idling

[goodwood]

I know idling is not good due to creosote , but i was wondering what you guys consider idling?when the fan is totallly off ,below 50% or what.

 

[Jeff S]

I would consider no fan to be in the idle mode because of the lack of combustion air.

With fan at 50% I would consider the combustion as being throttled and still burning efficiently.

 

[willworkforwood]

I know idling is not good due to creosote , but i was wondering what you guys consider idling?when the fan is totallly off ,below 50% or what.

The Econoburn factory at some point tried an experiment to eliminate idling by keeping the fan turning slowly - don't know exactly how fast, but probably 10-20%. That didn't get the job done at all - creosote by the truckload. I don't know if boiler fans all have similar specs, so I would guess that the minimum effective speed % is also variable, depending on the max RPM of the fan and the particular boiler. We run small fires to prevent idling during the waking hours, but at night some idling is unavoidable. Last year I tried a fan speed of 40% for a while, which produced longer burns but more creosote. So I gave up on that fairly quickly and went back to the 50% factory setting. After that try, I changed the diff setting to cause the idle to last longer - deep idle is what I recall seeing it described as. That change is working much better - definitely somewhat longer burns and no extra creosote. I've been tweaking idle duration time, and evaluating results - lots of possibilities, and I'm not sure where it will eventually wind up.

 

[KenLockett]

Assuming one does not have storage, what does everyone consider a nominal, short, and long idle period. I typically find that I am idling for approximately 15-30 minutes depending on outside temps, thermostat settings, wood type, etc. Idling in my case implies draft fan off and no combustion taking place.