Yesterday I noticed a lot of smoke coming from the chimney when the Wood Gun would fire back up and throughput it's entire burn period even during gasification. And when it would shut down smoke would continue to come out of the stack I also noticed some water coming out of the chimney. I checked the ash pan and about a cup of water came out, and what ash was there was just mud. Then I noticed a drip coming from the the plate covering the flange for the optional oil burner. I checked the bolts and they were loose, tightened them and it quit leaking there. It seemed to help with the excessive smoking during it's burn cycle. But I checked the ash pan again today and there is still water in it and there is water still coming out of the chimney. Other than that it seems to be working great. I'd just like to get the water to stop because I don't want it to freeze on my roof and build up. And I don't want it to harm the insides of the boiler. So I wonder if I tape up or caulk the connections in my stove pipe if that would help with the condensation? I've got all stainless steel pipe from the cyclone to the roof cap. It's single wall from the boiler to the ceiling and insulated from there through the roof. I did talk to Carl yesterday just before he was heading home for the holidays. We went through some troubleshooting ideas for me to check which I did. He also gave me his cell phone number to call him at home if I needed to. I did and he did return my call, but I didn't want to bother him any more during the holidays. I have to say that Alternate Heating has been great to deal with. And Carl and Mike have been more than helpful on every occasion that I've had to call them.
Water in my Wood Gun...chimney not tank!
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taxidermist
Minister of Fire
Is the wood gun in a cold garage? if so you should change to all insulated chminey pipe to help with condensation. 2nd if the wood gun has refractory in it it will take a few good burns to get all the moisture out of it.
Rob
Rob
chiefburritt
New Member
Gooserider
Mod Emeritus
I would say the top priority is to figure out where the water is coming from - there are two potential sources, each has its own causes and cures, and the fix for one won't do anything useful for the other...
Possibility one is a leak - and the only cure is to find where the water is leaking from, and stop it... Sounds like you fixed one leak, though I wouldn't have expected the oil-burner mount to be a leak point, as there aren't any water passages going through it that I know of...
Possibility two is condensation - and again, that really shouldn't be happening if you are burning wood that is properly seasoned and dry... Insulation might help, but IMHO would mostly just be masking the problem, as you shouldn't be getting much of anything in the way of condensation....
Gooserider
Possibility one is a leak - and the only cure is to find where the water is leaking from, and stop it... Sounds like you fixed one leak, though I wouldn't have expected the oil-burner mount to be a leak point, as there aren't any water passages going through it that I know of...
Possibility two is condensation - and again, that really shouldn't be happening if you are burning wood that is properly seasoned and dry... Insulation might help, but IMHO would mostly just be masking the problem, as you shouldn't be getting much of anything in the way of condensation....
Gooserider
The wood is actually too dry, it's at about 20% mc. And the boiler is in the garage and that's kept at 69˚. There was some water in the ash pan tonight but not much. But I may be checking it too frequently. I do know that the boiler seems to be smoking way too much again though. So I'm not sure what's up with it.
Singed Eyebrows
Minister of Fire
My Atmos owners manual says to expect water for awhile. Their words are "it is no default". Hopefuly this problem will clear up for you, Randy
Gooserider
Mod Emeritus
What is your return water temperature going into the boiler?
What is the flue temp coming out of the boiler (and how are you measuring it - pipe surface, or probe thermometer?)
Same thing going out of the cyclone and into the stack?
Are you seeing water in the boiler proper, or just in the cyclone? (Not sure where the ash-pan you mention is located...)
Gooserider
What is the flue temp coming out of the boiler (and how are you measuring it - pipe surface, or probe thermometer?)
Same thing going out of the cyclone and into the stack?
Are you seeing water in the boiler proper, or just in the cyclone? (Not sure where the ash-pan you mention is located...)
Gooserider
The return water is 170°-175°. I'm not sure what my stack temps are, because I don't have anything to measure that with yet. And the ash pan, for lack of a better term, is in the bottom of the cyclone. Thanks.
Gooserider
Mod Emeritus
Return water sounds like it's high enough that you shouldn't be getting condensation IN the boiler itself...
It would seem possible that you might still be getting condensation in the stack, which is dripping back down into the cyclone - which would account for seeing water there, but not in the boiler...
The other test to rule out leakage - have you turned off the makeup water supply valve, and is the system pressure holding steady, other than the expected variations from firing?
Gooserider
It would seem possible that you might still be getting condensation in the stack, which is dripping back down into the cyclone - which would account for seeing water there, but not in the boiler...
The other test to rule out leakage - have you turned off the makeup water supply valve, and is the system pressure holding steady, other than the expected variations from firing?
Gooserider
muncybob
Minister of Fire
I don't think that much condensation is normal even with the initial drying out of the refractory. Burning wood I get just a trace amount of moisture in my ash pan. I think it's partly due to my wood being less than ideal...but again, it's only a trace amount. I don't think 20% mc is too dry...I would rather think it to be near ideal for the WG?
I would def seal all the seams you can with high temp caulking in any of your piping. Not from a condensation issue but after sealing mine up the smoke issue in my basement was solved. The other smoke issue I did have was when loading. As another thread mentioned there are a number of ways to reduce this...it appears my main contributor to the smoke was having too much ash/coals over & near the nozzle area. I cleaned out all the ash I could and left a small amount of coals to start a new fire and smoke is hardly noticeable now. I didn't realize how much I had sitting in the burn chamber.....I'm still learning!
I would def seal all the seams you can with high temp caulking in any of your piping. Not from a condensation issue but after sealing mine up the smoke issue in my basement was solved. The other smoke issue I did have was when loading. As another thread mentioned there are a number of ways to reduce this...it appears my main contributor to the smoke was having too much ash/coals over & near the nozzle area. I cleaned out all the ash I could and left a small amount of coals to start a new fire and smoke is hardly noticeable now. I didn't realize how much I had sitting in the burn chamber.....I'm still learning!
You're probably getting condensation at the top of your flue from the cold outside air. It is then running down your flue and into the cyclone. Do you have anything seeping from the joints in your pipe?
Well I sealed the seams with Hi-Temp caulk and then covered them with aluminum tape. I just put the tape over the caulk for cosmetic reasons. It looks to me that the excessive smoke from the chimney has slowed down. When the boiler fires back up it smokes for a little less than 3 minutes and then there is barely a trace of any smoke from the chimney. And it was smoking like an OWB through the entire burn before. The water in the ash pan seems to be lessening too. But that may be from me checking it too often. I checked this morning and now I'll wait till tomorrow morning. Thanks for all your help and I'll keep you updated as to how this works out, who knows, it may help some else.
Oh , one other thing, what should my water pressure be approximately? Thanks again.
Oh , one other thing, what should my water pressure be approximately? Thanks again.
Gooserider
Mod Emeritus
Water pressure is somewhat system dependent - it should not go over 20-25 psi on most systems, as the PRV valve will let go at 30, and often will start to dribble and spit when it gets close to that.
As I recall the pressure should be set based on the vertical distance between the boiler and the highest radiation point in the system - I believe it is approximately .5 psi per foot of vertical height, plus 3psi, or something like that... The pressure will also change somewhat depending on whether you are hot or not.
The pressure mentioned should be set on a cold system, by adjusting the pressure on the air side of the expansion tank, and then bringing the system water pressure up to match it. As the system heats, the water expands into the ET, compressing the diaphragm and raising the pressure on both sides of it. The idea is that the ET should be almost completely empty of water when the system is cold. If the ET isn't big enough, the symptom is the pressure gets to high as things heat up.
Gooserider
As I recall the pressure should be set based on the vertical distance between the boiler and the highest radiation point in the system - I believe it is approximately .5 psi per foot of vertical height, plus 3psi, or something like that... The pressure will also change somewhat depending on whether you are hot or not.
The pressure mentioned should be set on a cold system, by adjusting the pressure on the air side of the expansion tank, and then bringing the system water pressure up to match it. As the system heats, the water expands into the ET, compressing the diaphragm and raising the pressure on both sides of it. The idea is that the ET should be almost completely empty of water when the system is cold. If the ET isn't big enough, the symptom is the pressure gets to high as things heat up.
Gooserider
muncybob
Minister of Fire
My WG runs around 23 psi.
Mine also smokes during an initial burn for the first few minutes...then a hardly noticeable after that. I think this is normal for most gassers.
Water in the pan would still concern me though, although it most likely is condensation dripping back down to it from your liner. I wonder what amount of corrossion may occur over time in the cyclone area with that much moisture? With the fairly low stack temps you can expect some condensation esp. in a longer chimney. My stack temp is about 380 at full burn, chimney is 26' and hardly any condensation in the pan. Do you know what your stack temps are?
I had major condensation issues on the oil burner of my WG and this was corrected by defeating the induced draft when burning oil. Before that the stack temp was barely 300 but now with the fan not running I get temps of around 425 when running oil.
Mine also smokes during an initial burn for the first few minutes...then a hardly noticeable after that. I think this is normal for most gassers.
Water in the pan would still concern me though, although it most likely is condensation dripping back down to it from your liner. I wonder what amount of corrossion may occur over time in the cyclone area with that much moisture? With the fairly low stack temps you can expect some condensation esp. in a longer chimney. My stack temp is about 380 at full burn, chimney is 26' and hardly any condensation in the pan. Do you know what your stack temps are?
I had major condensation issues on the oil burner of my WG and this was corrected by defeating the induced draft when burning oil. Before that the stack temp was barely 300 but now with the fan not running I get temps of around 425 when running oil.
My pressure runs at 21 to 23psi. And the water seems to be diminishing. There was just a little on the bottom of the pan this morning. My main concern, as was said, is the corrosion over time of the cyclone. So I'm going to keep an eye on it. I think once I sealed up the chimney seams that helped a lot. Thanks again, everybody, for all the help with my boiler.
Fred61
Minister of Fire
If it were me, I would shut off the make-up water supply and monitor it for a few days. I ran mine for ten years and never had water in the cyclone ash pan until the unit started leaking in the firebox.
I noticed in one of the photos that these newer units have something that mine didn't have and that is a manual damper on the intake box. If you have yours closed down, perhaps you could open it a bit and run more air which could reduce the water deposit if it truly is condensate.
I noticed in one of the photos that these newer units have something that mine didn't have and that is a manual damper on the intake box. If you have yours closed down, perhaps you could open it a bit and run more air which could reduce the water deposit if it truly is condensate.
The make up water hasn't been opened since we filled the boiler and the intake damper is only closed if I open the front door to load it. It seems to cut down on the smoke flowing out into the room. I'm going to check for water again in the morning, like I said it seems to be getting better.
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