Have been running the Eko 40 for 5 days now some questions

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J

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Aug 16, 2010
34
new mexico
1. I am getting a lot of creosote build up that I can not open the damper or the door without using a hammer. The wood is very dry cut 2 years ago. I have about 3 feet of single wall black pipe and the rest is triple wall pipe. I was told to insulate the single wall pipe but have not found the insulation to do it yet.
2. When I load it at night I wake up the next morning with the thing almost still full of wood with fuel indicator on.
3. I have 1000 gallon storage t that seems to be taking for ever to heat up. the boiler gets to about 150f and then it drops down to 130. This happens over and over. I have not seen it get up over 160 yet. I think because the water coming back into the boiler just is not hot enough yet and keeps cooling the boiler down. I do have a 3 way mixing valve.
4. I still have to set all the air intake settings. I have been messing with the fan air intake and that is all. I have that open all the way.
thanks for the help
 
Your ball valve on the boiler loop above your mixing valve where do you have it set at? Is your boiler idling before your tank is up to temp? You say your wood is seasoned...what type of wood is it? If its oak it has about 3 more years to go to be seasoned for our boilers. You really need a moisture meter to tell how seasoned wood is for our boilers.

Rob
 
I have an Eco 40 I’ve been running for 5 years now. I have a 700 gal storage tank with 120ft of ¾ copper tube for an exchanger. I also have 100 ft of ½ copper tube in the tank for my domestic hot water. I found that I needed to crank my mixing valve up to 150f to allow my boiler to get a good head start. If I let my tank temp get below 140f the air induction fan will run steady and the boiler will only reach about 170-175f. Once the tank get to about 165f the boiler temp will reach 185f and the induction fan will shut down for 10-15 min. I can normally get my tank back up to 180f in a single burn. That’s with 2 year old mixed hardwood (maple, ash, birch, oak). To address your creosote issue, you are going to get buildup if you don’t get the boiler temp up to 180-185f. You can adjust the circulator pump temp, and mixing valve to give you a little boost but the key is to get your tank temp up and keep it up, anything below 140 will be tuff to recover from in a single burn especially with a 1000 gal tank. Another important thing to keep in mind is not to let the coals build up to high in the firebox. I find that when I let the coal burn down to where there is only a little left on the front and back edges (just enough to start the next load of wood ablaze) that the creosote is burned away. It took me the better part of two season to figure out the boilers personality but I think I got it now. Note: if you change anything in your exchanger configuration you’re going to change the systems personality.
 
hulk said:
1. I am getting a lot of creosote build up that I can not open the damper or the door without using a hammer. The wood is very dry cut 2 years ago. I have about 3 feet of single wall black pipe and the rest is triple wall pipe. I was told to insulate the single wall pipe but have not found the insulation to do it yet.
2. When I load it at night I wake up the next morning with the thing almost still full of wood with fuel indicator on.
3. I have 1000 gallon storage t that seems to be taking for ever to heat up. the boiler gets to about 150f and then it drops down to 130. This happens over and over. I have not seen it get up over 160 yet. I think because the water coming back into the boiler just is not hot enough yet and keeps cooling the boiler down. I do have a 3 way mixing valve.
4. I still have to set all the air intake settings. I have been messing with the fan air intake and that is all. I have that open all the way.
thanks for the help
Click to expand...

First of all, insulating the single wall flue is not going to solve this problem. It wouldn't be unusual for the boiler temperature to fluctuate up and down if you are charging a cold tank. It shouldn't be falling to 130* if you have a boiler protection valve. You say you have a "three way mixing valve". Would that be a Danfoss valve? If so, it shouldn't be letting in return water any colder than 140*. Eventually your tank will arrive at a temperature where the return water will not cool the boiler as much.
Have you hung around the boiler to see what the temp is when it goes into idle. I'm assuming it goes into idle mode although you didn't state it. The 150* number must be where your controller is set to come on. Talk to us a little more about the problem. Perhaps try to answer the questions I have posed. There are members on this forum that are much more knoledgeble than I and hopefully will chime in and grill you for more evidence.

I don't think your combustion fan is causing this problem although it is more than likely adjusted incorrectly at this point. You need to get your control issue straightened out before fine tuning the burn.

PS What is the maximum temperature your storage tank has achieved?
 
I just got comfortable in my recliner and was about to take a nap when another thought entered my mind. It would be nice if this was the problem. My Unit has the EKOSTER 2 controller on it and it has a start-up mode which gives the boiler a certain amount of time to achieve a given temperature. On mine it happens to be 70*C. If it doesn't achieve that temperature in a certain amount of time (forgot how long) the combustion fan shuts down and then must be restarted. I increased the low limit (on) of my circulator to let the boiler exit from this mode before the circulator would activate. Don't know what you have for a controller and I don't know anything about other controllers but this could be happening. When it goes off in that mode it will not restart on its own. The on button must be "mashed" (in the words of Lyndon B. Johnson).
 
Did you happen to double check your Danfoss valve during your install to make sure the element was pointing in the proper direction? Once your fire is burning your boiler output temp should never drop below 140. Really...it should never drop below mid 150's I would think. I say this because if your Danfoss is working properly the water coming in to your boiler should never be below 140. So it would not be possible for outputs to be below that either.

It might be worth your time to pop the cover off your mixing valve and double check. Also, you do need to close your bypass valve (ball valve) on your bypass loop to almost completely closed. I bet mine is 80-90-% closed. This forces more hot water to your tanks.

Do you have a three speed pump? If so, run it on low for a while.

Try running your air at 70-80% with the blades 100% open. Did you also check your primary and secondary settings to make sure they match the manual? Lots of folks will tinker with these after a while but the stock settings are many times good enough to run very well.

And last...it will take a day or two to get the water out of your refractories. After that it will probably take another day to heat your tanks. It takes me 2 full days to heat my 1000 gallons with a nicely tuned and broken in EKO 40 (with no heat loads during these 2 days).
 
One more suggestion - set your pump-on temp (P) to 160 with hysteresis (Ph) to 4 or 5. Having the pump come on in the 140's seems very wasteful to me. These gassers aren't really cranking until above 160 so why not let it get hot quicker without the pump running...
 
Thanks agian for the help.
My ball valve coming from the top of my boiler to the 3 way mixing valve is open all the way. The ball valve coming from the bottem of my tank is wide open. I have two 500 gallon tanks one on top of the other. I dont have a temp gage on the tanks yet, but the top 1/2 of the top 500 gallon tank gets hot to the touch and the bottem 500 gallon tank is just warm
I dont know what idling means because I though the furnace is going all out all the time now that I am heating up the two tanks and the house. The fan is always going. When I get it going it takes about 20 minutes to get to 145 and kick on the circulating pumps once the circ pump is working it gets up to about 155 and then drops below 145 and the pump goes off. I have the temp set at 185 but it does not get above 155. How do I adjust the circ pump temp and why would I want to do that. I have a danfose mixcing valve I got from cozy heat.
 
Ok then here is your problem.....close your ball valve till its just open about 1 set you pump launch for 160* as your storage heats up you can close it more till its almost closed. Turn your dial till it reads 195* here is the controller manual http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/PDF/RK-2001UA-ENG1.pdf

What is happening is your pump launch is coming on and circulating cold water around your boiler loop then your danfoss opens gives your boiler a slug of cooler water and cools the boiler off and then your pump stops. This is happening over and over. It will take forever to heat 1000 gal of water this way. This should give you a good start then we can work out the other bugs from there.

PM me if you want to give me a call





Rob
 
hulk said:
Thanks agian for the help.
My ball valve coming from the top of my boiler to the 3 way mixing valve is open all the way. The ball valve coming from the bottem of my tank is wide open. I have two 500 gallon tanks one on top of the other. I dont have a temp gage on the tanks yet, but the top 1/2 of the top 500 gallon tank gets hot to the touch and the bottem 500 gallon tank is just warm
I dont know what idling means because I though the furnace is going all out all the time now that I am heating up the two tanks and the house. The fan is always going. When I get it going it takes about 20 minutes to get to 145 and kick on the circulating pumps once the circ pump is working it gets up to about 155 and then drops below 145 and the pump goes off. I have the temp set at 185 but it does not get above 155. How do I adjust the circ pump temp and why would I want to do that. I have a danfose mixcing valve I got from cozy heat.
Click to expand...

It must be idle at some point, otherwise you would not have creosote and wood in it in the morning. Do you really still have a load of wood in it in the morning? In your first post you claimed that the temperature of the boiler was going down to 130*. In the above post you said that number was 145*. These numbers are important and need to be accurate in order for the folks on this forum to help you. They need to know exactly what's going on in order to zone in on the problem. Try to find out which controller you have so someone here with knowledge of that particular controller can help you raise the pump-on temperature.

Close the valve in the recirculating loop to about half open for starters.

Did you install the unit yourself?
 
I will pay closer attention to the temp tonight. I do know that the pump comes on at 145 and circulates the water for about 2-3 minutes and then shuts off because the temp drops. When I was putting the danfose valve in it was not letting any water circulate at first and my temp got up to 200f. I did put it in right according to the outside diagram. I took the cover off and took a screw driver and moved the spring back and forth a little bit and water started coming through. I do not know what it is suppose to look like inside. I will make sure tonight that it does not drop below 140. I will make all the changes suggested. I had a plumber help me put it together. He made all the designs and I put it together. Yea it burns great in the day and then the last two nights I loaded it full and the next morning it was a little more than half full. The coals on the very bottom above the nozzle are cold and no light shines through the nozzle into the secondary chamber. Last night it had to of idled all night and that is why the creosote was so bad.
thanks agian for the help. I will make those changes tonight and then post what happened
 
I adjusted the ball valve to almost closed and changed the circulator pump to come on at 160. It is now getting the temperature up to 167 stays there for about a minute and then the temp begins to drop and drops to 135. I am thinking that the danfoss valve is not working correct. I put it on according to the outside picture. But in the beginning it did not work so I took the cover off and moved the guts a little with a screw driver and then water began to flow. But i remember the spring not being on the side of the boiler. If the sticker was put on backwards and I have it on wrong could it even work?
I changed the primaries, secondaries, and fan air inlets to the manual. I am getting much longer burns, but gassification seems to be quit a lot less and takes longer to heat up the storage. I don't quit understand the secondary adjustment. mine were out probably 15 turns from being tight against the steel. Manuel says 3-4 turns. Does this mean 4 turns out from when it is against the frame?
I have been running the the stove for about 7 days now and my tanks still are not up to temp. By morning I do not have any hot water left.?
 
Yes turn screws in until they just touch then back out 3.5 to 4 turns out. Any idea what the moisture of you wood is? Open your ball valve a little more and try that. Split your wood real small and try that also. I think we are getting close but the wood might be a problem we need to get a idea of wood type and moisture.


Rob
 
I had a 5 gallon bucket collecting the water condensate dripping off the stack my first year, wet wood and everything on high ( I thought it would help the wet wood ). Half full of creosote water after the first year -- it has never happened since , my bypass return is somewhere 1/8 opened to 1/16 open. My eko fans are on 50% now and the others primary/secondary are close to factory.

I had the same fuel light problems ( I extended the time on the controller to make it go away ie turn that feature off ). I now worry about keeping the fire HOT with less air and watch the HX performance not the boiler temp. I never trusted that the danfoss was working right until I put a sensor on the boiler return.

The yellow line shows the danfoss working as it should at the start of a burn , since it is choking the water flow the heat exchange is very high but as it heats the valve opens and the flow is increased. Creates the little hump in the yellow ( Boiler side ) HX. ( The black line is the Storage side ) I pretty much just check this chart to insure that heat is being transferred well during the burn.

In short, you will get it figured out like everyone else here has.

Rob - Every time you post I think you are probably a stones throw from me. I'm about 2 miles from the south end of bull run in Fowlerville.
 

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hulk - a diagram would help. I am not certain of your Danfoss piping. From the output of the boiler you should have a "T" that sends the water to storage/load and the other leg to the Danfoss. Before the Danfoss you should have a valve (ball valve is fine). This should be 75 -90% CLOSED, you only need a little pressure through the Danfoss. Pump launch at 165 is fine, Ph of 5 works, if running that way, the boiler should heat up to 165 then run in the 159 - 166 range until the tank is hot. When below 160 the pump will shut off. It will probably be about 5 minutes from 165 - 159 and 3 minutes from 159 - 165 for starters, Don't give up. I know it is frustrating (I was thee last year) but you will get the hack. And you will continue to learn (I just raised my launch temp from 155 to 165 and Ph from 15 to 5 based on this thread). As you learn you will be happier with your unit. If your Danfoss is plumber wrong, you can rotate the guts inside without repiping. Tere are only three ways in can go in.

The spec sheet for the Danfoss is here http://na.heating.danfoss.com/PCMPDF/ESBE_TV_instructions.pdf . Depending on your installation (mine is on the left), match the numbers on the installation drawing with the valve picture numbers and make your unit match. Forget about what the sticker may say at this point.

Merry Christmas!
 
I'm only familar with a termovar mixing valve, but it should be almost closed. Try 1/4 loads of very dry splits in consecutive repetition over a few days, this should bring your temps up. Sweetheat
 
I have to say the boiler is really cool. My house has been 72 and toasty. I love the radiant heat. I adjusted the ball valves to help get the storage tanks hot and raised my circulating pump to come on at 170. I am trying to get my boiler up to hight temps to help with decreasing creosote build up. I have some questions:
1. I am still having a hard time getting and keeping my 2 500 gallons storage heat hot. I am heating my house at the same time. I have a fire going all the time. In a hurry to get my system up and running i still do not have a mixing valve. Is this one of the reasons my tanks are not staying hot?
3. Still insulating my shed and the tanks so I know this is also affecting heat storage.
4. Is the boiler idling when the circulating pump is off? Do your circulating pumps stay on all the time? My boiler takes about 15 minutes to get up to 160-170. Pump turns on and stays on for about 5 minutes and then the temp drops and the pump turns off. I do now have my ball valve about 1/4 open now
5. I turned my fan to 50% and fan air to 1/2 closed. This seems to allow the wood to burn longer. My flame in the secondary chamber is less but it is gassifing.
6. I live in new mexico at about 7000 feet. It is very dry. The wood I am using is ponderosa pine, pinion, ceder, and white pine. The wood was cut 2 years ago so I think it is dry. I am still having a lot of creosote build up. I still have got to use a hammer to get the door open and hammer the damper open. I think I am getting creosote buildup do to my boiler not getting up to 185-190. Like i said my shed is not fully insulated could this also be causign the build up. Do the logs you can add to help prevent creosote build up work?
7. If my danfose 3-way valve was put in backwords with spring facing away from the boiler could it still work? I need to take the cover off this week and see.
 
hulk, somethings way wrong. I'm not familiar with the danfose, I have the tarmovar mixing valve, it is supposed to keep 140 degree water coming back to the boiler in start up phase. the arrow should be facing the boiler if you have an arrow like the tarmovar does. object is to burn hot as you can, open fan air. that machine should burn with no creosote issues. you should not have to use the logs that help prevent creosote. your machine is a creosote burner when working correctly. my 2 cents. sweetheat
 
Hulk,

Your danfoss is a mixing valve that only allows 140* water to return to your boiler. This protects your boiler from cold water shock. Idling is when your fans shut off or slow way down. If your wood is dry you should have no problem heating up your tanks. A key part of this is missing here somewhere. Check your danfoss make sure its in right.


Here is what your settings should be

fan speed 100

Primaries 1/2"

Secondaries 4 turns out

Fan shutter 100%

Pump launch 160* for start up

Like I said before you are not looking for long burn times..... you are looking for hot fires to heat up storage then no burn times while working off storage. With fan settings like you have it you are smothering the fire.


Ball valve 1 open until you get a good fire going then start to close it as your tanks heat up keeping your boiler out of idle(fans slowing or turning off)

Rob
 
Hulk, I noticed a few posts back you said the tanks were hot to the touch. Your last post sais you are in the middle of insulating the tanks. You are loosing tons of heat if tanks aren't insulated. This is a good part of the problem and easy fix. Insulate the crap out of them. Another good way to find if your wood is damp is get some old 2x4s , and burn them. Run the stove hard. Insulating the tanks most likely will help a bunch.
 
-- In a hurry to get my system up and running i still do not have a mixing valve. --

Does this mean that you do not have a danfoss ?? If so then :
-- My boiler takes about 15 minutes to get up to 160-170. Pump turns on and stays on for about 5 minutes and then the temp drops and the pump turns off.

Is a reasonable reaction. Without the danfoss to hold back the very cold water from your tanks in a smooth fashion then you are heating up 50 gal and fushing it out with cold tank water shutting off the pump. < Rinse and repeat > over and over ...
 
thanks for the replies.
I do have a danfose mixing valve for the return water to the boiler. At this point I do not think it is working right. I am going to take the cover off tomorrow and make sure the guts are in correctly.
I do not have a mixing valve going into my house for the radiant floor so however hot the water is in the top of my storage tank is what my floor is getting. Therefore I might be using all the hot water out of storage
I think that temp should be around 100-120 right?.
I will open my fan shutter 100% and my fan speed to 100, start temp 160, primary 1/2 open and secondaries 4 turns out.
 
Hulk, it isn't hard to believe it isn't working right. Mine doesn't always work right neither. I can run my boiler and the valve doesn't always let water through after a cold start. It will get water temps in boiler till it blows an e2 code. I then have to turn the valve to bypass the Danfoss valve and then it sends hot water to the house. After that it works again till I start a new fire, but then sometimes it works. Seems sometimes the thermostat sticks or something. Talk about panic and confusion. Had no idea what to do till I called Mark at Ahona. I now keep it bypassed and run the pump off the thermostat. Hope this helps.
 
yea that is what happen to me the first time i fired it up. I got temp over 200 and then got error reading. The valve was not working so I took the cover off and moved the parts around a lii bit and then water started to run through. I just have not had the time to take the cover back off and see if it is backwards. I am tomorrow. Has anybody taken it apart and switched it around without unpiping the valve all together?
 
The Danfoss has a cover plate you remove to adjust the insides. No piping work necessary.
 
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