We’re not going anywhere, barnartist. Rest assured that if they’re not out getting trashed on New Years Eve, some of the guys are thinking about your setup at this very moment. Maybe some pics and a piping diagram would be helpful.
I think you may have several issues that are combining to cause the problems you report. To reiterate my previous two points, I don’t think you’ve got enough capacity in the way of piping off the boiler, and I think you should be putting supply water into the tank, instead of the return. Maybe somebody knows what the theoretical capacity of 1” pipe is at a given temp and rate of flow. My guess is that it doesn’t approach 205 Kbtu.
No trash here, pizza hut, tap water, kids in bed thanks to wife, and back to study what you guys said. Exciting ay? I will get some photos in the morning, how can I load them to the forum? So glad I found this place.
I am willing to drive to see somebodys setup to get it right this time. I have had it plumbed every way possible in the past. Hate to think about tearing into it again, but what ever it takes. Can someone explain their setup?
It would be helpful to see some pics of your piping layout. Not to say I’ve spotted a major problem........it just helps me to understand what’s going on a bit better. One clue for me is the amount of ash you’re generating. A properly functioning gasification boiler burning 15-25% moisture wood will leave very little in the way of ash. Maybe a gallon or so in that time Think of it this way. Ash is wasted heat in the form of unburned fuel. Get a moisture meter, split a chunk and test. I’d make a WAG you’re not under 30%.
Eric:
Flow rates for pipe (copper) that are generally accepted as “good design” are as follows:
Given a 20* temp drop from supply to return you can figure the actual BTU’s being transfered by simply multiplying the listed flow rates by 10,000. If a person uses those flow rates and designs the “load” side of the equation for that 20* drop, they will find that a 007 Taco or 15-58 Grundfos will move an enormous amount of heat.
Black steel will flow slightly higher for a given size and pex nearly the same, especially when you account for fitting loss with the copper.
I see many systems, not just wood fueled, that are handicapped by the ("This oughta’ do it") design method. Piping design isn’t rocket science but there are rules to be followed as in any other endeavor.
I’m not too worried about the pumps fighting each other. I’m just trying to figure out whether you’re losing heat somewhere, or whether you just have a big enough heat load so that you need to burn that much wood.
The top chamber gets lots of creosote. If you look through the bypass damper into the stovepipe, you should not see any creosote in the stovepipe at all. Mine is just light gray ash.
Some questions:
Is your flue gas clear and odorless coming out of the chimney?
Can you get return temps from each loop at a known supply temp?
Do you have a way to dra heat from the storage tank?
OK, I have pictures of my system located on my web page, http://www.barnartist.com In the lower right corner, there is a link W.S. click it and that should get you there.
I don’t have a way at the moment to draw heat directly from storage, it must go through the eko’s plumbing. My flu has a brown ash, probably because I idle alot and only burn hard for about 3-4 hours.
Thanks for posting those pics, barnartist. Looks like you have a neat business there.
I’m not the best one to comment on piping schemes or storage tanks, so hopefully some of the other guys will take a look at your pics and share their observations.
But I can comment on the boiler itself, which looks like it spends a lot of time idling. Ideally, you don’t want a gasifier to idle at all, mostly for reasons of efficiency, but also to simplify boiler maintenance. It looks like you get a lot of smoke puffing back through the blowers, and presumably coating the hx tubes and chimney with soot and maybe even some creosote.
So I think you’ll solve most of your wood consumption problem if you can figure out a better way to use the tank. I just think you have it piped wrong. Even if your piping into the house is too small for the output of the boiler, with the tank right there, you should be able to use the boiler to heat the tank, and then draw all your hot water from it, as needed. Since your house doesn’t use 205 kbtu/hour, the 1-inch line should be plenty. That’s a pressurized tank, right?
Ideally, you could fill the boiler up in the morning and run a load or two through it hard, dumping most or all of the heat into the tank. Then you let the boiler go out and live off the heat in the tank all day. Repeat the process in the evening, and you’ve got your daily heating cycle down. That’s the way your system should work. And you’ll be running your boiler the way it was designed to run, and undoubtedly burn less wood in the process. I think adding that other tank is a good idea with a 60KW boiler.
Unlike me, however, Heaterman has the advantage of actually knowing what he’s talking about. So I’d wait to see what he says before drawing any firm conclusions.
So I would suggest running a bigger--or additional--line from the boiler to the tank and set it up so that supply water is pumped into the tank. Then hook up your plumbing to the house to the tank so that when there’s a call for heat, your main pump kicks on and delivers hot water from the top of the tank into the heat exchanger at your house. The boiler heats the tank; the tank heats your house. Once you get it all set up right, you’ll quickly learn the best way to fire it.
Forgive me for being stupid in the head - I never asked about moisture content in your wood. It looks like you’re burning wood with a really high moisture content. These things need really dry wood to do their magic.
Try getting a fire worth of really dry wood from somewhere - 20% moisture maximum, and see if it behaves differently. Based on the amount of condensation, I’d guess that it’s not gasifying much of the time, especially when coming off idle.
If you open the bottom door when it’s running, you should see a large bluish flame with orange fringes, and a sound like a jet taking off. Any gas that comes out should be odorless.
I agree with your analysis of the wood supply, nofossil, but I think his biggest problem is that there’s an imbalance somewhere in his system, causing the boiler to idle most of the time. Really bad wood probably wouldn’t get that hot, don’t you think? I can’t say because I’ve never burned wet wood in mine, though occasionally I’ll get a moist chunk from the bottom of the stack, and that will send up a thin stream of blue smoke instead of burning clean.
My whole system is pressured, I run it about 20 lbs. I wonder if it would help to close off the rear nossle as you guys talked about until I figure a new piping layout.
Heaterman, i’ll wait to see what you think too. If Nofossle can do what he is doing with a tiny eko 25, I know I should have some muscle here. Pretty impressive man.
I dream od a season I could go on 4-5 cords, and this is why I chose a gasifier. Can anyone say how much mileage 1000 gallons can get me if heated up? Do I need 1500? Nofossle, any way I can see a pic of your plumbing? Anyone else with photos I can see?
Thanks!
I looked at your pic’s and have a couple thoughts. It looks like you only have a 6in pipe and the eko60 should have an 8in. That could be choking it down making it harder to gasifiy. Also when I looked at the pic of the gasifing chamber it looks like you have the ceramic blocks in wrong. They are supposed to be stacked end to end under the nozzels. That way the gas is shot down in the bricks and forced back up to help mix the air and get it hotter. The fly ash is then blown out the ends and around the sides with the burnt gas and then up the heat-ex.
It also looks like it is idleing way to much because of all the creosote. You need to be putting the exsess heat into the tank. It sounds like now as the boiler comes up to temp it pulls the top of the tank water back into the boiler and that makes it shut off. The temp on the tank might be 180f but the bottem could be 120f. Either pull the water from the bottem or put a heat exchanger in the bottem. Now you aren’t useing very much of your tank.
You said that you cut your wood in april and if you did that was after the sap had started to run. I cut mine in feb and march and it was stacked up in wire crates in the sun all summer and put under roof this fall and it really isn’t dry enough. I estimate it to be 30 to 35% The more moisture you have the cooler your burn is at the start and it is hard to get it to gasify and if you go into idle you WILL get alot of creosote.
Just a few obsevations and I’m sure others will chime in and help.
leaddog
Just reread where you said you have a pressurised tank. Run your hot water from your boiler into the bottem of your tank and take the feed to the house from the top and you shouldn’t have any problem. If you want to have a faster buildup to your house from a cold tank you can pipe in a bypass manually very easily.
On the chimney outlet and on the bricks--I missed both. I don’t know why you have the bricks stacked that way in the back, but like leaddog says, they should be end-to-end, front to back. That might be why your back nozzle isn’t firing right. Also, I keep my ash pit a lot cleaner than that. I use that little hoe tool to clear out the valleys in the bricks every couple of days. Just rake it into a shovel. I think the gasification process works better if those bricks are fairly free of debris. And if the hx outlets are blocked, which they probably are in that pic, the boiler isn’t going to operate right, either. So I think a little better maintenance might pay off as well.
And you do have a lot of unburned chunks in there. I get some, but not that much.
One other suggestion is that you take off the blower mount plate and check/clean everything out. 12 screws. I suspect your secondary air tubes might be clogged up from the backpuffing. You want to make sure to re-set your secondary air intakes. The factory setting is 3.5 turns out, but I’ve got mine at 6 turns and it works better than it did with 3.5. Take the plate off of there and post a pic. I’d like to get a better look at those secondary air tubes.
BTW, leaddog, I got mine retacked, per your excellent suggestion. It was hard to keep the air intakes set with the tube walking into the valve. Now it works like a dream. Dave reimbursed my cost, which was $40 to get a local guy over here.
