WoodGun, a few issues; moisture, particulates and smell

[68dodgeramman]

Well as heating season begins for us up here in Michigan I wanted to talk about a few issues with the WoodGun. Last year was our first year using the boiler. And we were very happy with it, but we noticed some things we'd like to work out. The first was a moisture issue in the ash pan. Carl was extremely helpful and very professional. He narrowed it down to the the center brick and possibly some wood that want quite dry enough. The center brick that we had were made with an older mold that was making the center slots too large. With these changes made it seemed to help. Where water was dripping out of the ash pan it was then just dampening the ash. This year I haven't noticed anything yet. So hopefully that issue was resolved.
And now for the smell. While not a serious issue, I'd still like to find out what, if anything can stop it. When I'm outside I notice a strong smell of what I believe to be creosote(smells like railroad ties). And it also smells in the boiler room too. Is this from wood not being seasoned? Most all of our wood has been down for over a year. But like I said this is more of an annoyance than anything serious as I've checked the stack several times and find no build up.
Now for a more serious problem. Ash and charcoal particals get by the cyclone and "tee" and lay in the elbow and horizontal pipe. I actually had ash laying on the chimney cap of about a half an inch thick! But the scary thing was that the charcoal in the elbow heated up so much that the high heat caulking on the stack turned to a powder. And the stainless pipe became discolored. Thankfully I was home at the time and caught it. Now I clean it out once or twice a week. When I talked to Carl last year he said that they acknowledged they had an issue with particulates getting past the cyclone and were working on possible fixes. Then I talked to his replacement who was quite rude when saying there was no known problem or fix. So I was wondering if anyone has this issue with their WoodGun and found any fixes. I was thinking of maybe putting stainless screen mesh on either end of the cyclone to knock down at least the charcoal particals.
I'd like to find other WoodGun owners that have these or similar issues and maybe we can all figure out possible fixes together. Kind of the "two heads are better than one" philosophy. In the very least,i hope I helped someone with the moisture problem.

 

[Perfect Heat]

I have had my E140 Woodgun online for part of last season and the starting of this season. That said, I have not experienced the moisture or smell problem you mentioned. Not to say I won’t be. I think with any boiler the wood moisture content is critical. If you have a moisture meter check your wood. Sometimes wood dried for a year is not as dry as one might think. According to the manual wood should be dried to 25% to 30%. Mine is under the 20% which might be the reason I don’t see any moisture. As far as the smell, I try to match my wood to the demand to limit the amount of idling. I have found the creosote smell increases the more it idles. I believe any boiler takes a couple of years to find the sweet spot.

 

[mark123]

The fact that wood has been down for a year isn't a sign of it's dryness, I was just splitting some wood down for 2 years and water oozes out of it. If it was down and out of the rain/snow it would be much dryer obviously. I have been running my new E-180 for a couple of weeks now and noticed the ash pan had a few drops under at first but once everything was up to temp. the moisture dried up, my wood is in the boiler room and the heat off the boiler dries the wood very nicely. I do hear charcoal pieces rattling around in the cyclone from time to time but haven't checked to see if it has made it's way up the smoke pipe.

 

[muncybob]

I don't have the moisture problem with wood but I do with oil. The wood we burned last year was mostly over 20%(this is will not be the case this year!) and I think this caused more creosote and junk in my chimney than should be. I'll be checking my pipes monthly or so and hope not to see much with the drier wood we'll be burning. The only odor we have noticed smells like wood only though. AHS did mention "improved" firebrick now available but I had no idea what was different until your posting.

 

[Fred61]

Well as heating season begins for us up here in Michigan I wanted to talk about a few issues with the WoodGun. Last year was our first year using the boiler. And we were very happy with it, but we noticed some things we'd like to work out. The first was a moisture issue in the ash pan. Carl was extremely helpful and very professional. He narrowed it down to the the center brick and possibly some wood that want quite dry enough. The center brick that we had were made with an older mold that was making the center slots too large. With these changes made it seemed to help. Where water was dripping out of the ash pan it was then just dampening the ash. This year I haven't noticed anything yet. So hopefully that issue was resolved.
And now for the smell. While not a serious issue, I'd still like to find out what, if anything can stop it. When I'm outside I notice a strong smell of what I believe to be creosote(smells like railroad ties). And it also smells in the boiler room too. Is this from wood not being seasoned? Most all of our wood has been down for over a year. But like I said this is more of an annoyance than anything serious as I've checked the stack several times and find no build up.
Now for a more serious problem. Ash and charcoal particals get by the cyclone and "tee" and lay in the elbow and horizontal pipe. I actually had ash laying on the chimney cap of about a half an inch thick! But the scary thing was that the charcoal in the elbow heated up so much that the high heat caulking on the stack turned to a powder. And the stainless pipe became discolored. Thankfully I was home at the time and caught it. Now I clean it out once or twice a week. When I talked to Carl last year he said that they acknowledged they had an issue with particulates getting past the cyclone and were working on possible fixes. Then I talked to his replacement who was quite rude when saying there was no known problem or fix. So I was wondering if anyone has this issue with their WoodGun and found any fixes. I was thinking of maybe putting stainless screen mesh on either end of the cyclone to knock down at least the charcoal particals.
I'd like to find other WoodGun owners that have these or similar issues and maybe we can all figure out possible fixes together. Kind of the "two heads are better than one" philosophy. In the very least,i hope I helped someone with the moisture problem.

I put up with the creosote odor (along with many other problems) for most of the years I ran my 140. I didn't run storage so my unit did a fair amount of idling. Liquid creosote would actually pour out of the motorized cold air intake into the box enclosure and would smell up the whole house. I could also smell it outdoors because the odor would eminate out the outside air intake pipe. The only cure I can think of is to install storage to minimize idling. I just want to point out that I always burn dry wood which has been split and stacked for one or two years. I'm a firm believer that wood will not dry adequately unless it is split. Right now my wood supply is 2.5 years ahead.

Now to address the more serious problem. The distance from the output of my cyclone to the top of my Selkirk chimney was seventeen feet and I still had burning embers coming out of the top. I would go out at night and watch the sparks fly out on to the roof. It made me a little uneasy. I was always glad to see snow or rain when I was burning. The asphalt shingles were discolored for five feet around the chimney from the hot embers.
The Woodgun moves more combustion air than any other unit I have seen. I could be wrong but I suspect it needs to move more air to make up for the fact that it has no secondary air inlet.

My smoke pipe went straight up off the cyclone to a dog leg about seven feet off the floor then went horizontal for about 1.5 feet then straight up through the roof. I needed to clean out the ash from the horizontal section so often I installed a sliding gate valve on the tee to scoop it out into a bucket. Didn't that create some dust

I'm glad those problems, at least for me are gone but you folks that have the units now and need to get several years out of them to make your investment pay off need to fix some fo these design inequities. I wonder if someone could design some sort of spark arrester.

I've been doing some thinking about the biggest thorn in my side caused by my Woodgun and that was door gasket erosion. I had been lead to believe the the doors were improved but after Muncybob had his first problem with gaskets I find that the doors are made exactly like they were on mine. On my EKO, the gaskets are shielded from the intense heat by the design of the doors, creating sort of a labyrinth that keeps the flame away from the gasket. On the Woodgun the gasket is on the same plane as the refractory in the door. I was thinking if someone were to rout out a groove around the perimeter of the refractory then slide and anchor, in some way, a 1" X 2" piece of refractory material (something that would protrude about one inch) around the perimeter, it would shield the door gasket from the intense heat.

 

[muncybob]

Fred, that's an interestng idea you have about shielding the door gaskets. I have replaced 1 gasket this summer and it's fairly easy to do but I've got better things to do with my time for sure. Not sure how to do your idea but I think I may opt to give high temp gasket material a try before next winter. I've found such materials on the internet now I need to find somebody to sell me the small amount I would need. HEY AHS...why not pursue this on a wholesale purchase and retail what we need out here?

 

[mark123]

My 180's door has a steel "sheild" slightly smaller than the door opening that is spaced away from the inside of the door by about 2". This acts as a sheild to protect the door gasket. Is the 100 and 140 the same?

 

[muncybob]

Yes on the 100...but it is the only door with a shield. The door that I needed to replace a gasket on is the rear inspection door. I'm fairly sure I will need to replace the lower front door gasket next summer too. This is why I'm considering very high temp door gaskets that can take flame for the replacement.

 

[mark123]

I cleaned my woodgun today and notice the back door and lower front door's gaskets starting to break down. It is brand new and only used for 2 weeks. I was thinking that if I welded a peice of 1" X 1/4" flat bar around the perimeter in about 1/4" of the door opening it would help shield the gasket. What do you guys think? I will run it buy AHS and see what they think. Anything to help divert the flame from directly hitting the gasket should help.

 

[ihookem]

The reason Eko 25 has an 8" pipe is so the ashes don't fly out the chimney. I found this out when I asked why them dumb Polocks don't just put on a much cheaper 6" pipe, could have saved a hundred bucks. I was quickly told by my sales person ( Mark from AHONA and would recomend to anyone) why they do this. I looked at Woodgun 100 and believe it has a 6" pipe. An 8" pipe might help keep embers from going up the chimney due to a little less air pressure going up the pipe.

 

[Fred61]

On my 140, I expanded to 8 inch right out of the cyclone.

 

[muncybob]

I cleaned my woodgun today and notice the back door and lower front door's gaskets starting to break down. It is brand new and only used for 2 weeks. I was thinking that if I welded a peice of 1" X 1/4" flat bar around the perimeter in about 1/4" of the door opening it would help shield the gasket. What do you guys think? I will run it buy AHS and see what they think. Anything to help divert the flame from directly hitting the gasket should help.

WOW...after only 2 weeks!? That's totally unacceptable in my book...but the warranty does not cover the gaskets so I guess it's up to the user to come up with a better plan. Let us know what AHS thinks(and if they plan to do anything about future models or some kind of retro fit solution) and I would love to hear how it works for you as I plan to do something before next year heating season...assuming I'll be OK this year! I have to admit I didn't buy the WG without knowing there may be gasket issues but it also seems there may be fairly straight forward solutions too.

 

[Fred61]

The two lower doors are both targets for the burning gases. The temperatures could be as high as 1500 degrees so I don't believe steel would hold up for very long. The doors are not connected to the water jacket so they will get hotter than the door jam which has the luxury of water as a heat sink. The silicone sealant that is used for coating the gasket is rated at 800 degrees and still deteriorates.

I hope for your sake AHS can do something to alleviate this problem, but what are the chances? Twenty five years since they manufactured my unit and still no change in the design. The new ones seem to be exactly the same unit that mine was. Can we be the only ones that experienced these problems? I wonder if they have an engineering department.

 

[mark123]

I was thinking of welding the 1 X 1/4 SS flat bar just inside the door jam, if it was welded it should take advantage of the water heat absorption. The steel I would be welding to doesn't seem to be deteriorating so why would the new steel?

 

[leaddog]

Just a thought, the eko lower door has a ceramic coating on it and on the sides also have it. It looks like just a thin coating. I wonder if you could do that and just leave the sealing surface uncoated.
leaddog

 

[Fred61]

I was thinking of welding the 1 X 1/4 SS flat bar just inside the door jam, if it was welded it should take advantage of the water heat absorption. The steel I would be welding to doesn't seem to be deteriorating so why would the new steel?

I thought you were going to apply the SS to the door. I misunderstood you. I was combining your idea with mine which was applying the refractory to the door.

 

[muncybob]

These silica rope gaskets are flame resistent and are rated at very high temps......any reason to think that these would not work?
http://www.firesleeveandtape.com/silica-high-temperature-rope.html

 

[mark123]

I would think they are not airtight but then again once they compress they might be.

 

[mark123]

I just got off the phone with Jeff at AHS and he said there is a fiber rope gasket that is meant for the 2 lower doors and that the orange rubber gasket is only meant for the loading door. He is sending me them for free today.

 

[Fred61]

I just got off the phone with Jeff at AHS and he said there is a fiber rope gasket that is meant for the 2 lower doors and that the orange rubber gasket is only meant for the loading door. He is sending me them for free today.

All of a sudden there is a fix Perhaps these discussions do produce results!!

 

[68dodgeramman]

These silica rope gaskets are flame resistent and are rated at very high temps......any reason to think that these would not work?
http://www.firesleeveandtape.com/silica-high-temperature-rope.html

Sorry it took so long to get back online, but I've started a new job and the hours don't really allow it during the week. And we have a pee wee football star that had games every weekend, lol. Anyway, my rear door gasket also deteriorated last year, so far the front one is good. Carl said that they realized that the gaskets for the lower doors weren't meant for the high heat. So he sent me a length of the Silica Extreme Temperature Square Rope. So far so good. It seems to be working good with no problems.
The water problem must be due to the moisture content. Like I said it's not terrible now, but there is some noticeable moisture in the ash pan.
But my main concern is the charcoal getting past the cyclone. I think I'll try some kind of stainless screen. I just don't want to block it so that it hinders the draft.

 

[mcgilvra]

Be careful with the screen to block sparks, I tried some (it wasn't stainless), sorta wrapped the rain cap. It got clogged up pretty quick and blown off by a startup woof. I'm going to try a cone shaped sheet metal piece that will start under the rain cap and extend outward and upward above the top of the rain cap. Hopefully with no line-of-sight to my roof the sparks will be caught in the cone while the smoke can escape unhindered.

My biggest problem, by far, with my E140 is woofing. I have a 15' 6" stainless stack straight up off the cyclone. When I put even a moderate amount of dry wood (15 - 20 %) in it woofs so badly that smoke puffs out the intake, we've even had sparks flying out the intake. AHS say's to shut the damper down when that happens, but I can't babysit it. Besides, that just smothers the fire, generates a lot of smoke at the stack, and takes a long time to heat the water.

The only real solution seems to be to crack the loading door to let more in but not far enough to let smoke out. The woofing stops, the exhaust air temp gets above 1100F where it should be, and the water heats up pretty quickly.

AHS has been useless on this, they didn't bother to respond to the last request for help. I am seriously considering cutting a hole in the loading door and attaching an automatic damper box just like the one on the back of the unit.

Anybody else had woofing problems?

 

[muncybob]

Could the stack straight up off the cyclone have something to do with this? Mine(and those I have seen pics of) have a very short piece vertical into the cyclone (mine is about 2') and then an elbow or a "T" into a horizontal pipe with a slight incline which then runs into the chimney.
I have to agree with your assessment of their tech guys, they could be more responsive. When I finally got my cyclone moisture problem corrected I called AHS to let them know how it was resolved with insulation. I think it fell on deaf ears.

 

[timberbuilt]

I completed my Wood Gun 140 installation last spring and this is the first winter of actual use. All in all I'm fairly happy with the performance so far. I was extremely disappointed with AHS support. Jeff of AHS sold the boiler to me and promised to supply me with radiant design literature and assist me with my system design. In fact it was a large contributing factor on why I bought the Wood Gun, since I was making a go on my own with no local plumbers or boiler dealers. Needless to say he promised me everything under the sun right up to the point when I gave him my credit card number. From that point I was on my own. In fact I had to threaten to cancel the order to get even the slightest amount of what was promised and a solid delivery date.

Now that I've finally been able to figure everything out and put it all together the boiler seems to operate as I had expected it would. It seems to smoke more than I thought it would but, once up and warmed up, I don't think it smokes anymore than my previous wood stove set up. I too had initial problems with moisture in the ash pan. At the time I thought it was rain that had come down the chimney during the summer. I haven't had the problem for a while now. I was also surprised at the filthiness of the process. I couldn't imagine putting one of these in your basement. Smoke billows out and fills my boiler building whenever the door is opened. I'm starting to get a little better at timing the loading so there is less but it continues to be a problem. I think I will eventually install a vent fan above the door to catch this smoke.

Wood wise I use lodgepole bucked into about 24"-30" sticks. For a while I would try to see how big of a piece I could put in right up to the biggest round I could fit through the door, maybe 18" diameter. This greedyness doesn't really work as the fire tends to die when the boiler shuts down. I'm now putting up to 8" rounds and splitting anything bigger. Seems to be working.

I haven't discovered the faulty seal problem yet but my rubber ash tray seal is already gone. A couple of things I really like:
- the fires are very easy to build. A few small splits, some newspaper and a small propane torch. Shut the door and away it goes.
- I don't THINK I'm burning as much as I did with my old wood stove. In fact I built a bigger house and keep it pretty warm (around 72 deg) and it seems like I'm burning less. It is less hassle and I only have to load it in the morning before work and at night before bed. Some of this can be chalked up to insulation and what not but it still helps to make me feel good about my decision.

 

[timberbuilt]

nomosno:

As for the fire going out, I have the 4 hour cycle timer so this is never a problem now matter what size wood I put in. If you do not have one you should look into adding one, it turn the fan on for a few minutes every so many hours (can be adjusted to whatever you want) to keep the fire from ever going out.

Can you send me a link that shows the type of timer you use. It's probably a hardware store buy but then again???
Thanks