Thinking Wood Gun...any advice or experience?

He's staring at the boiler again. Ohhhh AC!

She burns great! My wife actually took care of feeding her today. I should name the boiler. How about "Adena"? Apparently it means fire.

I need to look into my cycle timer. For some reason it is always seems like it is just after the 180 firing when I get back to it.

I think I need to adjust my lower door. I think that is where I am getting the smokey odor from. Is there a particular way to check if it is out of adjustment?

ac

How about SERAFINA it means "burning one".

I'm not sure what you meant about your cycle timer.

Take a shim out of the latch. That should snug it up and take a measurement at the top and bottom hinge to see if they are parallel.

Is there something wrong with that?

I can see mine through my home office window which looks at the door to the garage and the WG is right there.
I stare at all the time.

I've adjusted all three doors, added some packing in a void at the rear door, been over the stack 100 times, etc. I think there's just a bit of an odor with these things that we have to live with. No thrilled about it but its not so bad I can smell it above the basement.

No. Many people do it. As long as he is behaving himself.

For some reason the cycle timer is always just past the tripper at 180 when I get to it. I'm starting to wonder if it is getting stuck there for some reason.

I'll pull the little shim tonight and take the measurement. It is so warm outside, I'm going to do a full cleaning/inspection tonight.

ac

I have noticed the boiler does smoke a lot when running. I open the load door and can hear the roar of what I thought was gassification, but then if I go outside and look at the chimney it will be billowing grayish smoke. Is that normal?

ac

You can have a blow through at one of the slots in the nozzle and this can let plenty of smoke out. It can be tough to always keep full gassification going. A nice deep bed of coals is a highly sought after state of burning.

Oh! I better load more wood and stop running out!

I hadn't even thought of that. So stupid!

ac

I've seen little puffs of smoke coming out of the center nut on that Honeywell air box "damper" if it's freshly & fully loaded and in the puffing stage.
(response to woodrover's # 480 post)

I can get that same grey smoke billowing out. It seems to happen whenever I reload, even with a thick bed of coals.
I can easily check my stack everytime I go outside to reload and or even from my breakfast room window.
It does go away, but I'm still not sure how to prevent it.
I know the unit is up to temp because it has been burning for a while, it has a thick bed of coals and I just looked at the stack and saw nothing but heat shimmers.
Then I add 4 or 5 splits and whamo, I'm crop dusting the neighborhood !

There isn't much "neighborhood" for me to worry about. Enough guys around here running OWBs that any complaints would go to them first.

I'm having some trouble with my cycle timer. It keeps stopping after it goes over the trippers. I'm starting to wonder if I wired it wrong (would mean an error on AHS's schematic).

ac

Still having trouble with the timer? I haven't wired mine yet so ill wait for you to figure out if its wrong.
Darren suggested connecting it to a switch to be able to shut it off during the height of the heating season.

I still cant figure this thing out.

The unit was off all day(from 7am) because we had temps in 60's.
Wife said It kicked on by itself at 4pm just to bring itself to temp.
It kicked itself back on a few minutes ago, again to bring itself to temp. There has been to house demand.
I go out to check on it and it's out. There is about an inch of charcoal and 3 charcoaled splits left.
I wave the torch over it for a few seconds and then load about 6 small splits in it.
Not an whisper of smoke out of the stack, there is a heavy roar and its gasifiying.

I'm starting think that too thick of a hot coal bed prevents gasification. Could this be possible?
usually when the coal bed is 4" or thicker I don't hear that thundering roar.
Maybe the gases can't get through the thick bed of coals and it smokes like a dragon.

Ahhhhh.... I don't know if that is true either, there has been plenty of times when I have a thick bed of coals and don't hear the roar, I reload and have no smoke out of the stack.

I confirmed the wiring with Darren and checked over everything again. The wiring is so simple, you might as well just wire yours in and see how you do. These past few days have really needed the cycle timer if you have your DHW hooked up!

Right now it looks like my timer is behaving.

I tried to be fancy on the wiring and used crimp connectors rather than just hooking up the wires like on an outlet. I think (read: hope) one was loose and with vibration wasn't making good, consistent contact.

ac

I have tried to talk to my wife about this. I think this is what she heard, and her reaction.

I use the Charlie Brown "adults" reference all the time! Hysterical.

ac

So I guess my last post was jus WAW WUH WAW WUH WAH.

I'm sorry Mike, I don't have much useful to add. Generally when my boiler is running I'm either not home, or it is too dark to see the chimney. I don't have time in the morning to sit around and wait for the boiler to cycle while watching the stack.

ac

Don't be sorry. It's all in good fun. Gasifier is the wise guy. You gotta watch him.
Ya never know. He's always got a trick up his sleeve.

C'mon gasifier. Who luvs ya?!

AC. Did you hear something?

Great 2 weeks of therapy, out the window. I was just getting through my abandonment issues from being left behind on page 15, and now this. I could fill my oil tank with the money I will spend to get through this relapse!

I've been too busy diagnosing my cycle timer to watch you 2 quibble like little school girls.

Everything is hooked up properly, confirmed with Darren. I realized this morning that my timer seems to rotate the wrong way. Rather than rotating clockwise, which would trip the switch, it is rotating counter-clockwise and getting jammed up against the switch. Maybe I got the Australian model?

ac

Mike, you def want a switch on the timer. Once the heart of the heating season arrives you will have no use for the timer until the spring shoulder season.