I have a older EKO 60 that I am burning and this is my 3rd year with it. It was 5 years old or so when I got it but it was never hooked up. I have the older style controller (reads in Celsius and it doesn't have a variable speed setting for the fans), no terbulators, a flat bottom in the upper chamber, and they were built at that time with a really flimsy front cover that holds the fans. My boiler, and one other (tacoman's, if I remember right, and maybe barnartist's also) came from the factory with the secondary air settings punched into the front cover 3/4"'s to low so the secondary air could not be adjusted properly. I fixed the secondary's, cut firebrick to add to the bottom of the primary chamber so that it sloped towards the nozzles, modified the primary air slides to be able to move them with out having to remove the cover, and added chain terbulators. With every addition I did to the boiler, it would work better and I would keep getting happier that I had changed from the OWB. I'm finally ahead in the wood department this year and this helped me produce even more BTU's. With all of the changes, I would increase the heat output and lower the times when smoke would appear from the chimney. I spent most of last year, and all of this year trying to figure out where to set my air settings so that I would not loose coals over my front nozzle. I loaded the boiler every way possible with wood, but couldn't keep the damn coals on the front nozzle. I would always have gasification out the back nozzle, but I couldn't keep it going on the front so off and on I would have the chimney smoke. When I did have gasification out of both nozzles, the flame would be really different colors between the front and back. I started wondering if I may have misaligned air holes leading to the front nozzles. I started rereading some older posts, and came across the ones on placing a firebrick on one nozzle to cut the output during the should season.
Seeing as I always had problems with the front nozzle, I decided to shut that one down with firebrick. I'm on my second charging of my tanks and I finally got this beast working to its full potential. I opened the fan opening just a touch and I'm running the same stack temp as I was before but never loosing gasification in the front nozzle as it is blocked so no fuel can go down it. What I basically have now is a EKO 40 but with a larger firebox and more heat exchanger.
What my long rambling post is for is to say to anyone trying to decide between OWB or gasification, there is no comparison. My wood consumption was almost cut in half before I started to make changes to my boiler. I'm really excited to see where I end up this year as I am getting a full burn now. To those that hear my changes to the boiler and don't want to have to screw around making changes, keep in mind that this one is 8 or 9 years old and the new ones have all the changes I made already on them. Now I just have to get my lazy butt moving on replacing my lines from my pole barn to the house (long story, but I tried to go cheap......) to move my hard earned BTU's into the house.
Seeing as I always had problems with the front nozzle, I decided to shut that one down with firebrick. I'm on my second charging of my tanks and I finally got this beast working to its full potential. I opened the fan opening just a touch and I'm running the same stack temp as I was before but never loosing gasification in the front nozzle as it is blocked so no fuel can go down it. What I basically have now is a EKO 40 but with a larger firebox and more heat exchanger.
What my long rambling post is for is to say to anyone trying to decide between OWB or gasification, there is no comparison. My wood consumption was almost cut in half before I started to make changes to my boiler. I'm really excited to see where I end up this year as I am getting a full burn now. To those that hear my changes to the boiler and don't want to have to screw around making changes, keep in mind that this one is 8 or 9 years old and the new ones have all the changes I made already on them. Now I just have to get my lazy butt moving on replacing my lines from my pole barn to the house (long story, but I tried to go cheap......) to move my hard earned BTU's into the house.