Thinking Wood Gun...any advice or experience?

[avc8130]

Who has a Wood Gun and storage?

You. LOL

 

[CTFIRE]

It would seem to me that you would want it to cycle on once an hour for a few minutes. Then you would cover even more territory of mild weather. Turning the temperature of the house up does seem like the bass ackwards thing to do to me. Burn more wood and have your house warmer than you need to.? Just sayin.

I hear ya. The other thing is that since we have lived with oil for 10 years we have gotten used to auto thermostats. House was set on 64 and would go down to 60 at night. Wife always complained about the house be cold. I think she reset the thermostats to 67 and 62 for the overnight. If it can get me dialed in I going to go to 70 and throw caution to the wind. I think I may have her purge it every hour during the day also just to turn the fan on and stoke the coals.

 

[Woodsrover]

It would seem to me that you would want it to cycle on once an hour for a few minutes. Then you would cover even more territory of mild weather. Turning the temperature of the house up does seem like the bass ackwards thing to do to me. Burn more wood and have your house warmer than you need to.? Just sayin.

I'm with Gasifier. Even at two hours I think you're going to come home to a cold boiler in this kind of weather. 6 minutes every 80 works for me and I would ask others here with a cycle timer to give you their settings too. Having to send away for a chip is a bit of a pain so you'll want to get it right the first time if you can. Or maybe Darren can send you a couple different choices you can experiment with and send back the ones that don't work for you? Hmmmm....Wonder exactly what these "chips" are. Perhaps you can buy blanks and program them yourself so you can have one for the mild weather and one for the colder months?

 

[Woodsrover]

I hear ya. The other thing is that since we have lived with oil for 10 years we have gotten used to auto thermostats. House was set on 64 and would go down to 60 at night. Wife always complained about the house be cold. I think she reset the thermostats to 67 and 62 for the overnight. If it can get me dialed in I going to go to 70 and throw caution to the wind. I think I may have her purge it every hour during the day also just to turn the fan on and stoke the coals.

Haha! I remember those days! 62 during the day, 56 at night, 66 if there was company coming over. Both zones are set to 70 now and I don't change them. First thing I do when I get home from work is change into shorts and a t-shirt.

 

[avc8130]

I'm with Gasifier. Even at two hours I think you're going to come home to a cold boiler in this kind of weather. 6 minutes every 80 works for me and I would ask others here with a cycle timer to give you their settings too. Having to send away for a chip is a bit of a pain so you'll want to get it right the first time if you can. Or maybe Darren can send you a couple different choices you can experiment with and send back the ones that don't work for you? Hmmmm....Wonder exactly what these "chips" are. Perhaps you can buy blanks and program them yourself so you can have one for the mild weather and one for the colder months?

My cycle timer has 1 clip every 80 mins. So far, so good.

The "chips" are because he has the fancy new PCB control board. They have to be programmed by a docking station.

ac

 

[muncybob]

+1 !!

I had tried once every other hour and this did not do the job for us. Maybe you can talk them into both chips and return the one you don't need? I am surprised that AHS chose the 4 hour interval as the default setting!

 

[mikefrommaine]

It can't be that hard to crack the program code. Bet you could sell the fire gremlins sub routine for good money here.

 

[infinitymike]

Me personally, I'll never sell my gremlins.

 

[Gasifier]

You. LOL

Well this needs to change my friends. Even my little old 400 gallons of buffer really helps. All year round.

 

[Gasifier]

Me personally, I'll never sell my gremlins.

I let my Gun go to rippin and roarin and burned mine out a long time ago. I think they are ugly little _ _ _ _ _ _ s.

 

[Fred61]

stoke the coals

If you mean stir the coals, I suggest that you just leave them as they sit. If there is a coal glowing in there it is most likely staying alive because of the insulation being provided by the surrounding coals (banking). Stirring may just bring that one coal to the top and burn out or not maintain enough heat to stay alive. Allowing a small amount of air in the firebox periodically should work. Even though most folks believe the burn chamber is totally sealed at idle, the fact that wood gasses dissipate from the firebox within minutes after shutdown proves that there is some flow through the box unless you think the wood re-absorbs the gasses.

 

[avc8130]

If you mean stir the coals, I suggest that you just leave them as they sit. If there is a coal glowing in there it is most likely staying alive because of the insulation being provided by the surrounding coals (banking). Stirring may just bring that one coal to the top and burn out or not maintain enough heat to stay alive. Allowing a small amount of air in the firebox periodically should work. Even though most folks believe the burn chamber is totally sealed at idle, the fact that wood gasses dissipate from the firebox within minutes after shutdown proves that there is some flow through the box unless you think the wood re-absorbs the gasses.

What makes you think the gasses dissipate? The lack of dissipation is what causes puff backs when the boiler kicks back on sometimes.

When I first installed my boiler, I had a bunch of leaks at the chimney connector. This caused me to shut the boiler down in a very smokey state. I pulled the chimney connector off to re-seal all of the joints. I was expecting a serious nightmare of smoke from the firebox. Amazingly, NOTHING came out of the cyclone. When I opened the wood chamber door, I got a major face full. The WG seals up quite well. The only way for gasses in the wood chamber to "get out" is to travel DOWN. That doesn't happen well without a forced draft.

ac

 

[avc8130]

Well this needs to change my friends. Even my little old 400 gallons of buffer really helps. All year round.

Meh. So far I see no reason to add storage, even through these warm periods. Spending all the money on storage would just push my payback further out.

ac

 

[Gasifier]

I also think that after a period of time using the Wood Gun it is going to be tough to tell if everything is sealed up nice and tight the way it was when it was new. There may be a very slight leak somewhere around one of the doors that will let air in or out. This may actually help to keep your coals getting some air and staying alive. I am not sure. But not something I would want because of gases possibly also getting out.

 

[Gasifier]

Meh. So far I see no reason to add storage, even through these warm periods. Spending all the money on storage would just push my payback further out.

ac

Pfffff. Payback smayback. Some day I am going to have about 1200 gallons of storage. And it will be worth it.

 

[Fred61]

What makes you think the gasses dissipate? The lack of dissipation is what causes puff backs when the boiler kicks back on sometimes.

When I first installed my boiler, I had a bunch of leaks at the chimney connector. This caused me to shut the boiler down in a very smokey state. I pulled the chimney connector off to re-seal all of the joints. I was expecting a serious nightmare of smoke from the firebox. Amazingly, NOTHING came out of the cyclone. When I opened the wood chamber door, I got a major face full. The WG seals up quite well. The only way for gasses in the wood chamber to "get out" is to travel DOWN. That doesn't happen well without a forced draft.

ac

Turn on the purge timer within 5 or 10 minutes after shutdown BOOM. Wait 15 or 20 minutes turn on purge timer and no BOOM. How come?

 

[avc8130]

Turn on the purge timer within 5 or 10 minutes after shutdown BOOM. Wait 15 or 20 minutes turn on purge timer and no BOOM. How come?

Not enough oxygen available for the fuel?

Where do you think the gasses go? Past one of the silicone seals? (honest question)

Frankly, I couldn't care less exactly how this boiler works. I'm running with no storage and have a warm house with very little human interaction. Put wood in it in the morning. Put wood in it in the afternoon. It was a literal plug and play for my oil burner. No crazy controls. No crazy monitoring. Just heat.

 

[avc8130]

Pfffff. Payback smayback. Some day I am going to have about 1200 gallons of storage. And it will be worth it.

I don't know, I do the calculations and it seems like I would need a HUGE quantity of storage to buy myself any real duration of heat. Right now it is very convenient for me to load the WG twice/day. If I couldn't knock that down to a solid "once", there just is no reason in my mind to do a partial.

ac

 

[Fred61]

Frankly, I couldn't care less exactly how this boiler works. I'm running with no storage and have a warm house with very little human interaction

I've seen that statement more than once in your posts but you continue to challenge statements made by others about the workings of the boiler.

 

[avc8130]

I've seen that statement more than once in your posts but you continue to challenge statements made by others about the workings of the boiler.

Take what you will. There are about 1/2 dozen actual current WG owners actively posting on this thread. All working together to get the boilers operating as easily and reliably as possible.

Clearly we are all learning together and helping each other. No Wood Gun owner really gives a crap about "idle" vs "out". Only OTHER or FORMER owners REALLY care.

WG owners just care about making heat. Keeping the boiler running, keeping it gassifying, reloading at the optimal time, etc etc etc.

 

[mikefrommaine]

Take what you will. There are about 1/2 dozen actual current WG owners actively posting on this thread. All working together to get the boilers operating as easily and reliably as possible.

.

And yet you still haven't figured out how to turn fire on and off? :-/

Damn laws of physics... I just can't go to bed until you admit idleing = off, cycling or as the super cool frohlingers say slumbering.

 

[avc8130]

And yet you still haven't figured out how to turn fire on and off? :-/

Damn laws of physics... I just can't go to bed until you admit idleing = off, cycling or as the super cool frohlingers say slumbering.

Sorry for your sleepless nights.

I hope you aren't up all night worrying about the costs of repairing that "BMW" down the road...

 

[infinitymike]

Here we go again. These WG debates always end up like this. Can't we all just play nice in the sandbox.
And while we are playing nice, we all need to agree that the WG turns off and on a fire.

 

[avc8130]

Here we go again. These WG debates always end up like this. Can't we all just play nice in the sandbox.
And while we are playing nice, we all need to agree that the WG turns off and on a fire.

Here I thought we established our own sandbox....

 

[infinitymike]

True but it looks like some of the other kids in the park are jealous and want to play with us.
I'm ok with that as long as they follow our rules.