Opel 2 woes part 2.

[ndk1]

Hello again. Hoping for some advice, so far everyone has been so helpful, what a great place.

The fire in the opel 2 is definetely not burning hot enough. it's heating an 800 square foot kitchen and living room and the temperature this morning, with the intake lever half way, was barely 64 in the home. And it's not even cold yet and the wind was not blowing.
This box seems to be starving for air. I owned a pacific before and the high setting for air intake on the Opel is like the lowest for the pacific.

Firstly, even with dry wood, aged for 1.5 years and kept in the house for a few days prior to burning, there is a significant accumulation of black stuff (creosote) on the windows. I let it burn on max air intake for a few hours and nothing happen, it won't burn hot enough to burn *any* of it off.
Secondly, the heat sensor never seems to get activated no matter how hot the thing gets. The flames are not big and everytime I open the door even a crack, they get bigger and combustion seems alright.

There is no OAK on it yet because my oil tank was in the way.

The door behind the electrical connections that toggles between outside and inside air is completely blocked off by the outside chimney wall. The box that surrounds the insert seems to be hermetically sealed. There are 2 panels or plates, one on the top right side and one on the bottom left side. I imagine that there is where the air from the inside gets to the flame. Are they supposed to be hermetically closed? I can't see air getting into the combustion chamber any other way. Should I remove them? Oh and I should mention that the chimney pipes are the widest available, I believe 7 inches.

The only other problem I can see is the air intake mechanism that is attached to the chain. This is inaccessable because it is between the outside enclosure and the combustion chamber.

I am so, so disappointed with this rig. the dealer seems clueless as he'sinvoking the fact that the barometric pressure theses last few weeks was really low yada yada.

Please any help appreciated.

 

[LLigetfa]

I'm not familiar with where the chain for the air is on the Opel 2, but RSF is well known for shipping out units with the chain too slack, preventing the adjustment from opening fully. I and others have had to readjust the chain, removing slack from it. Essentially, there should be a full range of motion on the butterfly for the same range of motion on the lever. If, with the lever in full open, the chain can be pulled and the butterfy open further, it is maladjusted and some slack needs to be removed from the chain. Make sure there is still some slack at the closed end!

I think the factory deliberately leaves too much slack in the chain so as to not have a situation where there is not enough slack and the butterfly cannot fully close resulting in an overfire. The dealer should know how, and is left with the responsibility of making the final adjustment. Shame on them if they overlooked it.

Both of my RSF Onyx units came that way. The first, I purchased from a specialty shop but it was a cash-and-carry deal with me doing the install so it was my responsibility to adjust it. The second unit I bought from a discount supply as I no longer needed the support a specialty store would be expected to provide.

 

[LLigetfa]

Oh, one other thing... on my RSF the position of the label that indicates the scale of the air control was not in line with the % of actual adjustment. What that means is that when the lever is midpoint in its range of motion, the label des not reflect that. Go by where the lever is, not by what the label says. Get familiar with the range of motion of the lever and its relationship to the position of the butterfly and reclalibrate your minnd WRT the label.

Also, remember that these units have a bimetal thermostat so the relationship of the external position of the butterfly control will vary with the internal position of the actual butterfly. Every reference I made was to the external position, not the internal position which you cannot see, and can only feel.

 

[ndk1]

Thanks for the help
The chain was the first thing I adjusted and you are correct, it was slack. No difference in the degree of combustion. This thing is operating with no air coming in, at least that the impression I'm getting. obviously, there is air coming in, but barely enough.

When I leave the door open a crack, the draft makes the embers red hot so there isn't a draft problem.

Now this is what is really extraordinary and worthy of mention:

The pipe for the outside air intake is completely closed because of the chimney .When the oil tank, that is in the way of being able to drill a hole and attach a vent is empty, I will install it.
Now, whether push the door (slider) to set it to get air from the outside (which it can't do as it's obstructed completely by the wall) or whether I pull it towards me, there is no difference in the combustion of the insert. this is really weird.

Is it possible that this is a defective unit?
Thanks again for any help.

 

[LLigetfa]

If the OAK is plumbed to an airtight space, you will be starving the fire of air. It is not fair to tar RSF crying woe if you blocked the OAK. Sorry, I missed that in your first post. The only other source of air is the zipper (doghouse) and it is too small as a single source.

I put a positive shutoff on my OAK and if I close it with a fire going, it reduces it to an oxygen starved smolder that blackens the glass.

 

[ndk1]

Well, I moved the whole insert about 3/4 of an inch in order to clear the outside air intake so that it wouldn't be plumbed to an airtight space, and I saw the biggest flames I've ever seen in that insert since it was installed after I started it.
I am so thankful for the pertinent advice and I am appalled that something so basic was neglected by the installer. I can see how it is rigged now and since everything was pointing to the fact that the combustion was oxygen starved, I can see how this OAK serves as both an intake for inside air or outside air, given that the box over the combustion chamber seems to be quasi airtight and the fact that the air supply was coming from the space between the box and the combustion chamber.
.

Thanks again, i will see how it burns overnight and give you news tomorrow, but the flames are hitting the top stone for the first time and moving the intake lever actually makes a difference.

Cheers.

 

[ndk1]

House was much warmer. Un-bipassed the thermal sensor and the fans start within 5-10 minutes now. Creosote accumulated a bit but now I'm able to burn it off with a strong fire.

Will call the home hardware and talk to the manager to explain to him what to avoid in the future so that others won't be scratching their heads after a "professional" installation.

Thanks again for the advice. Have a very Merry Christmas!

 

[dscherger]

I've just recently installed an Opel 3 and after the first few burns the bi-metallic damper would always shut the fire down to a smoulder after an hour and a half or so, once the whole unit was hot. After staring at the thing and scratching my head for a while I had pretty much concluded that it was the chain adjustment as well and it helps to see others reporting similar problems. A close inspection showed that the first half of the intake air adjustment was just tensioning the chain and only the second half of the adjustment was actually opening the damper. I've adjusted the chain so that the adjustment lever moves the damper throughout the whole range of movement and I'm now hoping that it will burn better.

I have been quite impressed with how long only a little wood will burn though. With the poorly adjusted air intake it would burn for around 6 hours on a single small load of wood although there wasn't always visible flame and the glass was getting quite black. Man, scrubbing that stuff off takes some elbow grease!

I do have a 5" outside air duct plumbed in and I was quite perplexed as to why this wasn't providing sufficient air so it's great to have figured out what the problem likely was.

Cheers,
Derek