Thinking Wood Gun...any advice or experience?

[infinitymike]

Sometimes I am still baffled.
5am unit on house calling for heat and fire burning nicely, I load it 3/4 up
7am unit shut down house demand met
11am unit turns on, not sure if house needed heat or unit was maintaining it's own temp. wife checked it said fire was burning nice and a lot of wood in there.
5;30 pm I come home unit is on and fire is burning nicely same wood from 7am and 11am
9;30 pm house is calling for heat unit comes on I go out to look and water temp is down to 150* and there is the same wood from before but there is NO FIRE

Damn Gremlins, what the heck.
How can the fire relite at 11 and 5:30 but not at 9:30
Oh well the world may never know.
I guess its just the laws of physics at work.

 

[avc8130]

Sometimes I am still baffled.
5am unit on house calling for heat and fire burning nicely, I load it 3/4 up
7am unit shut down house demand met
11am unit turns on, not sure if house needed heat or unit was maintaining it's own temp. wife checked it said fire was burning nice and a lot of wood in there.
5;30 pm I come home unit is on and fire is burning nicely same wood from 7am and 11am
9;30 pm house is calling for heat unit comes on I go out to look and water temp is down to 150* and there is the same wood from before but there is NO FIRE

Damn Gremlins, what the heck.
How can the fire relite at 11 and 5:30 but not at 9:30
Oh well the world may never know.
I guess its just the laws of physics at work.

2 words: Time Argh

 

[infinitymike]

Oh yeah, the cycle time is sitting on the indirect water tank, waiting on line to be installed.

 

[infinitymike]

2 words: Time Argh

Time shime. it went 4 hours and then 6 1/2 hours and relit but couldn't do another 4? humpf

 

[avc8130]

Oh yeah, the cycle time is sitting on the indirect water tank, waiting on line to be installed.

Dude, 10 mins. Seriously. 10 mins. Easy peasy.

 

[avc8130]

Time shime. it went 4 hours and then 6 1/2 hours and relit but couldn't do another 4? humpf

I don't know what happened today, but I lost my fire. Got home around 5pm and checked the boiler. 120F with a small puddle in the cyclone (expected since the boiler condensed). I had my cycle timer set to 1 clip every 2 hours. Maybe that just wasn't enough today. There were ~6 full splits charred in the wood chamber.

Quick blast with the torch and it was back and running. I changed the timer to 1 clip/80 mins. I'll see how that works out.

ac

 

[infinitymike]

Do you have the low temp shut off? Mine is set to 140*

 

[infinitymike]

That actually happened to me to day also. At the same time too.
Maybe that's when the union gives the gremlins a coffee break.

 

[avc8130]

Do you have the low temp shut off? Mine is set to 140*

I do, but calls for heat and latent loss will bring the temp down further.

 

[Gasifier]

AC. I found a way to keep the Wood Gun going without a cycle timer and without even bothering with storage! All you need is a lot of wood! I had been down stairs to check on the Gun and was surprised at how much wood it had gone through in only half a day. But it is pretty cold here, 19then, and I had put some pine slab wood mixed in with some hardwood cord wood. The pine slab can burn away quick. But it was empty by 1PM. ? While carrying presents in today someone forgot to shut the garage door by mistake! I did not know, of course, until about 3 1/2 hours later! Man, can that slab of concrete suck some energy up trying to heat that garage with the overhead door open. Glad I went out to the garage for a big trash bag to put all the wrapping paper into. The t-stat in the garage was reading 33 at the time. I loaded the fire box full before we left for dinner at about 4, knowing that the Gun had to heat the garage back up to 45 and keep up with the demand of the house. Man, did I go through some wood today.

 

[avc8130]

AC. I found a way to keep the Wood Gun going without a cycle timer and without even bothering with storage! All you need is a lot of wood! I had been down stairs to check on the Gun and was surprised at how much wood it had gone through in only half a day. But it is pretty cold here, 19then, and I had put some pine slab wood mixed in with some hardwood cord wood. The pine slab can burn away quick. But it was empty by 1PM. ? While carrying presents in today someone forgot to shut the garage door by mistake! I did not know, of course, until about 3 1/2 hours later! Man, can that slab of concrete suck some energy up trying to heat that garage with the overhead door open. Glad I went out to the garage for a big trash bag to put all the wrapping paper into. The t-stat in the garage was reading 33 at the time. I loaded the fire box full before we left for dinner at about 4, knowing that the Gun had to heat the garage back up to 45 and keep up with the demand of the house. Man, did I go through some wood today.

The Wood Gun loves a good load of wood!

ac

 

[CTFIRE]

Hey guys. Happy New Year. Wood gun is working well. Seem to load it more than you guys, but it has been cold and my older wood is only 15-18 inches in length. Not utilizing the full potential of the the fire box. I notice I get smoke more often than not. Still trying to dial that in as I was under the impression it would be less. I noticed today something at the base of the chimney. At first it looked list wood chips or dust. Upon closer examination it appears to be stained ice. I didn't notice it before the snow. I am thinking the smoke and snow/sleet combo condensated and ran down the exterior of the pipe. Looks like the base dispersed the dirty ice on to the snow base. Any other thoughts?

 

[avc8130]

Hey guys. Happy New Year. Wood gun is working well. Seem to load it more than you guys, but it has been cold and my older wood is only 15-18 inches in length. Not utilizing the full potential of the the fire box. I notice I get smoke more often than not. Still trying to dial that in as I was under the impression it would be less. I noticed today something at the base of the chimney. At first it looked list wood chips or dust. Upon closer examination it appears to be stained ice. I didn't notice it before the snow. I am thinking the smoke and snow/sleet combo condensated and ran down the exterior of the pipe. Looks like the base dispersed the dirty ice on to the snow base. Any other thoughts?

How often are you reloading?

Short wood definitely makes it tougher to do a job properly

I don't have much wood cut to full firebox depth. I did have a fair amount of oak cut at 24" and that week was AWESOME. Generally I have my wood cut around 16-18" also. I pile it in neatly and then kinda angle the rest in the front. I have been known to put a few in sideways along the front even though that isn't supposed to be kosher, it seemed to work fine.

Mine seems to smoke a fair amount also. I don't know if it is steam or what. I get quite a roar when I open the door and I can watch flames in the nozzles so I assume it is gassifying.

ac

 

[Fred61]

I had about 19 feet of chimney above the cyclone and many times I would go outdoors at night and watch glowing embers coming from the chimney. I assume from the high combustion fan force. I was always glad to have snow on the roof.
As for the smoke: For most burning the high flow combustion air is adequate, however there are a few times when the oxygen is consumed early in a hot fire and the extra gasses that do not ignite go out the chimney because the Wood Gun does not have secondary air injection. When mine was emmiting dark smoke it was usually when I had a large roaring hot fire going. It would also smell like an old coal burning power plant. I would send my poodle out to do her nightly business and she would come in smelling like sulfer. Amazing how quickly dog hair picks up odors.

 

[muncybob]

I don't know if it's how my piping to the chimney is set up but I don't have any of the above issues. The cyclone is about 7' away from the base of the chimney and is connected by pipe that has a slight incline from the cyclone to the chimney.
My nozzle was probably beyond expiration this winter(until today!) and I was nervous about embers out the chimney but I have never seen them. I only get smoke in the first few minutes of a burn and then it's just steam. The only exterior marking I have seen is a bit of ash on out metal roof that quickly gets washed away during any rain we get. The only smell outdoors is what I would expect when burning wood and it's not very noticeable at that.