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  1. BoilerMan Minister of Fire

    joined: Apr 16, 2012
    987 posts
    Northern Maine
    Haha, it's in my nature, I need to...stop.....rrrrrrr. LOL

    TS
    #26

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  2. Fred61 Minister of Fire

    joined: Nov 26, 2008
    1,143 posts
    Southeastern Vt.
    I've always been a fanatic about burning really dry wood, therefore I don't even own a moisture meter. Any wood I burn has seasoned ror 3 years. From time to time, one year old wood has been accidentally made it on to the wood cart and has resulted in a poor burn which needed to be continuously stirred in order to break up the bridging. Suggest you try busting up a couple pallets and perhaps add a little charcoal and see how that burns just to ease your mind. It has to be your wood. I can tell by your past posts that you are too practical and analytical to have your settings so far out of whack that you get this poor of a burn.
  3. flyingcow Minister of Fire

    joined: Jun 4, 2008
    1,684 posts
    northern-half of maine
    What kind of stack temp probe you using? Or are you using a magnet type? if you using a mganet type, they read lower. Probably you know all this, but i had a thought.

    19% is a good number. Pics look fine to me. Turbs had fly ash, no creosote. Did notice a layer of tar on the exhaust coming out of turbs and heading for chimney?
  4. Eric Johnson Minister of Fire

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    5,703 posts
    Central NYS
    I'm with Clarkburg. Don't jump to conclusions until you've had it going for a week or more. I fired my rig up last night for the first time this season and it took right off, but I had to get it up to temp first. It's so nice to have a nice warm house for cheap.
  5. goosegunner Minister of Fire

    joined: Oct 15, 2009
    1,079 posts
    WI
    The lower chamber looks to have tar layer on the metal outside of the refractory target. Seems like that should have more dry appearance.

    gg
  6. Eric Johnson Minister of Fire

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    5,703 posts
    Central NYS
    That's probably because he wasn't getting good gasification, resulting in smoke in the lower chamber which condensed creosote to the steel. It pays to remember that any creosote in the lower chamber, in the hx tubes or the chimney, is going to smoke when it burns off, no matter how good your gasification flame is. So don't get discouraged at times, usually after extended idling, when you've got a dandy flame going in the lower chamber but still get smoke out of the chimney. It's probably just some residual creosote burning off.
  7. BoilerMan Minister of Fire

    joined: Apr 16, 2012
    987 posts
    Northern Maine
    Well I was all excited to try some of my really dry yellow birch tonight.....but the darn house is too warm. It's been in the 30s all day and my last fire went out @ 7 last night. I was dumping water into the slab at 116-120F for about three hours and man that is alot of heat the house was at 71 this morning and it's down to 70 as I type. Hmmm, this thing is putting out more heat than I thought. The old NewYorker would have burned up three loads if I were putting that much heat in the slab. I'm happy. Tomorrow I'll try the birch.

    BTW, the boiler has a stack temp probe for shutdown and fan modulation, so the stack temp is on the digital display, I also have a magnetic thermometer that reads within a few degrees of the factory probe.

    TS
  8. wardk Member

    joined: Jul 19, 2012
    167 posts
    B.C. Canada
    TS This seems way too complicated , the specific speeches , the moisture content , the size of splits, the amount of coals,have to stack your wood in a certain way, how would you possibly train your wife to start a fire?

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