Seton w 130 problems

[Hardass]

Speaking of coals and ash these boilers seem to build up a very hard layer in the bottom that needs to be chipped out of there, or it will build up to the draft holes.Which will cause issues with the draft tubes.

 

[2.beans]

How old is your boiler(when was it built) Did it come from Montana Stove Works or some where else?I have built Seton boilers for the last year, no boilers are sealead on any of the doors, draft or feed.Though i learned a"lot in the last year i am still quite new to the boiler industry.As you see i am also new to this site and here to try and learn more about what is happening out there.
I am a"slo looking for all sites on boilers that have good or bad to say about the Seton boiler so Any info would be help full. Thanks.

fred is that you?

 

[2.beans]

And the other thing I have noticed is that with warmer days and espessily if you don't have dry wood, this can become an issue. Get that thing cleaned out and start over. Put samller amounts of wood in it than you have been and start from there. I have noticed as the temps are now dropping and the demand for heat is going up this has become less of an issue for me. I haven't found a great way to check for leaks as well, tried using a cigerette and still can't say that I could tell. Do the best you can is about all I can say.

This is one issue that I think storage would be a huge benifit. And I think that it would help the huge temp swings you can get with out it.

Do not put visibly wet wood into the CC. No snow, no ice.
Always put a layer of quality wood on the coals.
Do not load until coals are 1" below air inlets. ans water is below 170 °F
Quit lookin for air leaks.
If temp swings beyond set points, figure out why.
Screw storage. Instead, load appropriatly and start 1 fire a year.

Yup, I know I'm repeating myself. I'm a prick that way. Sooner or later you'll get it :smirk: For the sake of your sanity, I hope it's sooner.
If I had a dime for every time I tried to extract ashes without killing the fire in this beast while I was strugling up the learning curve, I'd be rich. Now, I'm taking out ~1Gal/wk while not disturbing the fire.

Rock on!

you should be the tech line rep. perfect! i love it. the only reason i sealed mine up was for the storage. with my f-upped work hours i need a non fossill back up

 

[Trzebs13]

quote]Do not put visibly wet wood into the CC. No snow, no ice.
Always put a layer of quality wood on the coals.
Do not load until coals are 1" below air inlets. ans water is below 170 °F
Quit lookin for air leaks.
If temp swings beyond set points, figure out why.
Screw storage. Instead, load appropriatly and start 1 fire a year.

Yup, I know I'm repeating myself. I'm a prick that way. Sooner or later you'll get it :smirk: For the sake of your sanity, I hope it's sooner.
If I had a dime for every time I tried to extract ashes without killing the fire in this beast while I was strugling up the learning curve, I'd be rich. Now, I'm taking out ~1Gal/wk while not disturbing the fire.

Rock on![/quote]

Mostly correct once agian. In fanticy land we could always wait until the fire is almost burned out and temps would stay above 170. Here in the real world there is such a thing called life. Lets see, a guy gets up in the morning, looks at his boiler and the water temps are down to 110. He opens the door and see's a good amount of coals. The 1800 sq foot of infloor is calling for heat, which the boiler will never keep up with just coals in the bottom. What does he do? Go wright another post on Hearth.com? Nope he rakes the coals to the front (away from the air intake) chucks the thing full of wood and gets his azz to work. Cuz he don't rely on anybody's stash but his own.

What you have to do some times may not be the exact perfect senareo but you got to do, what you got to do. Hopefully when you can afford some time is to keep raking the coals around and get them to burn down. Clean the thing out and the cycle starts over.

I'm still concerened about why you (Ian) are getting the boil overs. Has anything you have done seemed to solve that?
Are your temps creeping up like I discribed ealier? One last is I'm confussed about how you over heated and the temp was only 150?

Still cant figure out how you are getting 256% ash? LOL

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Mostly correct once agian. In fanticy land we could always wait until the fire is almost burned out and temps would stay above 170. Here in the real world there is such a thing called life. Lets see, a guy gets up in the morning, looks at his boiler and the water temps are down to 110. He opens the door and see's a good amount of coals. The 1800 sq foot of infloor is calling for heat, which the boiler will never keep up with just coals in the bottom. What does he do? Go wright another post on Hearth.com? Nope he rakes the coals to the front (away from the air intake) chucks the thing full of wood and gets his azz to work.

Damn! Makes me all warm and fuzzy to be mostly correct

If you wake up in the morning and the water is 110 °F , yet you have a big heaping bed of unproductive coals, I'd like to suggest:

1)You didn't load appropriatly (not enough solid fuel to go between closing and re-opening the door. This may require
a)loading later the night b4
b)Increasing the quantity, quality or both of the fuel added the night b4
c)getting up earlier the next morning

2)Assuming you have a backup fossil heat sorce, you need to automate this to kick in at 10 °F below your GW damper open point. With my open system, this is accomplished with an aquastat which turns off the circulator on the oil side of the HX

3)In combination with #2 above, some sort of heat retention unit to close the GW damper.

The fantasy world has a Viessmann Vitolig 200 tied to solar with both indoor and outdoor storage. Katarina Witt loads the wood and keeps things tidy.

Here in the real world we just heat our space with a tired GW100 and try to load such that the next time we anticipate having time/desire to reload, the fuel will be spent with just a small coal bed left.

 

[Hardass]

No 2 Bean this is not Fred ,However i worked for him.And was going to buy a small Boiler buisness from him. There were very few sales from him and after learning more about how many times the buisness has been sold and the failures i decided it was not for me.I think he is trying to sell it again if your interested HaHaHa. I do have 3 2010 boilers for sale pretty cheap if you know any one that is interested.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Well, Har, or anyone with knowledge for that matter . . .

Am I correct that of all the Setonesque units, Only GW has no grates? Anyone know why GW thought that was an improvement?

And rethinking the coal/ash buildup . . . are those of you running RMND's with grates having buildup troubles? It just seems to me that would be more of a problem without grates, than it would be with . . .

 

[Hardass]

By grates are you talking for the wood to sit on? If so no Seton boiler i have seen or built has any sort of grate in the fire box.Also there is no ash dump in the bottom any more or a clean out in the front.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Didn't the old Setons (and I believe the GreeFire) have holes in the bottom of the primary CC for ash to drop into a pan?

If so, why did Seton change that design?

 

[Hardass]

Yes some of them did and i'm not positive why but i think there were some issues with air leaks. I had 1 come into the shop for a complete rebuild and we closed that all off.Now it's just a solid bottom sitting on a layer of insulation.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

That's my point. I always have a point. You may run out of patience b4 I get there;nevertheless, I've a point!

Seems like many guys running Setons with Ash pans have tendencies to overtemp. They gasket all the doors, but the biggest air leak is the ash pan area.

Someone will correct me where I'm wrong , but the GreenFires also have the ash pan/door. Seems to me they also overtemp easily.

My GW has a solid bottom to the CC. I do not overtemp unless the electric goes out :shut: or I load inappropriatly on a warm day. But it takes a few years to figure out how to deal with the ashes.

Since I want to redesign the secondary CC, I am just trying to figure out which design of the primary CC has the least problems.

 

[Hardass]

What exactly are you meaning by redesign?

 

[sparke]

As I have said before, I have zero issues with ashes as long as I clean out the pan once a week. This includes the times I run the unit non stop during cold spells ( I don't utilize storage if the heating load is heavy, it is just as easy to run 24/7 in the real cold weather).

I don't have overheat problems and my unit is not 100% air tight. I feel the overheat issues others experience are due to a few factors. Piping/pumps wrong size- poor arrangement, operator error (amount of fuel compared to heating load), air in the heating lines, boiler over sized, etc...

I have thought of several different designs. My favorite was to bury the heat exchanger in refractory, but after talking to Mark we didn't think the refractory would hold up. I think the best design change would be a different Hx that is easier to get at and clean. I like the idea of somehow getting heated secondary air at the top of the firebox.

 

[maddscot]

quote]Do not put visibly wet wood into the CC. No snow, no ice.
Always put a layer of quality wood on the coals.
Do not load until coals are 1" below air inlets. ans water is below 170 °F
Quit lookin for air leaks.
If temp swings beyond set points, figure out why.
Screw storage. Instead, load appropriatly and start 1 fire a year.

Yup, I know I'm repeating myself. I'm a prick that way. Sooner or later you'll get it :smirk: For the sake of your sanity, I hope it's sooner.
If I had a dime for every time I tried to extract ashes without killing the fire in this beast while I was strugling up the learning curve, I'd be rich. Now, I'm taking out ~1Gal/wk while not disturbing the fire.

Rock on!

Mostly correct once agian. In fanticy land we could always wait until the fire is almost burned out and temps would stay above 170. Here in the real world there is such a thing called life. Lets see, a guy gets up in the morning, looks at his boiler and the water temps are down to 110. He opens the door and see's a good amount of coals. The 1800 sq foot of infloor is calling for heat, which the boiler will never keep up with just coals in the bottom. What does he do? Go wright another post on Hearth.com? Nope he rakes the coals to the front (away from the air intake) chucks the thing full of wood and gets his azz to work. Cuz he don't rely on anybody's stash but his own.

What you have to do some times may not be the exact perfect senareo but you got to do, what you got to do. Hopefully when you can afford some time is to keep raking the coals around and get them to burn down. Clean the thing out and the cycle starts over.

I'm still concerened about why you (Ian) are getting the boil overs. Has anything you have done seemed to solve that?
Are your temps creeping up like I discribed ealier? One last is I'm confussed about how you over heated and the temp was only 150?

Still cant figure out how you are getting 256% ash? LOL[/quote]

Funny guy . No picking on my typo's....

I put the red silicone on my draft door and Im not getting the over heat problem. When the draft door closes the temp goes up a couple of degree's and then comes down like it should. As far as the over heat at 150*, I didnt explain myself very well. I blew the breaked shortly after I loaded the boiler. Without power the draft door automatically closes. So it over heated a little but with a good seal on the draft door, the fire went out and the temp came down. It was at 150* by the time I realized what had happened.

So like you, I work. Im outta the house by 5 am, fire needs wood so I load it. When I get home I have 4 young kids, 3 of them are doing hockey and basketball. Get done with that and its 9 pm. Put kids to bed load the fire and Im off to bed. So what do yiou use to rake the coals around with? I did try to let the coals burn but by then my house (a little less than 3300 sq ft with radient floor) is at 60*. Then it takes most the day to get up to 70. Unless like tonight its 5* outside the house wont get above 65*.

 

[maddscot]

Didn't the old Setons (and I believe the GreeFire) have holes in the bottom of the primary CC for ash to drop into a pan?

If so, why did Seton change that design?

Fred told me he did away with the ash pan because it wasnt needed and it was rotting out.

 

[Deere10]

Let me tell ya Damm near 5* out now house 74* just put 4 big Maple rounds on. Some coals may have been built up But by morn they will be close to gone. And house will still be near 74. Thats all good untill 6 or 7 am when I wake up.

 

[roaring fire]

I am in my 4 th season with a seton clone.
Jimbo( iseedeadbtus) has loading & ash issues
with those units down pat. You have to wait until the coals burn
down .Last year I added a timer to my unit which gives me better control of burn times
I load the boiler, set the timer for 6 to 8 hrs( depending on wood load & heat demand)
The timer is by far the most useful addition since I have fired my boiler!
Jimbo has written a ton of threads on these boilers, it would be time well spent
to browse through.
Best
Dan

 

[Trzebs13]

I've often pondered how some of you are able to not hit your dump zone when running at higher temps. I have said before that my hits often. I'm also a big beliver in that everyone has some difference in there system design. There are probably no two systems exactly alike. Weather it be the unit indoor or out, length of main loop to there load, quality of insulation in there under ground lines, and volume of the system. I really think that all of these have a huge effect on hitting the dump. In my situation I have my boiler in my attached garage and the main loop is only about 100' of 1" pex round trip, with all of the pipe indoors. I have very little if any heat that is consumed threw that loop. So when the boiler is pumping with a full load and shuts down with nothing calling for heat there is maybe 10-15 gallons of fluid that is circulating. With the boiler putting out 130,000 BTU's and the thermal storage of the refractory it's self. There just isn't any place for that heat to go. Now say the next guy has the same 100' run underground and is loosing even 1 deg huge difference. I don't think that the grate on the bottom is having much if any effect on the over heating. And others have theories that air leaks are not important and have little effect. With all of that being said I'm not going down the road of storage but I wonder if a small buffer tank would cure some of this. By adding some volume to a system that has very little, it may be able to be more stable.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

I pondered a buffer tank in year one, basically thinking it would provide 45 minutes of heat while a new load got up to speed. I never did it. Let us know how it works if you do.

Agree wholheartedly that even when systems are similar, the differences can be creating different scenarios.

Get yer Burn on, People :cheese: It's cold out there!! :cheese: :cheese: (We waited all Summer 4 this weather; it beats the hell outa' 90 °F)

 

[Trzebs13]

I've often pondered how some of you are able to not hit your dump zone when running at higher temps. I have said before that my hits often. I'm also a big beliver in that everyone has some difference in there system design. There are probably no two systems exactly alike. Weather it be the unit indoor or out, length of main loop to there load, quality of insulation in there under ground lines, and volume of the system. I really think that all of these have a huge effect on hitting the dump. In my situation I have my boiler in my attached garage and the main loop is only about 100' of 1" pex round trip, with all of the pipe indoors. I have very little if any heat that is consumed threw that loop. So when the boiler is pumping with a full load and shuts down with nothing calling for heat there is maybe 10-15 gallons of fluid that is circulating. With the boiler putting out 130,000 BTU's and the thermal storage of the refractory it's self. There just isn't any place for that heat to go. Now say the next guy has the same 100' run underground and is loosing even 1 deg huge difference. I don't think that the grate on the bottom is having much if any effect on the over heating. And others have theories that air leaks are not important and have little effect. With all of that being said I'm not going down the road of storage but I wonder if a small buffer tank would cure some of this. By adding some volume to a system that has very little, it may be able to be more stable.

 

[maddscot]

Well I have a 50 gallon hot water tank that I use for a buffer. Dont know if it helps but here is my situation now, if your not all bored stupid with me by now.

I sealed up the boiler best I could. Im sure I still have some small air leaks but its much better.

So with it about 12* outside. I set my aquastat to open damper at 155* and closes at 175*. I dont see why it would need to be set higher (infact Im thinking of maybe lowering it) since my mixing valve is set to 120* for radient heat. I put a thermastat on my exhaust approx 12" from back of boiler. The chimney temp when damper opens is between 250 -275*. When damper closes its between 375-400*. Now I always thought my draft was low because when I open the loading door smoke just pours out as opposed to going up chimney.

So what do you guys think?

Happy New Year to all

 

[Trzebs13]

That is a very common issue with these boilers. There has been allot of discussion on the smoke rolling out the door. This is why some think that these have no place in an enclosed finished space, meaning your house or attached garage. But I have learned allot the past 3 years and this year I think that I have got it down. I have added a smoke curtain and in conjunction with getting to know when to fire up has cut my smoking down to a very minimum. For the most part I know when I need to fire up so I don't get any but this has really cut down on it big time.

 

[maddscot]

The smoke issue is something I can live with if its common. I was just afraid that I didnt have enough draft. So can you guy's (and any gal's) tell me what they think of my draft with the chimney temps I gave?

Cheers
Ian