On my natural draft tarm 502 I have 30 + feet of chimney. So much draft that I have inserted the turbulators( from the oil side that I dont use) one at a time.I now have all 6 turbs in the tubes. With 5 in I was seeing 5 to 600 degree stack temps, and had very good performance, very quick start ups and great heat retention. with all 6 in i see temp of 4 to 500 degrees. I just put the last one in tonite. I realize that a barometric damper is to control draft but I think the turbs really enhance performance. Would it be easier or better to "dial in " the ideal draft with a barometric damper with the turbs in place? I dont have a barometric damper in place now. I just cant seem to stop tinkering, tweaking etc.
barometric damper or turbulators to control draft??
- Thread starter mikeyny
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taxidermist
Minister of Fire
Mike,
Check out my video on the bottom of this page. I too had a real good draft and what was happening was it was sucking the hot air past my turbulators. I installed a BD and can now really fine tune my boiler.
Rob
Check out my video on the bottom of this page. I too had a real good draft and what was happening was it was sucking the hot air past my turbulators. I installed a BD and can now really fine tune my boiler.
Rob
jebatty
Minister of Fire
Both impact draft through the boiler, and therefore impact burn rate and stack temp, but their operation is different. Turbulators slow down the velocity of and mix the hot burn gases through the hx tubes, allowing more heat transfer of higher temp gases to the water surrounding the hx tubes. The result is reduced draft and lower stack temp than otherwise but also more efficient operation through capture of more heat to the water.
Barometric dampers introduce boiler room air into the stack, thereby reducing draft through the boiler, slowing down the burn rate, and lowering the temp of the hot burn gases. The effect is lower temp burn gases entering the hx tubes, but also reduced velocity and therefore greater transfer of heat (from the lower temp gases) to the hx tubes. The net stack result is somewhat similar to turbulators, but less heat output from the boiler.
In my experience the goal is to find a "sweet spot" of stack temp where the boiler seems to operate the best at the heat output needed. While this may be achieved using either method, I would always use turbulators because they increase the overall efficiency of the boiler, and then add a BM only if additional draft control and yet lower stack temp was needed. A good stack thermometer or sensor is needed to do this well. For my system, and the wood I burn, stack temp of 380-425 seems to be that sweet spot, and I use a draft fan motor speed control, along with the manual draft gate adjustment on my Tarm if more control is needed, to maintain full burn operation in this range to the reasonable extent possible. My stack thermometer is a K-type probe to a digital panel meter readout.
Barometric dampers introduce boiler room air into the stack, thereby reducing draft through the boiler, slowing down the burn rate, and lowering the temp of the hot burn gases. The effect is lower temp burn gases entering the hx tubes, but also reduced velocity and therefore greater transfer of heat (from the lower temp gases) to the hx tubes. The net stack result is somewhat similar to turbulators, but less heat output from the boiler.
In my experience the goal is to find a "sweet spot" of stack temp where the boiler seems to operate the best at the heat output needed. While this may be achieved using either method, I would always use turbulators because they increase the overall efficiency of the boiler, and then add a BM only if additional draft control and yet lower stack temp was needed. A good stack thermometer or sensor is needed to do this well. For my system, and the wood I burn, stack temp of 380-425 seems to be that sweet spot, and I use a draft fan motor speed control, along with the manual draft gate adjustment on my Tarm if more control is needed, to maintain full burn operation in this range to the reasonable extent possible. My stack thermometer is a K-type probe to a digital panel meter readout.
Econoburns have spiral, solid metal turbulators as standard equipment, and they also highly recommend installing a BD with their boilers as well. This past Summer in trying to develop an in-season HX cleanout process, I asked Dale about replacing the spiral turbs with heavy chain. He replied that they (EB) had tried chain and found it didn't break up the laminar flow as well as the spirals, and negatively affected performance. Size once again makes a difference ;-P So if you want to have even more fun Mike, try turbs of different sizes or shapes. I also agree with Rob that a BD offers another good opportunity to improve boiler performance. One of these days when some extra time shows up %-P , I would like to experiment with +- changes away from the standard manometer setting to find out if there is anything to be gained from doing that. One extra side benefit with my BD is the ability to easily pull out fly ash accumulated in the flue pipe via the BD flap. IMO, the worst thing that could come from installing a BD would be just wasting a few bucks, because it can always just be capped if you don't like it.
Nice video taxi-d I was at the supply house the other day and saw the exact same manometer you have. I think I will keep the 6th turb in for a while. I noticed it does not start up as fast but when it gets up to temp it seems to keep a more steady even temp than before. I recently replaced the loading door and that alone made a huge difference in control of the burn. Mine was cracked real bad and leaking like crazy. Thanks for the help guys.
Mike
Mike
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