Could use some advice. Chugging ect

[Trzebs13]

I installed a Greenfire 130 last year and for the most part works well. But when I fill it with either very dry wood or even a large load (for the nite) when it gets going good the boiler chuggs and sounds like the thing is going to take off for the great unknown.

Any suggestions would a Barometric damper help?
I have 15' of class A 8" chimney with now elbows ect just straight up.

Any other tricks any one has is greatly appreciated!

 

[sgschwend]

You didn't say you have a draft fan.

Can you measure the draft? The fans really make the draft work

 

[heaterman]

Understanding the cause of huffing, puffing, chugging or what ever a person may call it may help. Simply put, sufficient oxygen is not present in the combustion chamber to support the rate of burn the fuel load is capable of. As you noted, it happens when a load of dry wood or a very large load is used. I have seen this happen on fan forced, assisted draft and natural draft boilers. You want to see something impressive load up a Garn with a full chamber of dry wood and cardboard. The overhead garage doors in the building were moving in and out about an honest inch and dust was blowing in/out under the door seals. Needless to say, the owner didn't do that again.

While a draft assist fan may pull enough air into the combustion chamber to "make it burn right", you have to think about what is going on there. Assuming you have the correct air flow or draft through the appliance, adding more air to an oversized fuel load simply blows more heat out of your exhaust. The boiler is designed with a given heat transfer surface area that will support its rated output. When you burn at a rate higher than the transfer area will effectively deal with you are simply wasting it up the flue.

 

[Trzebs13]

I get what your saying about the avalible oxegen. I was just wondering if a damper whould help this. I don't have a fan and would rather not put one on. Probably my best soulution is either make smaller fires and or don't burn soft woods at all. Don't really have to but I just like burning stuff laying around. All of my normal fire wood is 1 year seasoned white and red oak.

 

[Tony H]

I found with the EKO I would get the same thing when using a load of pallet wood or lots of smaller sticks. It didn't ever do it a load of normal larger splits even with up 1/4 of pallet or sticks. I am not sure what you have for air control mixing adjustments but I would think there should be a setting where it can tolerate some small wood in each load without puffing.
Mine did it so hard a couple of times it pushed the damper open! That's scary so I put a clip in it so it can't push wide open and cause an overheat .

 

[heaterman]

I get what your saying about the avalible oxegen. I was just wondering if a damper whould help this. I don't have a fan and would rather not put one on. Probably my best soulution is either make smaller fires and or don't burn soft woods at all. Don't really have to but I just like burning stuff laying around. All of my normal fire wood is 1 year seasoned white and red oak.

My gut feeling is that a barometric would not help and would probably allow a lot of smoke into the building during that event. The boiler will try to get air from anywhere including the barometric opening and the expel it out the same opening when it "exhales".

 

[Joegoesfishing]

I have a Greenfire 100. I have the same problem when using wood that is both too small & too dry. Too small is the biggest culprit. The Greenfire works best on large unsplit logs. When using dry wood, mix in some greener logs of a large size. I had a heck of a time the first season as most of my wood was split into smaller pieces. Now I only split the logs too big to fit thru the door.

 

[Trzebs13]

It is amazing how this is. My father has been burning wood for longer than I have been alive. And he can't believe that these big chunks that I am feeding it burn. I was not very confortable at first putting these large rounds in there because there is no way a 10" round gets dry I really don't care how long you cure it but it really dosen't have to be dry. Last year i ran out of money so I put about 7' of single wall chimney pipe right out of the boiler and then had 8' of class A and I got a huge amount of creosel! In fact I had a old oil change pan under the chimney cuz it would drip constantly. I so I bought the rest of the class a pipe for this year and even now when it's not cold yet and the fire dosen't really burn that much, I got none. No smell no nothing. I really didn't believe that this could make that much diffrence but it did. Still have a few things to do. Like a gravity feed overheat that I'm working on and a bypass loop to keep the stove water temp up. But I got to say that overall I am very happy with this stove and would do it again. The only thing Im still wondering is how it will keep up when I add my shop to it. And how much more wood that it will take in a years time.