New tarm owners

it could be the placement of the probe. closer and you'll get higher readings, farther away and lower temps. fan should be on. my stack temps are about the same as yours. I'm still learning too. sweetheat :lol:

When it is warmer outside and doing a cold start I have that problem. Leave the bypass open till water temp is up to 140 it takes awhile to get the refractory hot. Once it is hot it only takes few minutes of the bypass open to get it to gasify. DRY wood if its popping and hissing it is not dry and will take much longer to gasify. Sometimes if it is being stuborn slide the secondary air control (small one by bottom door on left) back and forth ending to the right. This is the high air setting, you can adjust it back after it starts gasifying usually middle is good for average wood. It should look like this when it begins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zXe56aMg4c then after 1/2 hour should be roaring.

One more thing your fan should be on till water gets up to 180-190 deg. If that is goin off turn up the temp control nob on top of boiler. The air setting to the right I mentioned above is the least air not the most it is the most forgiving to get secondary burn. As you get more heat and dry wood you can go to left with it adding more air.

woodmeister said:

The wood is dry so we're wondering how the fan should be operating or when, and what is the source of primary air?

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When are you turning the fan on? I am not sure I am doing it *right*, but as soon as I have a decent fire started, I close my upper door, I turn on the fan and close the bypass damper. So far that works fine. When the wood is dry, the fire always keeps on burning.

I start with the bottom door open a little and the bypass open.
I light my fire and close the upper door and turn on the fan.
After a 5 minutes or so I close the bypass and the bottom door.
5 more minutes and I add some bigger pieces of wood. I always
leave the bottom secondary air adjustment in the middle.

Ethan

Would i be right in saying when the fans not running there is no draft.

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There is no forced draft; there will be some draft from chimney action pulling air through the draft fan damper, but not enough to maintain a burn.

The draft fan should run continuously until the temp reaches 180-190, depending on your temp control setting. Turn it all the way up, and the fan will shut down at about 190, and come back on at about 180, and then cycle.

Lots of different starting techniques. What works best for me is laying the kindling, then two newspaper knots in top down method. As soon as I light the paper, I leave the firebox door and gasification chamber doors slightly ajar, and start the fan. In just a couple of minutes the kindling is blazing well, shut off fan, add small splits to about 1/3 full, still leave doors ajar, restart fan. In another couple of minutes this will be blazing well. I then shut both doors, and flame shoots through the nozzle, secondary burn starts almost right away, and then gasification. Let this burn awhile to get a fair bed of coals started, then load firebox for main burn.

I almost always leave the air adjustment lever in the middle; works very well for dry wood. Not so dry wood might need a little more primary air, slide lever to the right a bit. I don't fuss with this lever much at all - leave it in the middle and forget it.

If you don't get or can't maintain a strong burn most of the time, check the damper setting on the draft fan. There is a fixed adjustment and a variable adjustment. Adjust these (damper more or less open when fan is on) to maintain stack temp within desired range during main burn. For me, probe temp 400-600 is normal, with 600 during early part of high burn, and 400-450 during most of burn.

woodmeister said:

It sounds like the fan should be running more often than not when we went to reload we could'nt get the fan to go on as per the instructions is that something to do with the low limit setting or is something not wired correctly? Would i be right in saying when the fans not running there is no draft.

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There is a black reset button next to fan on/off switch it is a spring loaded switch. If your boiler temp. drops below a certain temp it automatically goes off (no more wood in boiler). You then have to reset it with the reset switch. The fan should always be on unless your boiler temp is above 180. My starting method I use 1/3 of a starter stick some small kindling, leave bottom door open and bypass open no fan. I have forgot this and if it gets the boiler temp up enough the fan will come back on by itself. You still have draft when bottom door is open and bypass is open the fan forces the air through the secondary. When you get boiler upto temp. the fan is the on/off switch for the boiler.

Make sure your temperature inside the control panel is set to 60 C, I think this is low temp cut off, I had my to 140 C. I thought it was in F. On my Solo 40 you have to lift the front cover to access it. DC