Well as heating season begins for us up here in Michigan I wanted to talk about a few issues with the WoodGun. Last year was our first year using the boiler. And we were very happy with it, but we noticed some things we'd like to work out. The first was a moisture issue in the ash pan. Carl was extremely helpful and very professional. He narrowed it down to the the center brick and possibly some wood that want quite dry enough. The center brick that we had were made with an older mold that was making the center slots too large. With these changes made it seemed to help. Where water was dripping out of the ash pan it was then just dampening the ash. This year I haven't noticed anything yet. So hopefully that issue was resolved.
And now for the smell. While not a serious issue, I'd still like to find out what, if anything can stop it. When I'm outside I notice a strong smell of what I believe to be creosote(smells like railroad ties). And it also smells in the boiler room too. Is this from wood not being seasoned? Most all of our wood has been down for over a year. But like I said this is more of an annoyance than anything serious as I've checked the stack several times and find no build up.
Now for a more serious problem. Ash and charcoal particals get by the cyclone and "tee" and lay in the elbow and horizontal pipe. I actually had ash laying on the chimney cap of about a half an inch thick! But the scary thing was that the charcoal in the elbow heated up so much that the high heat caulking on the stack turned to a powder. And the stainless pipe became discolored. Thankfully I was home at the time and caught it. Now I clean it out once or twice a week. When I talked to Carl last year he said that they acknowledged they had an issue with particulates getting past the cyclone and were working on possible fixes. Then I talked to his replacement who was quite rude when saying there was no known problem or fix. So I was wondering if anyone has this issue with their WoodGun and found any fixes. I was thinking of maybe putting stainless screen mesh on either end of the cyclone to knock down at least the charcoal particals.
I'd like to find other WoodGun owners that have these or similar issues and maybe we can all figure out possible fixes together. Kind of the "two heads are better than one" philosophy. In the very least,i hope I helped someone with the moisture problem.
And now for the smell. While not a serious issue, I'd still like to find out what, if anything can stop it. When I'm outside I notice a strong smell of what I believe to be creosote(smells like railroad ties). And it also smells in the boiler room too. Is this from wood not being seasoned? Most all of our wood has been down for over a year. But like I said this is more of an annoyance than anything serious as I've checked the stack several times and find no build up.
Now for a more serious problem. Ash and charcoal particals get by the cyclone and "tee" and lay in the elbow and horizontal pipe. I actually had ash laying on the chimney cap of about a half an inch thick! But the scary thing was that the charcoal in the elbow heated up so much that the high heat caulking on the stack turned to a powder. And the stainless pipe became discolored. Thankfully I was home at the time and caught it. Now I clean it out once or twice a week. When I talked to Carl last year he said that they acknowledged they had an issue with particulates getting past the cyclone and were working on possible fixes. Then I talked to his replacement who was quite rude when saying there was no known problem or fix. So I was wondering if anyone has this issue with their WoodGun and found any fixes. I was thinking of maybe putting stainless screen mesh on either end of the cyclone to knock down at least the charcoal particals.
I'd like to find other WoodGun owners that have these or similar issues and maybe we can all figure out possible fixes together. Kind of the "two heads are better than one" philosophy. In the very least,i hope I helped someone with the moisture problem.