Frustrated with my Orlan 60...any one wanna buy it?! Or help me?! Long read...sorry. Just.Need.He

[taxidermist]

[quote author="Gilby" date="1322882762"]Sounds like I"m guilty of bad wood. He dropped them off the trailer four weeks ago. I cut a bunch each weekend and am building a nice pile. Definitely green still by the sounds of it. There was a large pile of old wood my dad brough down for me...but while I burned that, I didn't have the boiler adjusted to where it is now and wasn't doing anything. In the mean time, the load of logs was placed on top of my stack of old dry wood. Oops.

yep time to look for dry seasoned wood. Kinda sucks but at least ya know now.

Rob

 

[TCaldwell]

if you have the available room, resplit the wood smaller and cross stack inside for a month at least and mix with seasoned wood or bio bricks to get you through. Basically consider what you have outside for next years burning. There are no shortcuts to burning wood, it's like anything else, part of the satisfaction is working through it with a little help. In the mean time as you have been trying to burn green wood the hx tubes should be cleaned, I would bet some orlan owners here would walk you through it, there are no dumb questions!
tom

 

[willworkforwood]

Sounds like I"m guilty of bad wood. .....

IMO, all you're guilty of is not having experience as a wood burner - you sound willing to do what it takes to come up-to-speed with it. But, from what you wrote, I think the former owner is the real perp in this deal. He told you that the boiler heated the house to the point of needing to open a window, so he must have known all about (and used) well-seasoned firewood. But it also sounds like he didn't do anything toward getting that information to you. I'd like to believe that any of the regulars on this forum selling their house/boiler would send that message to the buyer in a big way - in fact the buyer would get tired of hearing it repeated so many times. Not saying you could have done much differently at this late date, but at least you wouldn't have piled a bunch of wet logs on top of the only seasoned wood you had :sick:. Hopefully you will budget the time required to get a good supply of wood c/s/s for next year, and just make do as best as you can this year, using the suggestions already posted above. Good luck with it!

 

[goosegunner]

Last week I had some smoke/ output problems due to bringing in some wood that wasn't covered as well as it should have been.

Get some wood inside split it small

Start your fire small

Fill to a third full burn for an hour or less

Fill more as boiler develops nice coal bed.

If you try to pile the thing full of poor wood it will cause you all kinds of grief. At least give it a chance to get really hot and limit the amount of less than desirable wood.

gg

 

[Duetech]

Hi Gilby, There are many good suggestions here and each one has merit but I see that your boiler is in the garage??? and that it is unheated except for the boiler correct? With my EK040 I ran into the same problem. Hours of frustrating late night "why won't this thing work" smelling like a sausage. Slowing the water coming back in to the boiler is one major step to help the water supply stay warmer but I also found another culprit even with well seasoned (according to gassifier standards) firewood. One of the reasons you have learned to "not" load to the fullest is the wood itself is a source of "cold" going in to the boiler and will drop the temp. The colder the wood the farther the drop. At max the air going in to the combustion chamber is 180* IF the boiler is up to 180*. If the wood is at -2* that air is going to cool dramatically and usually by dumping condensation all over your wood. High m/c is a problem with gassers but especially so when the stick of wood is frozen. Water on your nozzle area will evaporate into steam and get recycled again. Lay up a couple of boiler loads in the house where it can be at room temp for several days. Also a load or so of smaller than normal splits can be used to get the boiler up to temp. My problems were very prevalent when the temperature was -10*f or below (say house temp at 70*f and outside temp at -10*f and you have 80* of heat sink sucking out heat and when the boiler is 165*f there is 175*f difference between it and the wood) Throw in condensation moisture that will exceed the ideal 20% and you have a boiler primed to fail. The best way perhaps is the wood when that cold is a hand full odf ice you just threw into a cup of coffee. You get gasificxation of the coals just above th nozzle but you are not creating more coals to keep the chain reaction going and there goes you fire. You have two 1" x 8" nozzles that need to be surrounded by 20 or more times that area of red hot coals. If the wife complains about the wood in the house buy about a dozen large bags of charcoal briquets for your convenience (stored in the house) and a dozen roses for her when you find this works. Remember to reintorduce the return water slowly and continue with your one a/w exchanger routine.

 

[Fred61]

Many good suggestions here including Cave's. Just for the record, I don't store any wood inside my basement (boiler area) except for the two or three small splits left on the cart that didn't get burned that session. I don't dispute Caves experience with cold wood and I'm sure he's reading the experience accurately base on his previous reporting on this forum. My wood comes in just at fire starting time once a day.

My take on it is that wood in itself (at least the stuff most of us burn) is fairly low in mass when it is down to 15 or 20 percent moisture and therefore does not carry that much cold into the firebox. However, add 10 percent moisture to it and things start to change. This is where the mass starts changing. Now 25 to 35 percent, that's five more pounds of water going into the firebox assuming a 50 pound load of wood. It takes alot of energy to turn all that into steam. So my feeling the culprit is the guy that is throwing that 5 pounds of water into the firebox and he may be the same guy that threw the ice cubes into the coffee, or was it tea.

I'm not trying to confuse anyone here. I just want to establish that experiences vary with heating units, operators of such units and condition of boiler fodder.

Tell me where I'm going wrong here!

 

[Onfoot]

Sounds like a useful conclusion to a long learning curve for a new gasification boiler user. Impressive information and experience being shared. For what it's worth, my wood lives in a covered outdoor woodshed, with 3-4 days of wood stored in the garage close to the boiler. So it is warm and dry when loaded. It is useful to think that an unseasoned 50lb load of wood is the equivalent of adding half a gallon of water into the mix (5lbs of water). Make that ice water and you have really put a 'damper' on the burn! Surely there would be somebody in Gilby's neck of the WY woods who could sell him a seasoned load of firewood? I cut my own, but our local suppliers get a bad rep. quick if they are selling green wood (without at least specifying such).

 

[Duetech]

"I cut my own, but our local suppliers get a bad rep. quick if they are selling green wood (without at least specifying such)."
In my neck of the woods a lot of wood sales people would be flabbergasted. +1

 

[Stickler]

Good advice on the condition of your firewood. Maybe build a good woodshed, even before your storage. Split it small, get ahead a couple of years. It seems like the ethical sale of the house should have included a few cords of dry fuel.

For this winter, check the local craigs list type boards for some dry wood, pallets salvage wood...anything even partially dry.

Don't give up!

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

I can only store ~ 1 cord in my outdoor 'boiler room' and with gables/soffit openings, you can see your breath in there during winter. My unit is designed differently than the OP's, but, as others have stated, I try to avoid:

1)Going directly from outside into the boiler. This is especially important once the wood is snow covered. Ice covered snow will turn coals into ash clumps, and a wife into an ice queen!!

2)Filling a fresh load when the water temps are at the bottom. That is to say, Load when the water is approaching 190 °F or wherever your upper set point is. The unit will cool down some with a big fresh load, so this gives a recovery cushion.

When most of the available wood is wetter than ideal, I load one layer of dry wood directly on the coals, then after its ripping, add the wetter wood on top. If you have any ice on the wood, metticulously chip it ALL off.

 

[Hunderliggur]

Even though this is my third season heating with a gassification boiler, I do not yet have a supply two years ahead. I overcome part of that by splitting smaller (easy to pick up by the end with one hand). I have also seen a big difference with warmer (not frozen) wood. The amount of energy it takes to change the water in the wood (moisture content) from ice to liquid is significant (but less significant than water to steam!). Cut your losses by making sure you have non-frozen wood ready to load, and the warmer the better. In the "every little bit helps" category, put a small box fan on low near the pile preparing to burn. I bet you will get another few percent off the MC. You can get a MC on ebay for 50 bucks or so - you will need it long term so get it now.

Be sure to check your return temp protection, the boiler should not be less than 165 after it initially heats up. If it gets to 170 then drops to <165, your return protection is not correct. Your boiler will offset your other heating sources. Set your fossil system to keep the house tolerable. Use the boiler now to "top off" the house whenever you can. I figure I can save about $1 per hour for every house I heat with my boiler (or storage). With 720 hours in a month this can really add up!

Dump your expectation based on what the seller told you. Get some dry wood (I can usually find pallets for free) to start your boiler from a cold start and you will live life easier.

 

[Tennman]

Ahhhh... Deja vu flashbacks for me with many of the same guys who encouraged me thu the many of the same circumstances. Our home is larger and absolutely far less efficient than yours and now in our Third year finally have the wood where I now see the need for storage with a boiler of similar capacity. Your system will work fine. Many of us who went thu your agony started with a system we installed, were smart on the install but green on the operations. This group helped me thu system debugging, wet wood and very bad underground lines. Unfortunately bad fuel masks lots of other sources of inefficiency. Don't assume your system is RIGHT, but you have the essentials for it to be right. Get some dry wood because that really is the starting point to learning how to operate your system. You have much to learn grasshopper.... Most of us now speak from experience of where you are now. But make no mistake this is a bigger commitment than calling the propane or oil guy. But it will work.KLs

 

[Gilby]

Wow. Gotta say...thank you guys SO much for all of the advice. I don't have internet and my cell doesn't work at my house (live in the sticks...and it's great!), but I was able to catch a few responses when we were in town saturday night. The easiest thing to try at that point was to chop some wood. I had been told to burn the larger logs because they lasted longer...but that was my #1 problem.

I split a ton of my wood - and couldn't believe how cold and wet it was once opened up. The diameter of my logs is too big to fit into the boiler, so I had been cutting them in shorter lengths - kind of like "discs." They split into three or four smaller chunks. I loaded up the boiler with those chunks and I've been at 175 pretty much all weekend. It was -8 degrees outside this morning at 5:30....and my house was 73 degrees...and my water temp was 172. Can't beat that.

On a side note, the previous owner did mention dry wood...but very easy to underestimate the importance of that not having had a boiler like this in the past. And the guy that sold me the wood is a huge boiler fan and has an outdoor unit similar to this one. He mentioned that some of the wood might be a tad green yet...but who am I do know which stuff is and which stuff isn't??!!

At any rate...my house is warm...and it seems to be working pretty well. I cringe at the thought of another step in this process (splitting... on top of cutting etc.), but its pretty easy to split a big load in the garage after the kids go to bed and have it work well in the boiler.

Thanks again for ALL the advice and help!! I'm sure I'll have a hundred more questions as this continues........

 

[maple1]

Good to hear some positive on it!

 

[Tennman]

Great news. Use some longer, smaller cross section splits. Not great, but will get you thru this season. But better yet is if you can buy some honest to goodness seasoned wood and leave the new stuff for next year you'll be amazed how much less wood for a far hotter fire you'll get. Your on your way.

 

[mwk1000]

Wow nice how fast this group cut to the matter. I had to chuckle as I read that the orlan would only get to 145 I thought BEEN THERE BAD WOOD. The only way my eko 60 will ever run that way is when the gas in the tank is weak. As to the water to air exhangers they work well for me with low temps. I run all the way down to 85 before they are not usable, They deliver air 15 degrees cooler than the water as a rough rule in my house. You just need to get used to the ever increasing run time of the furnace until it's on non-stop when your tank is "out".

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

mwk . . . how hot it your boiler to get the tank to 160 °F ?

 

[mwk1000]

The boiler runs at about 170 for most of the heating and starts to climb when the bottom water starts heating up. At then end it runs at 195 IF I have a good load of wood. Usually it is trailing off and I don't want to reload since it is early in the morning and the trade off is not good for a few degrees more.

I simply shift to starting the fire every night at about the 110 mark during the cold months. This gives me my 70 degrees and I get about 170 ish in the tank by morning. Factoring in the time to get up to temp for the cold boiler and the heat load from the house. Works good and does not stress my EDPM rubber tank.

Edit : The boiler will read 194 but the actual water feed is 184, I hate that about the eko. I have an in line temp and a sensor that both say about 10 sometimes 15 less than the eko built in sensor.