Tarm burn not normal?

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nporter

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Nov 18, 2007
25
Midcoast Maine
Any ideas on this one? Have a Tarm 30 and have been using it for a year. The boiler unit has always performed well. Gets up to temp, gassifys quick and burns hot. Sometime last week it started hard, not quick, no gasification for awhile and did not really burn hot.(small Gassification flame) Secondary air set far to the right which I usually do not have to do.

It seems to me like the firebox is not getting enough air. It often seems to die out in the starting process. With that in mind I cleaned the fan, the air ducts and looked up the chimney. Everything seemed normal. I have never had a draft problem nor ever felt that there was a lack of air into the box. I am at a loss.

Thanks if you have any thoughts.

Than
 
I recently had to clean the cleanout on my chimney flue as I was haveing a similar issue. I have been burning a lot of ash wood and the ash is light and powdery. It had plugged up the bottom of the flue up to where the boiler pipe connected and was starting to restrict flow. Works great now...

Also, make sure that you do not have too much ash in the firebox. I think the secondary air comes in just below the door somewhere (not sure on that though) and could be blocked by buildup.

Lastly, most gasification problems are due to the wood being too wet. Has the quality of your wood changed at all?
 
Secondary air set far to the right which I usually do not have to do.
Click to expand...

If I do this to my Tarm, it just about shuts gasification down - practically no secondary air. I set mine in the middle, set it and forget it. As mentioned, prime suspect is a batch of "wet" wood. Even though my wood is well-dried, every once in awhile there will be a bunch of pieces that have higher moisture content, I don't know why, and they just will not burn well on their own. They do OK on a reload with a good bed of coals, but not to start a fire.
 
I also have the Tarm 30 last season I left the secondary control in the middle this year I've left it full right because this years wood is much drier. That seems to be the key - dry wood.
 
yup, sounds like wet wood. Easy to find out: get some known dry wood like biobricks, lumber scraps or a cut up pallet and see how it burns. If you still have the same issues, it could be that there is some creosote built up in the primary air passage (from the fan to the top of the loading door. Just stick your finger up into the quarter moon shaped air inlets at the top left and right corners of the loading door frame and see if you can feel any blockage. This is pretty unlikely after a year, but worth checking if the dry wood test doesn't clear things up. Keep us posted.

Chris
 
I checked my flue again this year.. and I had quite abit of fly ash built up. I would say a good gallon container full. I take apart the black pipe connecting to the insulated chimney and clean it all out. I have to clean out the bottom of the insulated chimney as well. I think with all this stuff in the way... it effects the draw of air. It seems to fire alot better after I have cleaned this stuff out. I am wondering if I should somehow clean all the way down on the metal insulated pipe? If I were you... I would check your flue pipe mid season
 
Than Porter said:
Any ideas on this one? Have a Tarm 30 and have been using it for a year. The boiler unit has always performed well. Gets up to temp, gassifys quick and burns hot. Sometime last week it started hard, not quick, no gasification for awhile and did not really burn hot.(small Gassification flame) Secondary air set far to the right which I usually do not have to do.

It seems to me like the firebox is not getting enough air. It often seems to die out in the starting process. With that in mind I cleaned the fan, the air ducts and looked up the chimney. Everything seemed normal. I have never had a draft problem nor ever felt that there was a lack of air into the box. I am at a loss.

Thanks if you have any thoughts.


Than
Click to expand...

I would say its only one of 2 things . Either some how someplace your exhaust is being blocked or restricked ( turbulators full of a lot of ash or creosote or I have actually had my black exhaust pipe found it 1/2 full of fly ash ) or you have wet wood . or you may have just had a poor fire crooked pieces of wood , lots of bridging etc.
 
One other idea, and I catch myself at this occasionally, is that I get lazy when firing the Tarm. Pretty much normal initial kindling, but then move to regular sized splits right away. More normal practice is after kindling some smaller splits, then regular sized. The lazy approach, if the wood is might be just a little wetter than normal results in a slow start, slow and intermittent gasification, until a pretty good coal base is built up. Then all is OK. I happened to have done that earlier today.
 
Thanks to all for your thoughts. After reading through responses I have come to this conclusion. jebatty, you must be here in my boiler room somewhere. You are describing our situation with amazing accuracy.

The lazy approach, if the wood is might be just a little wetter than normal results in a slow start, slow and intermittent gasification, until a pretty good coal base is built up. Then all is OK. I happened to have done that earlier today.
Click to expand...

I have found myself with less than satisfactory kindling and that progression of paper, kindling, splits and reg sized has gone to paper (lots), kindling (sparse) and regular sized. The comments about the coal base, or lack there of, is something that is also true here. The secondary air thing now makes sense to me. I have set it in the middle, as you have mentioned in countless posts, and I will leave it there.

I have always prescribed to the jebatty "How to fire your Tarm" procedure. It was clearly written, easy to follow and most importantly it worked flawlessly. Thanks for that. I guess that I have been away from that writing for too long. Thanks for helping me get back on track.

The wood that I have is larger than earlier so the bridging is probably a factor and because of size the moisture content is probably up.

I will work on getting back on track with proper kindling and split up the large pieces.

Thanks to all. It is great to get instant feedback on a question from those who are living and breathing gassification.
 
Definitely check your flue, too, for ash build-up. As last winter wore into its last stages, I seemed to be having more and more frustration, which I attributed to my having, at the time, to start burning some wood that was not as well seasoned as I'd have liked. But when I did a post-season clean, I found far more fly ash in the flue than I'd expected-- one section that does a sloped uphill sideways run was at least 1/3 full of fine fly ash. No wonder my draft had been getting weak! The degree of ash content was probably exacerbated with the less than ideal wood, but I realized that, even though these units don't make creosote, you still need to check the flue.

Good luck.
 
After a week of testing I think that it is the size of the wood that I was trying to use. Some of the wood that I had to buy this year was "chunky" so this week I have split every thing one more time and things are back to "normal". I have also improved the kindling situation and we are up and running. I am glad that it was just me and not the Tarm! Toasty warm! I have run out of oil for the back up oil boiler so it is all wood from here on out. Thanks again.
 
Than, FYI.... I was having the exact same problem and came to the same conclusion. This years supply hasn't dried quite long enough but by re-splitting it does get the temps back up and burns nicely.
Rob
 
I had to buy a couple of cords this year and the splits were quite large. I resplit most of it, but found that if I load the boiler up at night and put a big split or two on top, I will still have some good coals to get it going in the morning.
 
Finely split wood works best for me. It definitely dries a lot quicker and it doesn't seem to hang up in the boiler. I can also fit a lot more in the boiler.
 
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