New Yukon-Eagle Husky Wood/coal/propane furnace on the way.....

[j7art2]

My buddy just got one of these. WATCH OUT for creosote build up. His house is 120 years old and something like 2000-2400 sqft, and he's got some 3/8" black tar creosote in his pipes from his Yukon Eagle. I keep telling him he needs to see if he can tinker with it and tone it down some. I guess he can't run the furnace hot enough to burn out the creosote, so it sits and smolders the majority of the time, which makes a ton of creosote.

 

[brenndatomu]

Sounds like his heat load is too small for the amount of wood he is loading. Gotta let that thermostat call for heat once in a while. Dry wood and smaller loads will help reduce the creosote assuming his install/setup is 100% correct. Running the oil or gas burner for a while everyday will help dry the creosote out until he gets a handle on it.

 

[Motor7]

I understand what is going on with the creosote. What I don't understand is why Yukon chooses to shut off all air to the burn(except the secondaries) when temps reach the setting on the thermostat. Any fire requires enough air to burn properly above 250 degrees(I prefer more like 300-350). When my set temp is reached and the primary air intake closes all I get is smoulder and under the circumstance I don't see how it can do anything more than smoulder. So, I can either send my furnace back to Yukon, or modify it....of course I am thinking MODIFY

But first I am going to satisfy all Yukons requirements and try things their way.....then at least I know who is right and who is wrong. Manometer arrived yesterday, so soon I will know the exact draw of my flue.

 

[brenndatomu]

I understand what is going on with the creosote.

Sorry, I was responding to j7art2, guess I shoulda quoted him.
Yeah I don't get the primary air being cut off 100% either. I didn't have any issues until I realized that part of the foam seal on the damper door had fallen off so I replaced it. Had some creosote issues to work through then...

 

[simple.serf]

I had one of those Wayne burners on a Hobart CRO rack oven that was in my care at work. You said you had yellow flame. I have seen the flame sensors get sooted up in a day of two if the burner was running dirty. That can cause the unit to lockout on startup. They light and monitor a pilot for flame presence. If the sensor/ignitor is dirty, you either won't get ignition, or it won't sense the flame. To get one to burn right, you need to set gas pressure and the damper on the blower intake. Preferably with a combustion analyzer because flame color alone does not tell you exactly what is happening.

 

[Motor7]

I had one of those Wayne burners on a Hobart CRO rack oven that was in my care at work. You said you had yellow flame. I have seen the flame sensors get sooted up in a day of two if the burner was running dirty. That can cause the unit to lockout on startup. They light and monitor a pilot for flame presence. If the sensor/ignitor is dirty, you either won't get ignition, or it won't sense the flame. To get one to burn right, you need to set gas pressure and the damper on the blower intake. Preferably with a combustion analyzer because flame color alone does not tell you exactly what is happening.

Thanks, I had a suspicion that it could be my fault for not getting the burner set up properly. I have called a couple pf places but so far I have not found one that works on gas furnaces...mostly all electric or coal in my area. I will be on the phone again today.......

 

[j7art2]

Sounds like his heat load is too small for the amount of wood he is loading. Gotta let that thermostat call for heat once in a while. Dry wood and smaller loads will help reduce the creosote assuming his install/setup is 100% correct. Running the oil or gas burner for a while everyday will help dry the creosote out until he gets a handle on it.

He won't run oil. Fuel oil here can be upwards of $4-5+ a gallon. He's using it as a learning curve, but the nice thing is, with that barometric flapper, you can see exactly what's going on in your pipes with no guesswork as to how nasty it is. I almost wish I installed one on mine, but I'd probably flood the basement with smoke since I have a dinosaur.

I just read the topic and figured I'd chime in my two cents from the very little I know of the units. I'm probably going to get a Yukon Superjack when mine goes, as they seem to be a quality company.

 

[Motor7]

You would think with big old drafty 120 year old house he would be running the furnace hard...or has it been remodeled and insulated correctly?

I just finished installing the dang OAK...what a pain. Of course the spot I chose to cut a 6" hole in my log wall contained one of about 2,000 10" Log Hog screws....there was a lot of sawsall-ing and swearing going on.........

 

[brenndatomu]

Of course the spot I chose to cut a 6" hole in my log wall contained one of about 2,000 10" Log Hog screws....there was a lot of sawsall-ing and swearing going on.........

LOL, yeah, and if you wanna drill an anchor hole in concrete...yup, found the rebar!

 

[brenndatomu]

He won't run oil. Fuel oil here can be upwards of $4-5+ a gallon.

Run the oil burner for 15 minutes to dry things out...$1 to 1.25 worth of oil.

 

[j7art2]

Just texted him the info. He said he's gotta cool it down and clean it Thursday anyway since the buildup is so bad, so he said he'd give it a whirl. Thanks!

 

[Motor7]

Well it looks like Yukon-Eagle was right and I was...wr..wrrr..wrrrrong. Since I added the outside air kit I am not getting the smoulder. But in my defense I have started all fires with a stick of cedar to get things off to a hotter start.

I also have a gas furnace guy inbound next week to properly set up my burner....things are looking ^up

 

[j7art2]

My buddy also added a fresh air intake this weekend and 100% of his problems are gone. He went from having an 80% clog, to having fine soot in his pipes now after cleaning. Flue temps went on average from 100-150 to 300-400. He also talked to Yukon Eagle, and sure enough they told him the exact same thing.

I decided to try it myself, and also saw an improvement in performance in my old dinosaur. Unfortunately, my fresh air intake is 20' away, but even that little bit seems to help.

for $40, it's the best 'mod' i've found thus far for a basement installed wood furnace.

 

[brenndatomu]

I have tried...
1. No OAK
2. A 4" OAK pulling air from the garage
3. A 6" OAK pulling air from outside (currently using)
For me, I have seen no differences between any of them, at all, and that's with a Yukon BJ previously and the Yukon Husky currently. Our house is not what I would call drafty, but obviously it must not be exactly air tight either!

 

[Motor7]

Bren I would add 3' or 4' of flue pipe and see what happens then.

One drawback of the OAK, no way to get an overnight burn....about 5 hours is max. I added a register to my Plenum so I can dump some heat into the basement and not overdrive the house so much. I have cut way back in my firewood use compared to the Hearthstone. If I ran the Husky wide open I would use 16 sticks a day which is what I was going thru with the old Beast everyday. The Husky has made wusses out of us.....68 used to be just right, now it's 72 :/

 

[brenndatomu]

Chimney is at 28' now, I'm gonna need red lites on top of it if I go much higher! No, seriously, it drafts like a hoover, if I open the door when the fire is going good, I hafta be careful when closing, it'll suck the handle outta your hand! Baro lays wide open to hold draft down to -.03" when it's cold.
I have 'er running pretty good now, only use about six to nine 4-5" splits per day when it's warmish (30s) and maybe 12 of those when it gets cold. If it gets REAL cold I run the Yukon the same way and just ad a small load in the lil stove upstairs, that'll take us up to 75* in the house on the coldest of days!
I hear ya on the 68 is now 72 thing!

One drawback of the OAK, no way to get an overnight burn....about 5 hours is max. I added a register to my Plenum so I can dump some heat into the basement and not overdrive the house so much.

So what is happening to the house temp during this time? Is it holding temp OK or dropping more than you'd like?
Also, how far open is your secondary air?

EDIT: I read on here about somebody using thermal storage and I knew they had a forced air wood furnace, I'm thinking "say what?!" Thermal storage is normally where the boiler guys fire their boiler once a day, run it wide open clear through the burn, dump that heat into a large insulated water storage tank and then the house pulls from the tank as heat is called for. So I was a lil confused how to do that with forced air, but what he was talking about was using the house itself as storage. Probably doesn't work too well if your place is real drafty, but it makes sense, once the walls and floors, furniture and whatnot are up to temp, not to mention the "storage" in having a 1000# furnace good and hot to pull heat from, you kinda can do thermal storage with forced air. As long as you don't mind a few degree swing in the household temps anyways.
Another thing that helps is to let the ash bed build up a bit on the grates, a couple inches. Just scratch a spot open for air to come up through, let the rest go, coals will lay ona bed of ashes MUCH longer than bare grates. I still have enough coals to do a matchless reload after 10 hours almost daily (at work) and 8 hours is NO problem at all, heck, I can get six hours on a load of pine (no coals though) For example, I loaded 3 Red Oak splits and 1 soft Maple this morning at 6:15, it is now 4:30 pm and the house is 70* with it being 25-30* outside today. There is still 100* heat coming out of the registers by gravity, (it would drop quickly if the blower was forced on) Gonna go down for another "feeding" right now. See ya!

 

[STIHLY DAN]

Chimney is at 28' now, I'm gonna need red lites on top of it if I go much higher! No, seriously, it drafts like a hoover, if I open the door when the fire is going good, I hafta be careful when closing, it'll suck the handle outta your hand! Baro lays wide open to hold draft down to -.03" when it's cold.
I have 'er running pretty good now, only use about six to nine 4-5" splits per day when it's warmish (30s) and maybe 12 of those when it gets cold. If it gets REAL cold I run the Yukon the same way and just ad a small load in the lil stove upstairs, that'll take us up to 75* in the house on the coldest of days!
I hear ya on the 68 is now 72 thing!


So what is happening to the house temp during this time? Is it holding temp OK or dropping more than you'd like?
Also, how far open is your secondary air?
I read on here about somebody using thermal storage and I knew they had a forced air wood furnace, I'm thinking "say what?!" Thermal storage is normally where the boiler guys fire their boiler once a day, run it wide open clear through the burn, dump that heat into a large insulated water storage tank and then the house pulls from the tank as heat is called for. So I was a lil confused how to do that with forced air, but what he was talking about was using the house itself as storage. Probably doesn't work too well if your place is real drafty, but it makes sense, once the walls and floors, furniture and whatnot are up to temp, not to mention the "storage" in having a 1000# furnace good and hot to pull heat from, you kinda can do thermal storage with forced air. As long as you don't mind a few degree swing in the household temps anyways.
Another thing that helps is to let the ash bed build up a bit on the grates, a couple inches. Just scratch a spot open for air to come up through, let the rest go, coals will lay ona bed of ashes MUCH longer than bare grates. I still have enough coals to do a matchless reload after 10 hours almost daily (at work) 8 hours is NO problem at all, heck, I can get six hours on a load of pine (no coals though) For example, I loaded 3 Red Oak splits and 1 soft Maple this morning at 6:15, it is now 4:30 pm and the house is 70* with it being 25-30* outside today. There is still 100* heat coming out of the registers by gravity, (it would drop quickly if the blower was forced on) Gonna go down for another "feeding" right now. See ya!

What size are those splits, and how long? That seems really good.

 

[Motor7]

House temps hang in the mid 70's, then fall off towards morning to the mid to high 60's. If I put on too much wood we sweat in bed...not the good kinda sweat
Today we started out with 20 degrees outside, & 68 inside at dawn. I built a small fire of 4 splits(3-4" in diameter) of oak/hickory. Temps during the day hit high 40's(I even took the Motor out for a ride) & right now, 12 hours later the house is still at 68, so I call it a win I will build another 4 split fire before we go to bed.....

 

[Motor7]

My buddy also added a fresh air intake this weekend and 100% of his problems are gone. He went from having an 80% clog, to having fine soot in his pipes now after cleaning. Flue temps went on average from 100-150 to 300-400. He also talked to Yukon Eagle, and sure enough they told him the exact same thing.

I decided to try it myself, and also saw an improvement in performance in my old dinosaur. Unfortunately, my fresh air intake is 20' away, but even that little bit seems to help.

for $40, it's the best 'mod' i've found thus far for a basement installed wood furnace.

 

[brenndatomu]

What size are those splits, and how long? That seems really good.

I try to cut at 22" long and they are average 4" x 4", some 3" x 5", you know...average firewood. Yeah I'm pretty happy with that. I have been able to make huge improvements from where I started as far as how clean she burns, but I'm still not completely satisfied with things yet. I just pulled the cap off the tee tonight to check the pipe and heat exchanger, sooty but not worth cleaning, I haven't cleaned yet this year. But I'm still jealous of the tan powder you Kuuma guys end up with in your flues!

 

[STIHLY DAN]

I try to cut at 22" long and they are average 4" x 4", some 3" x 5", you know...average firewood. Yeah I'm pretty happy with that. I have been able to make huge improvements from where I started as far as how clean she burns, but I'm still not completely satisfied with things yet. I just pulled the cap off the tee tonight to check the pipe and heat exchanger, sooty but not worth cleaning, I haven't cleaned yet this year. But I'm still jealous of the tan powder you Kuuma guys end up with in your flues!

Your confusing me Mr. I reread what I quoted you on and in the 1st paragraph you say 6-9 4,5" splits when it's 30* out. But the last paragraph you said 3 oak 1 maple 4-5 " at 25-30*. Which is it Mr. That's right, nailing you to the wall journalistic style.

 

[brenndatomu]

Ha! OK Mr journalist, that was six to nine 4" to 5" (X 22" long) sized splits for the whole day when the temps are running in the 30s. The last part there was the load this morning, with the temp range for the day.
I recently thought of weighing and recording what I load each time, just for curiosity sake. I'd be good info for you detail oriented journalistic types too!
Wouldn't be hard, hang some fish scales and a 15 gallon bucket...

 

[brenndatomu]

I even took the Motor out for a ride

Whatcha ridin?

 

[Motor7]

A '07 DL650 that I bought with 46K on it last summer. I put 10K(and 8 States) on it already and am loving the thing. Winter project is to get my new Rostra eeee-lec-tronic cruise control all hooked up....headed to Seattle this spring:

Loaded for a trip:

Southern Rim:

 

[brenndatomu]

Ah yes, the ole Vstrom. That's a nice lil bike. I was a mechanic at the local bike shop for about 10 years...
Nice pics!