emitters... It's supposed to be 58 and sunny today with no wind so I could probably push it further but I wanted to get it out of the way because I'm leaving for the day and don't want to mess with it when I get home.

 

[Fred61]

Got home yesterday after working 14 hours and didn't fell like messing with a fire. Got up to 101 F storage and 71 F house this morning, 25 F outside Boiler made it all the way down to 89 F. Still loving that storage and low temp emitters... It's supposed to be 58 and sunny today with no wind so I could probably push it further but I wanted to get it out of the way because I'm leaving for the day and don't want to mess with it when I get home.

My oil would have kicked on by then. Although I am able to keep the house warm down to that temperature, I can't pick up enough heat for a comfortable shower so I set the lower tank temperature limit to 110F.

 

[woodsmaster]

My oil would have kicked on by then. Although I am able to keep the house warm down to that temperature, I can't pick up enough heat for a comfortable shower so I set the lower tank temperature limit to 110F.

I had just enough hot water for a nice shower this morning, By the end of the shower I had the hot all the way on with no cold.