Singed Eyebrows said:Yeah, that was hard to swallow, along with the 90 percent efficient heat exchanger. My boiler will hold about a 2" bed of red coals for an hour, after that I couldn't relight to save my life, RandyFred61 said:Better learn to live with it! It happened to me several times each season, especially when I was using wood with poor coaling qualities. It's hard to believe that you had a 180 degree tank and a hot boiler when you went to bed and you were that cold in the morning. I love hearing their claim that the hot refractory re-ignites the wood. Not gonna happen!!
I have seen my boiler go out when it was 180 degrees with the tank at the same temperature. And it did not run for over 2-1/2 hours. Then turned on and burned the wood in the chamber. I am not making this stuff up guys. Ask some of the other Wood Gun owners on here. I think you will see that they have had this happen as well. Maybe even longer times between firing. I guess the conditions just have to be right. Right wood, right position of wood. I don't know.
Here is what I did notice. I had discussed the temperature difference for when the circulation pump between the storage tank and the boiler should turn off with someone else on another thread. They suggested a 15 or 20°F temperature difference. I had set it to circulate until the temperature got down to 155 degrees. The operating limit was at 190, I believe. (This limit usually results in the Wood Gun turning off around 180-182.) I don't know if something is a little off or not with that.?
So I had changed that temperature setting on the Aquastat that runs the circulation pump to turn it off at 175 degrees. To try that. I thought that maybe the tank would stay warmer longer with the Wood Gun off and not taking the water out of the tank. That was before I had this night with the fire going out and staying out. Probably bridging, which is operator error. Now what I am thinking is that what may also be happening with the circulation pump set to turn off at this temperature is that the storage tank is kind of working against the Wood Gun being able to re-start, re-ignite, whatever, the coals because it results in the Wood Gun not firing for a longer period of time. Because the circulation pump between boiler and tank is not running for a longer period of time, all the heat demand from water heater or house zones is being met by the tank. With little heat demand this time of year that tank can meet that demand for 3-6 hours depending on outside temperatures, hot water being run for one reason or another, etc.
So the boiler goes for a longer period of time without firing if demand is being pulled from just the tank. If the circulation pump is running for a longer period of time, two things happen. First, the cooler water from the bottom of the tank is returning to the boiler, which results in cooling the boiler faster. Then boiler needs to fire more often. Second, when heat is called for any reason, that demand is met by water coming out of boiler and perhaps some water coming out of the top of the tank. So again, cooler water returning to the boiler, and it has to fire more frequently and has an easier time "re-igniting" the fire.
Does that make sense to you guys? I changed the temperature on the circulation pump back down to 160 and will see how that works. Plus I will use smaller splits, like several have suggested. ;-) I had some big uns, or all-nighters in there that night. Hoping they would burn all night. In this situation, there were there all-night, that is for sure. :lol: