Fine Tuning a Biomass 40

[torchmaster]

Installed Biomass 40 last January. Huge learning curve last year. Lots of Air lock problems. Any help on fine tuning gasification,air settiings for this season GREATLY appreciated. Seem to have blue flame only after manually knocking coals down over nozzle. Based on what I learned reading the fine tuning EKO 40 I think I'm having a "bridging" problem with coals being blown thru nozzle. ALL help appreciated! NO storage, system tied into existing oil furnace in basement for back-up. Bio circulator carries water B/N two boilers, oil circulator connected to thermastat in house and moves heat through radiators. I 've learned to cut thermostat down in house
till boiler up to temp, when I'm around in mornings.

 

[torchmaster]

Again lost gasification when coming out of idling mode. Put a couple more logs in stirred coals and gained immediate blue/yellow gasification, Seems that the only time it truly gasifies is when I'm babysitting it. Any suggestions greatly appreciated??

 

[taxidermist]

Are you finding un burnt logs in your boiler or is the fire going out? Bridging is when your logs get stuck and the bottom burns out of them. Your boiler is not always going to be a raging in the bottom chamber like when you first rake a nice bed of coals over the nozzles. What fan speed are you running? do you have the fan come on to purge your boiler? If you want to call me I will try to help you over the phone. PM me and I will send you my number.

Rob

 

[pybyr]

The color of the flame, and even the visibility of the flame, can vary _a lot_ during different stages of the burn, and yet some of the less visually impressive modes can still yield lots of heat. So don't just go by "blue flame."

What is your wood size and shape? If the Biomass is anything like a number of the other downdraft boilers, you'll see best results with wood that is not too large (some have said "size of a playing card" and I find that matches my experience). Bigger stuff either hangs up and fails to feed down towards the nozzle, or sometimes just won't get burning at the right pace to replenish the bed of glowing coals.

Also, how well seasoned is your wood? Wood that is high in moisture content will be much more of a struggle to bring to the right conditions for secondary burn.

 

[torchmaster]

Bottom seems to burn out more often than fire going out.. Really has trouble regaining gasification after idling, 35% of time fire goes out. I messed with the primary air setting couple weeks ago to deal with wet wood. I'm no on 1 yr seasoned locust 16" long, 10" diameter logs quartered. This last loading @ 10:00 o'clock I replit into 1.5-2" quarters. Thanks for all the help I readily accept an orange flame as compared to no flame. AT ten o'clock had raging blue flame, 10:20 orange blue flame.11:00 no secondary burn, just seeing few hot sparks/small coals fall. Primary @ 1/4", secondary 1/8", flap at 1/2" at left side of triangle on front panel!! Boiler temp @ only 150F, set contoller at 185 , and fan running on high.

 

[tbsdolmar]

I run my primary so the opening is even with the bottom of the "V" at the bottom. The secondary is 3/8 to 1/2". Fan is 80%. I cut my wood around 16" and split down to the playing card size.