Gasifier Quick Start

I didn't intentionally leave that much wood in it. I think I either turned the timer a little to far or had bridging that didn't alow it to all burn in the specified time.

To reduce the warm-up time for my boiler I try to keep the boiler hot by extending the burn time as mentioned previously in another post

Started a fire at 9:00 PM Monday night, loaded boiler at 9:45 which burned to 4:30AM then tapered off. At 5:30 added a small amount wood then filled the boiler with lower value wood (softwood). Fire burned to about noon, boiler had a continuous fire for 15 hours. Restarted a fire at 6PM today, the boiler temperature was still 145°F which resulted in a quick start to the next burn cycle. Over night outdoor air temp was -24°C/ -11°F, high of -10°C/ 14°F with sun. House had a net solar gain for a few hours this the afternoon which is nice on a cold day.

The storage tanks over the last 36 hours stayed between 35% and 70% charged with the top of Tank 1 between 160 and 170 and the bottom of Tank 4 between 90 and 100.

Nofossil said:

I'm happy to be able to give back a little bit and put good tools in people's hands.

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You were a great asset from the start and remain so today. Thank you! I joined the forum just 3 months after you, and also just 3 months into my first experience with the Tarm. What a journey this has been. So many people to appreciate who have been instrumental in advancing wood gasification hot water heating. Really quite incredible.

I, by far am one of those that has benefited from those who have so freely contributed to this forum. No way I could have come close to achieving what I have without your help. BIG THANKS!!

My only observation is that the warmer the water in the boiler on start-up, the faster it will start gasifying. I notice this when I return from a trip and have to switch from natural gas back to wood. First thing I do is open the valves to connect the two systems and let the hot water from the gas boiler convect up into the wood boiler. It's a lot less work getting up to speed with the wood. It really makes a difference in my case because the water in my Eko gets pretty cool sitting in an unheated garage (in an insulated enclosure, of course).

Nofossil said:

My theory is that in a stock EKO, the secondary combustion zone is pretty much open to the cold metal water jacket. I *think* I got some improvement with my firebrick secondary labyrinth, which is essentially a small chamber of 1/2 thickness firebricks under the nozzle and open at the bottom front. The idea is that the bulk of secondary combustion happens in that space, which can heat up much more quickly regardless of water jacket temperature.

It's only a theory, though. I really should do an A/B comparison using the original EKO refractory.

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Sounds like a good theory. The biomass is pretty much closed to the water jacket in the secondary chamber and maybe that's why I can get almost instant gassifacation.

If I get a really good fire going in the firebox, smaller splits and with leftover coals in the bottom before starting the fire, flue temps in the 350F or above range, then I too will get instant gasification in the tunnel upon shutting the flue damper.

My first time on the forum this year (thanks to a post from Huff) and I just noticed this thread and couldn't resist a reply. My Attack boiler has the blower at the flue, so the main chamber door can be left open during lighting. For me what speeds the process is how I load before I light. Because my damper is automatic - responds to boiler outlet temp via a thermo valve, I would have to make significant changes to shut down and snuf the fire, so I typically have very little charcoal left to start the next fire. I always start from scratch. I line up a split on either side of the nozzle, then crumple newspaper and cover the nozzle. I put a good handful of sweepings from cleaning up around the wood storage area on top of that, then small stuff and build some larger stuff around the edges, then light it up. My boiler ramps from a low to high fan speed at startup for two minutes, after which I leave the fan on high speed with the door cracked for another minute or two until the fire catches real good, load it to the gills, close the door and push in the vent. At this point it's usually gasifying, so I lower the fan speed a bit. I've found with a "young" fire it blows it out somewhat with high speed, so it gets hot faster with a little less power. I haven't timed the full cycle yet, but now that you guys have me thinking about it I'll have to try. Looking at the data from the Vesta and knowing what time I lit the fire it looks like about 23 minutes to 170, so not that different from what is posted here. My boiler is oversized so I typically have one fire per day for 3-4 hours. I could go longer but with only 800 gallons of storage, that's about all I can manage.