running cold???

[debtfarm]

+my bio mass 80 has been running for 22 hour and has not heated up my 800 gallon tank to 170 degrees yet. the temp on boiler says 170 to175 and its got decent flame in secondary burn camber. it is smoking a little bit is this normal ?? i can put my hand on the chimney about 50%of the time is that normal??

 

[Hunderliggur]

Be patient! Your other thread has some good answers. What I posted shows that, depending on your current 800G storage temp you are only getting about 15-20% effective output from the boiler due to keeping a 150F return temp. Once the boiler dries out and stabilizes and the storage gets to a reasonable temp, you'll since the gain really kick up. If it is a double wall flue you should be able to put your hand on it.

 

[mwk1000]

Wet wood? + wet firebrick ?

I agree, be patient and verify the facts you assume to be true. A mean little bit of science :
It requires 965 Btu to change one pound of water at 212°F to one pound of steam at 212°F.

So seeing fire does not always = heat. Is your wood dry ? Is your secondary firebrick cherry red ? ( 22 hours is a long time so if it is gassing dry wood it would be hot )

Sometimes if you load wet wood you are simply using all the energy to produce steam and send it up the flue. A guess anyway you don't say where your tank started or where it is now.

Is the "smoke" disappearing after a few feet from the stack ? A way to tell if it is steam not smoke

 

[flyingcow]

I know I'm missing something, but my 107,000 btu boiler heated my 820 gal tank PLUS heated my house at the same time. The house had gotten down to 50 degrees on a night it was -10 below out. The boiler heated the hse first( 2 story 1800 sq/ft), up to 70ish, than heated the tank to 180. I can't remember exactly, but it was in about 12 hours. This was the first time I fired it up.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

I know I'm missing something, but my 107,000 btu boiler heated my 820 gal tank PLUS heated my house at the same time. The house had gotten down to 50 degrees on a night it was -10 below out. The boiler heated the hse first( 2 story 1800 sq/ft), up to 70ish, than heated the tank to 180. I can't remember exactly, but it was in about 12 hours. This was the first time I fired it up.

I bet it wasn't -10 °F during the biggest part of the 12 hour burn, though.

 

[goosegunner]

Alright you guys are making me wonder about my purchase of the Econoburn 200. Return protection or not How the heck could it not heat the water in 22 hours?

Plus how much wood does that thing burn up in 22 hours at full throttle?

gg

 

[debtfarm]

in that 22 hours i filled it 3 times about 1 1/2 wheelbarrows of wood that was cut last winter and split and stack under cover. when you say the fire brick gets cherry red is it on the surface or glow deeper than the surface???

 

[Hunderliggur]

If you look the the Wood Shed forum (not the boiler room) you will see that wood cut less than 1 year ago is wet. For Oak you can expect two years after splitting and stacking to dry. I don't know your stove, but my Paxo 150KBTU would not run 22 hours on 1 1/2 wheel barrows of wood. I am sure someone can do the math on how many BTUs are in that wood (depending on species, wheelbarrow size, etc.). Can you tell us what the return tank temp is? For a simple measurement, I use a Radio Shack indoor/outdoor thermometer with the outdoor probe clamped to the pipe I want to measure.

 

[Hunderliggur]

It's hard to keep all your threads straight. In one you said "I have a third line as a mixing line running through a Danfos mixing valve with a valve on it to restrict flow on the bypass." Are you sure you have the bypass set correctly and the DANFOSS installed correctly? If the valve on the bypass is too open, you will just be running your hot back into the boiler (which is why I asked about the return temp at the boiler). You can also measure how hot the pipe is on the input to the storage (and output) to give you a batter idea of where the heat is going. RS also sells an IR thermometer which give quick measurements.

 

[taxidermist]

Is your boiler idling or running full out? If its idling then you need to close you bypass loop valve some to keep return temps but send more hot water to storage. Also as said before dosent matter how long you wood has been cut it depends on the moisture content of the wood. I have 3 year old red oak cut stacked and if I split it and measure it right now its still 30%. You may be seeing steam not smoke out of your stack. Dont worry we will get you going as we all have been there.

Rob

 

[flyingcow]

I know I'm missing something, but my 107,000 btu boiler heated my 820 gal tank PLUS heated my house at the same time. The house had gotten down to 50 degrees on a night it was -10 below out. The boiler heated the hse first( 2 story 1800 sq/ft), up to 70ish, than heated the tank to 180. I can't remember exactly, but it was in about 12 hours. This was the first time I fired it up.

I bet it wasn't -10 °F during the biggest part of the 12 hour burn, though.

yes, for a good part of it. I think it was about midnight-ish when we fired it up. had to shut down house oil burner(for a few hours) while finishing install. I can;t remember exactly how cold the house got, 50 might be a stretch, but it was well below 60. Kinda windy outside too. It got above 0 by midmorning. Had wood that was " moisture. Rockmaple and beech.

 

[gorbull]

I believe he is burning poplar wood if that is any help in determining BTU output.

 

[ohbie1]

Check to see that your tank thermometer/sensor is working.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

I don't have storage, so there's no way I could burn flat-out for 22 hours. But, supposing I could . . . I'd guess flat out would eat a FULL load every two hours in the GW. 22/2 = 11 loads of wood. That's about 4 days of wood. Say a face cord.

 

[heaterman]

If you want to figure out your boilers rough output you would take the starting temp of the storage and its temp at the end of the 22 hours and find the difference. Let's just say it was 100*. Then you would multiply the 800 gallons by 8.33 which is the weight of water per gallon and multiply that by 100, which is our hypothetical temp rise. That will give you the total btu's transferred to the storage. Divide that number by the hours (22 in this case) and your result will be the btu/hour actually put into storage. Compare that to your boilers rating to fins out how it's really doing.

The hard part comes in figuring out why there is a difference between actual and rated output as there are a host of variables.