Eshland Wood Gun 140. Please Help! New operator with zero gassifer experience

Thom Griffin said:

I used to have an Eshland wood gun 140. I got the optional hood for over the door when I bought it (1984). I had trouble with puffing whenever I used very dry, and very small splits of wood.

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WOW. 1984?!! How long did you have it for? How did you like it? Why did you get rid of it.?
What do you have now?

Green Mt Heat said:

Thanks Thom,

How long did you use it? Did it ever fail (leak) or did you move and leave it with the house? I just got the "EPA" plug today from AHS and it seems to have helped a little but with a half load of would in I was still able to make it puff. I hope it behaves tonight its already -10. All of my wood was processed for another boiler with a much smaller firebox. i have over 8 cord at that size.
Did you have any tricks to get it to stop huffing? What were other experiences that you had with your wg? All in all did you like it? Pros-cons?

Thanks

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Have you checked the moisture content of your wood? If som what is it?

Green Mt Heat said:

WireNut,

I took a reading today on 4 or 5 pc from different trees. I'm not sure how accurate my meter is but I didn't get over 20% on any pc.

Any WG owners out there had any positive experience burning wood at or under 20%? I just got the "EPA Plug" from AHS yesterday. It helped but didn't cure it.

Do you guys think that this is the biggest reason for the Huffing/puffing, probably a stupid question? Any tips or tricks? Like I said my last boiler liked 20" med splits dry dry wood.... Any Ideas?

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I also have the huffing problem on wood under 20%. I haven't tried an EPA plug yet. I'm burning wetter wood in larger pieces right now, and having no trouble....no water in the ash pan and very little smoke. I don't know if its wood size or moisture content...or a combo of the two...but those are the two things I changed to improve the burn.

Most of the wood we are burning right now is in the 20% range. Up until this year I had been running with the intake damper at about 75% closed and almost eliminated the huffing. This was mainly only an annoyance for us, no smoke problem from it.
Installed the plug recently and have purposely run only small splits except for overnight burns and have opened the damper 100%(per AHS)...no huffing at all. These last 2 very cold nights we loaded the usual amount(10pm) for overnight and both mornings I was surprised at the amount still left in the box the next morning at 6:30.
It seems that each owner has to find their sweet spot in running these. Keep tweaking things, it took us awhile to get it right.

Our WG seems to run better keeping all tubes cleaned. During heavy use we clean the tubes and empty the pan twice per week. When the pan is out be sure to check the bottom of the cyclone that it is open. I just stick my thumb up there.

Green Mt Heat said:

Thanks muncbob

How often do you WG owners clean out the main (middle nozzle tube)? I notice that there is ash build up right behind the plug for a few inches, do you guys get a lot of ash build up in the center tube as well? I will check this more often and be sure its clean.

What are normal stack temps for the WG towards the end of the cycle? I have only been able to get it up to about 275. Even at 250-275 there is no smoke out of the stack.Should it be closer to 300-350 or should i not worry if its burning clean. As you can see buy the flu there is only a small amount of dry buildup, maybe the thermometer is a little off?

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I clean the ash pan every 2-3 days.
I clean all 3 tubes every Sunday.
I clean the firebox out when I get a chance. Could be 5 days, could be 10 days. It depends on when I catch it and what the demand of the house is. I found that in the firebox the very grey powdery ash will begin to clump together and if I rake it around with the coals it gets worse and I think it may clog the nozzles. I do know that I tend to lose gasification when there is to much of that stuff in the fire box.
I am also careful to just move the hot coals around and not to disturb that stuff when I am reloading.
I figure a clean machine is a happy machine.

I get normal stack temps of 300-350 and sometimes close to 400. I have a probe thermometer 24" above the cyclone.
There are times I have had 200-250 but not to often.
I have 10' of straight double wall right off the cyclone.
There is nothing inside it, barely anything even if I scrape it.

Mid burn my stack temp is usually 375-400. If you have a magnetic temp guage your reading will be lower than actual temp. A probe type is much more accurate.

muncybob said:

Mid burn my stack temp is usually 375-400. If you have a magnetic temp guage your reading will be lower than actual temp. A probe type is much more accurate.

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Echo this, loudly.

I bristle when I see guys on the site comparing flue temps that were measured with a magnetic guage to those who measured with a probe thermometer. A magnetic guage will read at least 100°c less that a probe at full burn - meaning there might be some that are trying to get their temps up when they are already too hot or hot enough. IMO the magnetic guages are dangerous if you don't know what's up with them.

infinitymike said:

WOW. 1984?!! How long did you have it for? How did you like it? Why did you get rid of it.?
What do you have now?

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Well...I originally bought it for a farmhouse in Connecticut, but sold my old family farm there and moved to a farm in northwestern Massachusetts. I installed the woodgun and ran it for about three years before abandoning it. I gave it away, with great pleasure. I must have gone through three fan motors. I found that the bearings would fail, as the heat was too much for them. I did end up improving things a little by rigging up some sort of longer shaft and making a bracket for the motor.

Then I burned oil for a few years. I'm now a happy owner of a Tarm with storage.

I will say, in defense of the Wood gun: There were no chat groups like this at the time, so no shared advice. I could have used much better wood. And, at the time, nobody was doing storage tanks.

Thom Griffin said:

Well...I originally bought it for a farmhouse in Connecticut, but sold my old family farm there and moved to a farm in northwestern Massachusetts. I installed the woodgun and ran it for about three years before abandoning it. I gave it away, with great pleasure. I must have gone through three fan motors. I found that the bearings would fail, as the heat was too much for them. I did end up improving things a little by rigging up some sort of longer shaft and making a bracket for the motor.

Then I burned oil for a few years. I'm now a happy owner of a Tarm with storage.

I will say, in defense of the Wood gun: There were no chat groups like this at the time, so no shared advice. I could have used much better wood. And, at the time, nobody was doing storage tanks.

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When we first got the wood gun all of the ads said you could burn green wood. That was the first lie. Ours has been a constant nightmare. It used a lot more wood then we were told it would use, if huffs all the time unless the damper is closed, the wood to oil feature is worthless unless you want to ruin the oil gun. I would never never never put another one of these things in a house again. If I could afford it, I'd replace it.

muncybob said:

Are you getting explosions in the firebox or is it puffing/huffing(no explsosion but you can feel and hear the unit "wheezing")? The explosions are normally caused by gasses igniting and usually when it has short cycled(turned on again very shortly after a burn). To resolve this my aquastat is set using a 30 degree differential(off at 190 and on at 160). Have not had an "explosion" since. The huffing usually occurs when the firebox is overeloaded and not enough oxygen in the box. I rarely get this anymore as long as I only load up to barely half full which is usually good enough for 8 to 10 hours depending on the call for heat/dhw. Even still, if it does huff I don't have the smoke problem you described.

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Some of us, like me, have to fill the box up to get through a cold central ny night. And in the morning the house stinks. If we turn the damper all the way down we don't get huffing, but we are advised not to turn it down. This is nuts and this is a problem that should have been fixed by a company that has been in business for twenty-something years. This is a design flaw. And if someone is putting this in their home they should be warned.

The problem with these things is that too much can go wrong. Three doors with different gaskets. The cyclone design is nuts. Our chimney sweep tells me his professional newsletter is filled with people who say they won't sweep a chimney that expels gasification smoke -- to hard to clean. We have an oil burning option, but I can tell you that you should never use the "automatic" switch-to-oil function. If you burn wood without a protective plug in the oil gun area, the oil gun will get fouled with creosote. We had to spend $500 for a new oil burning unit. Of course, no one at the company told us about the oil plug. I might consider a gasification unit when we move (and I can't wait to move, mostly to get away from this yearly 6-month nightmare) but I would not buy one of these again and certainly not one that's indoors.

mskinboston,

I'm sorry you have had so many issues.

I have had some issues as well but seemed to have resolved them.
Huffing is caused by very dry and very skinny splits which means you have to add more splits to fill the firebox which means more surface area to off gas which means you need more 02 to burn those gases and since there can only be so much air brought in, the fire starves and the relights, starves and the relights, causing huffing.
I have 12/13 cord of very skinny splits left before I get to use the very large splits I have been making this year.
I have been loading the box with half skinny 2 year old splits and half 8 month old large splits and have NO huffing.
If you pipe you fresh air intake to the outside any huffing smell will be outside.
AHS also sells for about $15 an EPA plug which plugs one of the lower air tubes which also helps with huffing.
My double wall SS smoke pipe is spotless, no creosote, just a light tan dust.
I ordered my with the oil option but never hooked it up.
I still have an oil burner as back up by have that turned off.
I just make sure the WG is heating the house.
I know another WG owner who ripped his oil burner out and has no oil hooked up to his WG.

Oh, I forgot to say that I have to also FILL my firebox FULL to make through the night.

I'm not sure what, if anything, has changed in the design of the WG in recent years that causes the oil tube problems. I have the oil burner option and up until 2 years ago I ran the WG without the oil tube plug. Never had any problems with the oil nozzle being gunked up nor any creosote in the tube. Actually, an oil tech that last cleaned it for me said he was surprised how clean the nozzle and tube were since we burn moslty wood.

I do agree that AHS should inform new & previous buyers of their product that certain options are available. I would nevere have known about the oil tube plug or the other plug Mike mentions if not for this forum. I also agree that AHS should have high temp rope gaskets in all 3 doors. Agreeing also that the marketing comment of being able to burn up to 30% m.c. wood is misleading...anybody can burn wet wood, not many can without complications from doing that though.

It's been my experience that running with the damper closed will create more ash but otherwise I have had no problems doing so. I now run with the damper about 75%+ closed all the time, have had no huffing at all with larger splits and have had only 1 "backfire" and that was operator induced(turned the purge timer on too soon after a shut down).

It's a real shame you are having a tough time of it with the WG...after my learning curve I've been fairly happy with it except for the amount of ash I get which requires more frequent cleaning.

infinitymike said:

mskinboston,

I'm sorry you have had so many issues.

I have had some issues as well but seemed to have resolved them.
Huffing is caused by very dry and very skinny splits which means you have to add more splits to fill the firebox which means more surface area to off gas which means you need more 02 to burn those gases and since there can only be so much air brought in, the fire starves and the relights, starves and the relights, causing huffing.
I have 12/13 cord of very skinny splits left before I get to use the very large splits I have been making this year.
I have been loading the box with half skinny 2 year old splits and half 8 month old large splits and have NO huffing.
If you pipe you fresh air intake to the outside any huffing smell will be outside.
AHS also sells for about $15 an EPA plug which plugs one of the lower air tubes which also helps with huffing.
My double wall SS smoke pipe is spotless, no creosote, just a light tan dust.
I ordered my with the oil option but never hooked it up.
I still have an oil burner as back up by have that turned off.
I just make sure the WG is heating the house.
I know another WG owner who ripped his oil burner out and has no oil hooked up to his WG.

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Now another thing to buy -- but at least it's cheap. Over the seven years we've been running the 140, we've been told the wood is too wet, too dry, too small, too big -- always something. Running the air intake to the outdoors is tempting, but not practical. We have an exhaust fan in the window, because we don't have room for one over the door -- only other choice is to bust through a lot of rock. We use the oil every once in a while -- if we go away, or if it's near the end of the season and we don't think we have enough wood. I think we go through about thirty face cords a year. It's a larger house, but this unit was suppose to be oversized and really it just keeps up and we keep the temperature on the stupid low side. The wood is actually a pretty good mix in size and type -- lots of ash. I don't know. I do know that my friends who have outdoor units are a lot happier than I am. Their homes are warmer and they don't have to constantly adjust doors or worry about huffing or a chimney that clogged in the middle of the night an almost killed us with carbon monoxide. Maybe it's just a lemon. Over the years I've called AHS over 150 times. Our first year we just couldn't get the house warm. We've gotten better, but we will probably have to replace all of the innards -- and its way too soon for that. There's no service for it either. I would love someone to come out, look the thing over and tell us just what we are not doing right. We've cleaned the thing out about six times already this year (I'm referring to removing the cyclone and the motor). The doors are tight. The round gasket at the air intake is tight (and new). I keep my office at 60 and the living room at 62. We've insulated the attic (which had some old school insulation, but we blew in about a foot of cellulose). The upstairs in warmer, but still. We've replace a fan bearing. According to the house measurements, this unit is large (we were actually thinking of running a line to the greenhouse when we first installed it -- that's a joke now). The line pumps are fast. I just don't know. Every year, we just want to survive the winter. The house is on the market, largely because we just can't stand that boiler anymore. It never lived up to expectations or do what we were told it could do.

muncybob said:

I'm not sure what, if anything, has changed in the design of the WG in recent years that causes the oil tube problems. I have the oil burner option and up until 2 years ago I ran the WG without the oil tube plug. Never had any problems with the oil nozzle being gunked up nor any creosote in the tube. Actually, an oil tech that last cleaned it for me said he was surprised how clean the nozzle and tube were since we burn moslty wood.

I do agree that AHS should inform new & previous buyers of their product that certain options are available. I would nevere have known about the oil tube plug or the other plug Mike mentions if not for this forum. I also agree that AHS should have high temp rope gaskets in all 3 doors. Agreeing also that the marketing comment of being able to burn up to 30% m.c. wood is misleading...anybody can burn wet wood, not many can without complications from doing that though.

It's been my experience that running with the damper closed will create more ash but otherwise I have had no problems doing so. I now run with the damper about 75%+ closed all the time, have had no huffing at all with larger splits and have had only 1 "backfire" and that was operator induced(turned the purge timer on too soon after a shut down).

It's a real shame you are having a tough time of it with the WG...after my learning curve I've been fairly happy with it except for the amount of ash I get which requires more frequent cleaning.

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I could live with frequent cleaning. Carl mentioned that he has a customer that is just cleaning out behind the motor after 6 years. He actually stopped here once on his way back from an upstate NY show -- and spend sometime cleaning it out. Nice guy. That was at the end of the first year, I think, and the wood we were using was probably too green, but we were told it was okay to burn greener wood back then, until we started burning it. We didn't have an oil plug for the first fours years or so -- and when I had the oil gun serviced, the guy couldn't believe the crap that was on it. (It probably doesn't take much. A cyclone clog or a door that goes out of adjustment when you are out for a day and doom and gloom when you get home.)

mskinboston said:

We've cleaned the thing out about six times already this year (I'm referring to removing the cyclone and the motor).

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Wow, thats crazy.
I only empty the ash pan every couple days and clean the 3 tubes once a week, but actually have been going longer like once every 2 weeks.
I took the cyclone and fan motor off for the first time last january, it was very clean.

i burn primarily oak with some maple mixed in.

mskinboston said:

I keep my office at 60 and the living room at 62. We've insulated the attic (which had some old school insulation, but we blew in about a foot of cellulose).

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Another WOW,

I keep the 1st floor (1500sf) at 70 from 5:30am to 11:30pm and set back to 67* over night
The 2nd floor (500sf) at 70 from 9pm to 11:30pm then set back to 67* and back up to 70 from 5:30 am to 8am then back to 67*

My house is VERY poorly insulated.
My E100 seems to keep up.
One full firebox from 10pm to 8am on average.
1/4 firebox from 8am to 2pm
1/4 firebox from 2pm to 6pm
1/4 firebox from 6pm to 10pm

But as we all know that varies and could be more or less depending on outside temps.

Hey there is a guy with a WG in Canada who keeps his house at 80* and only burns 5 splits a day.

I also burn all summer long for DHW.

Cyclone/fan motor removal and cleaning should not be any more than an annual deal. I didn't pull my fan until the 3rd year to clean the heat exchanger area. Is it possible the 140 is too big for your application and you are cycling off way more than you should? Have you actually check the moisture content of the wood you are burning?