EKO Owners - Brick placement matters...I think

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stee6043

stee6043

Minister of Fire
Aug 22, 2008
2,648
West Michigan
I was intrigued by a post a couple of weeks back regarding the location of the refractory bricks in the lower chamber of EKO's. The two most popular options seem to be either right under the nozzles (centered in the chamber) or pushed all the way to the back of the chamber (away from the door). The benefit of pushing them back as mentioned was to prevent ash from pushing behind the bricks and under the HX tubes where it can't be easily cleaned out. The benefit of centering the bricks seemed to be more of an OCD requirement to have things "symmetrical".

For the record - I was one of the "centered" brick placers mentioned above.

Well just over a week ago I gave my lower chamber it's mid-winter cleaning. Pulled the bricks out, got it nice and clean and put the bricks back in. I decided to give the rear placement of the bricks a shot. Well I'm here to tell you - it makes a difference in how my EKO 40 performs. I'm going to give this more time but after roughly 10 days of burning this way my initial findings are this:

1.) Time to go from cold startup to strong running is longer.
2.) Once she's really cranking my flue temps seem to be higher.

My initial thoughts are that pushing the bricks back prevents the flow of heat from really utilizing the center HX tubes, hence the higher flue temps. This, in my mind, seems to have a negative impact on performance as does the longer startup process.

This may all change next week when our weather gets back into a more average winter pattern. But for now I'm 80% convinced that pushing the bricks back to the wall isn't necessarily a good thing. More to come...
 
I put mine 1/2 " from the back. I always had it that way and don't know the difference. I will bring them forward a few inches.
 
stee6043 said:
I was intrigued by a post a couple of weeks back regarding the location of the refractory bricks in the lower chamber of EKO's. The two most popular options seem to be either right under the nozzles (centered in the chamber) or pushed all the way to the back of the chamber (away from the door). The benefit of pushing them back as mentioned was to prevent ash from pushing behind the bricks and under the HX tubes where it can't be easily cleaned out. The benefit of centering the bricks seemed to be more of an OCD requirement to have things "symmetrical".

For the record - I was one of the "centered" brick placers mentioned above.

Well just over a week ago I gave my lower chamber it's mid-winter cleaning. Pulled the bricks out, got it nice and clean and put the bricks back in. I decided to give the rear placement of the bricks a shot. Well I'm here to tell you - it makes a difference in how my EKO 40 performs. I'm going to give this more time but after roughly 10 days of burning this way my initial findings are this:

1.) Time to go from cold startup to strong running is longer.
2.) Once she's really cranking my flue temps seem to be higher.

My initial thoughts are that pushing the bricks back prevents the flow of heat from really utilizing the center HX tubes, hence the higher flue temps. This, in my mind, seems to have a negative impact on performance as does the longer startup process.

This may all change next week when our weather gets back into a more average winter pattern. But for now I'm 80% convinced that pushing the bricks back to the wall isn't necessarily a good thing. More to come...
Click to expand...



Interesting I was the one asking the question so am really looking forward to your final results.
 
I got the impression (somewhere along the learning curve re: downdraft gasifiers) (and I am not certain that this particular impression is the full picture) that the bricks, or what I tend to refer to as the "target," also serves a function of protecting the steel at the bottom of the lower chamber from gradual erosion that'd occur if the jet of flame is aimed directly at the steel itself.

I know that there's a water jacket under the steel, and that steel is a pretty good conductor of heat, but I still prefer to try to orient the sloped block in the bottom of my Econoburn so that it's centered under the flame; if it helps me achieve a long trouble free experience with the boiler, protecting the boiler is more important than a % here or there.
 
I pretty firmly believe that a critical function of the brick (or other refractory) is to protect the secondary flame from being affected by cold steel. You want the heat from the flame contained and reflected back rather than absorbed by the water jacket right away. A little turbulence helps as well. Good refractory helps secondary combustion to be established more quickly and gives it the opportunity to complete the combustion process.
 
I started burning with my eko 40 in November of 09 and I have wondered where the best placement of the bricks would be. I burned for a few weeks with them all the way back until I cleaned it out one day and realized it was blocking the center tubes. I centered them from font to back when I put them back in thinking I would notice a difference. I noticed a big difference. It took forever to get up to temp and when I pulled the bricks a week later there was plenty of ash that had fallen behind the bricks and blocking the heat tubes. I have ended up putting them all the way to the back and it's working fine.
 
[quote author="nofossil" date="1264091524"A little turbulence helps as well. [/quote]

The idea of encouraging turbulence fits with the seemingly deliberately textured upper surface of my Econoburn's 'slab' in the lower chamber.
 
I had mine centered side to side and toward the door front to rear and all seemed fine.
Based upon several suggestions that moving the bricks toward the back improved performance I pushed those fire bricks back almost to the back.
Well I just did this and reloaded the boiler and it seemed to help quite a bit. The recovery of firebox temp and water temp were both much better than usual.
I will be keeping the bricks in this position and see what happens.
 
Hi Ive found with the eco 25 that if the bricks are to the back I don't get as much heat output overall, probably because the middle heat exchangers arnt getting the same flow as the outer ones. With the bricks centered under the nozzle ash and small coals quickly piled up behind and required more maintainence to shift. Ive ended up chopping a fire brick so its not much more than an inch thick and cementing it to the back of the back U shaped ceramic, the top is roughly an inch higher too, this seems to protect the back steel work from a direct flame, any of the larger coals/debris come out towards the door, I get very little ash build up behind and under the exchanger tubes and theres a good 2"+ of space at the back for 'air' to circulate, Ive had It like this now for nearly 2 months and all seems well. even if i'm imagining the higher output it certainly is easier to do a quick clean.
 
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