Older style EKO -- Finally starting to figure them out

[barnartist]

I'll have to check my stack temp, but I boxed my boiler in with 2" blueboard and I only have the door area or the front exposed. I dont have a stack temp available to see now.

I can only read the middle of my tanks temperature. Now that I am all radiant heat I have an extreme stratification line, I can see it pass through the temp gauge area withing 5-10 minutes. It will go from 160+ to 140- in that amount of time.

This change has made my boiler run harder for every burn as the eko gets the coldest return water at all times, so this has caused me to adjust my timer as well from a 6-7 hour burn to a 4 hour burn. I do see better looking ashes in the bottom chamber, but if I set my timer too long I have nothing left.

I am having a hard time with my numbers this year. Soon I will have burned 7- 7.5 cords since early november. This is just not where I want to be in terms of wood usage.
I have changed to all radiant and it has helped some. I enclosed my boiler from the cold as stated above, I really did not see a change there. I burned wood that was 5% to 12% moisture as I finally bought a meter. I just feel like I am not getting the heat out of this I should be. It has been very cold this year.

How much wood have you used?

 

[barnartist]

Help me double check my numbers here...

If I have roughly 1100 gallons of water, it weighs around 9200 lbs. twice a day I need to recharge the tanks from 140 to 180. (they usually only get to 160 in the middle)

So to raise 9200 lbs of water 40 degrees I would need 365,000 btu's. Is this right?

What is the eko 60 designed to put out an hour - 60k? That would mean my 4 hour burn at 100% efficiency would put out 240K leaving me well short to reacharge my tanks.

The question is should I be going through this much load for a 2000 sf house?

 

[sdrobertson]

Barn,

The other problem is too much turbulence from the fan speed.


Then I dial the fan speed back to 50-60


Remember the more moisture the wood has the more air you need.

Rob

Part of my problem is that I'm running the old controller and I can not slow down my fan speed at all. I can only change the fan opening so I do think part of the issue is with turbulence. Its a vicious circle, more moisture, more fan opening at full speed, more turbulence.

 

[sdrobertson]

I'll have to check my stack temp, but I boxed my boiler in with 2" blueboard and I only have the door area or the front exposed. I dont have a stack temp available to see now.

I find that I have a hard time figuring out what the boiler is really doing without my stack temps.

I can only read the middle of my tanks temperature. Now that I am all radiant heat I have an extreme stratification line, I can see it pass through the temp gauge area withing 5-10 minutes. It will go from 160+ to 140- in that amount of time.

I see the same thing....pretty cool watching it isn't it?

This change has made my boiler run harder for every burn as the eko gets the coldest return water at all times, so this has caused me to adjust my timer as well from a 6-7 hour burn to a 4 hour burn. I do see better looking ashes in the bottom chamber, but if I set my timer too long I have nothing left.

4 hour burns are my normal

I am having a hard time with my numbers this year. Soon I will have burned 7- 7.5 cords since early november. This is just not where I want to be in terms of wood usage.
I have changed to all radiant and it has helped some. I enclosed my boiler from the cold as stated above, I really did not see a change there. I burned wood that was 5% to 12% moisture as I finally bought a meter. I just feel like I am not getting the heat out of this I should be. It has been very cold this year.

How much wood have you used?

I've gone through about 6 cords so far, but keep in mind that I have a great big lake to the west of me that keeps our temps warmer than the temps on the other side of the lake.

 

[taxidermist]

Barn Your doing good I think! I have used 7.5 face cords this year. I started burning on Nov. 23 I have used a little more wood than last year but I lost my setup that I used to read my tank temps and I heat my barn from time to time. A big part of my how to save wood was when I could tell how much hot water i had to use. When I lost that it went back to a guessing game because I could only tell what my temp was at the top of the tank. I hope to get this back on line shortly.

Rob

 

[barnartist]

It is good to know that I might be on par with others on wood use. Maybe I expect too much. I know most of you are colder than be as well.

I just went out to reload the eko. I found that I had a huge coalbed left from last nights first burn with only the one nozzle. So I decided to try a few more loads this way. I turnes down my fan speed to 70%, and started my timer for 6 hours this time. Well I have to say I sure had a beaut of a flame under there, lots of blue and a huge mushroom of gasses. Maybe I can get things cherry red yet. I hope this works because I like what I am seeing in there, and I am not putting as much wood into the box.
I should know more in about 6 hours.

 

[Dave T]

Barnartist, do you have a EKO 60 standard. If so have you checked the alignment on your secondary inlet adjusters latley. I adjusted mine where they needed to go but one of the discs managed to come loose so I had to redo the secondary air inlet baffles. Here are some of my original pics and fixes of the problem. I moved the adjuster screws up close to an inch to properly align them with the inlets.

 

[barnartist]

I did make this adjustment a season or 2 ago as they were off. I have not been in there since I made the primary air arm (so I could manually adjust without cover removal)
I think my settings are close because I am getting a very nice burn at the moment. I am about to go check and see how things look as I am about half way through my burn by now. My tanks are charging very well. I can see this with a wireless gauge.

 

[barnartist]

Well I have burned with only one nozzle now right through the weekend and I have to say it is going very well. I brought in some wood as my seasoned and stored stuff is getting low. I split down all the "new" wood, checked them with my meter and was surprised to find they averaged around 22%. I am splitting them thin and mixing it in with my 5-8% wood.

I have very nice gassification for the first 3rd of the burn. I still find that the last 3rd of the burn ends up clear or no visible gasses from down under. I have come to assume this is what to expect.

I have been happy with how my ashes look in the bottom chamber, mainly fly ash and some 1/2 coals from my timer controlled burns. I usually recycle these coals back to the top.

Bottom line: It seems I have been able to continue to recharge my tanks on 2 burns a day with 1/4 to 1/3 less wood. Thanks SD. If you have any more info to share please do.

 

[sdrobertson]

Glad its working out better. With the difference your also seeing, I'm starting to question whether I actually have a problem with my front nozzle or if EKO changed something after our boilers were made. I know they beefed up the front panel that holds the fans, but they may have changed the nozzle locations just a bit. It would be interesting to run the numbers that were now getting in output but I'm to lazy to try and figure it out :red: .

 

[taxidermist]

Barn,

If your using radiant heat now why do you have to charge the tanks when they hit 140*? I thought with radiant you can use lower temps to heat with. I try not to get lower than 140* with forced air but can heat my house with temps as low as 120*

Just wondering

Rob

 

[barnartist]

Yes I can also heat with the lower temps. I really do not have to charge them at that point but 2 things: Old habit, it used to be a point of no return with the forced air I had to refire or it would mean more than one load per 12 hours 2. I dont like to start new fires and the coals run out in 12 hour cycles using my timer. I plan on going longer during the shoulder season and will let the storage get much lower and I will then have to start new fires. I also still have a forced air unit in my garage that I occasionally turn on, so I guess that makes 3 reasons. I also have to heat the radiant at higher temps at the moment because I dont have much of the insulation installed.

I also have wondered about the old style eko and how it performs vs the newer ones. Maybe if somebody out there reads this with the newer one we could find out more of the design differences besides the cleanout and the front panel.

 

[taxidermist]

I also have wondered about the old style eko and how it performs vs the newer ones. Maybe if somebody out there reads this with the newer one we could find out more of the design differences besides the cleanout and the front panel.[/quote]

I have the new style the only diff I see is a better controller

Rob

 

[barnartist]

I bought the new controller recently, so hopefully the 2 run equally well.