Any Jetstream users out there

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woodsmoke

New Member
Feb 24, 2020
9
New brunswick
Good day,
I am finally getting around to setting up a Jetstream boiler which I acquired five or six years ago. While there is a lot of valuable information posted on this site relating to the Jetstream, I am noticing that almost all the posts are at least five years old. I am hoping that there are still a number of experienced Jetstream owners still active as I source components and seek olutions to the problems that are certain to crop up.
Of course i have contacted Kerrcontrols who are not too far from here, but the return silence is deafening.
 
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woodsmoke said:
I am hoping that there are still a number of experienced Jetstream owners still active as I source components and seek olutions to the problems that are certain to crop up.
Click to expand...
@hobbyheater is your man...
 
When you look at the total production numbers and age of the equipment, my guess is the number of running Jetstreams is getting down in less than 10 range. Pure speculation on my part ;)
 

Jetstreams- Out with the old, in with the new.

PART ONE This is a project that was done with mixed emotions! The boiler was still in good condition in spite of being 30+ years of age. The recent and quick death of an older brother to cancer, a second older brother having had a debilitating stroke last fall, and my oldest brother with...
www.hearth.com www.hearth.com
Studying this post will give a lot of information.
 
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I did review this thread and it does contain a lot of useful info, The photos are especially useful. I will be revisiting it from time to time as I move ahead.
Another piece of useful information. If you are storing a furnace for any length of time in an outbuilding, make sure you block each and every opening. Right now I am disputing possession with what seems like half the provincial mouse population. Current score: mice - One, human = zero.
 
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peakbagger said:
When you look at the total production numbers and age of the equipment, my guess is the number of running Jetstreams is getting down in less than 10 range. Pure speculation on my part ;)
Click to expand...
I suspect you are not far off. As a matter of fact I have been talking to local heating contractors and none, not one, has any familiarity with these boilers. No one I have talked to so far has even heard of them.
 
woodsmoke said:
I suspect you are not far off. As a matter of fact I have been talking to local heating contractors and none, not one, has any familiarity with these boilers. No one I have talked to so far has even heard of them.
Click to expand...

Around here, that would apply to any gasser of any brand. I have yet to hear tell of another one around here aside from mine. I say gasifier and I get blank looks.
 
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Most heating techs are never trained at all about wood boilers in general. Its pretty hard to screw up an oil or gas installation. On the other hand wood installations generally are quite custom. One of the reasons why the UMaine boilthers (Jetstream and Madawaska) boilers didnt take off was they required design up front to install them right and many of the installers learned by doing. The units were pricey to begin with and thermal storage design was in its infancy. Many went in with unpressurized heating oil tanks with no water treatment. They rotted out in 4 or 5 years and the homeowner ended up with 500 gallons of rusty water in their basement. Even the guys that installed them went onto bigger and better things so when a homeowner needed maintenance there was no one there to work on them as the new installation market dried up.

Now that gasifiers are more commonplace, I expect there would be a market for them as long as someone can work out the fly ash issue. I would be tempted to build one
 
If that question was directed to me, I have 500 gallons.
 
maple1 said:
Around here, that would apply to any gasser of any brand. I have yet to hear tell of another one around here aside from mine. I say gasifier and I get blank looks.
Click to expand...
I am in the same boat here CB flooded the market years ago and set the stranded for wood burning water heaters.I know of one other Econoburn in my town,but they use it like the CB they replaced,and the fuel tubes are plugged solid.They run it with the bypass open and keep the door open for draft.Big pile of snow covered green wood next to it.They put a fellow in charge of it that dosn't have the skills to run it.
One year they will replace it because it dosn't work,i am hoping to pick it up cheap and rebuild it for my shop.
 
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woodsmoke said:
Good day,
I am finally getting around to setting up a Jetstream boiler which I acquired five or six years ago. While there is a lot of valuable information posted on this site relating to the Jetstream, I am noticing that almost all the posts are at least five years old. I am hoping that there are still a number of experienced Jetstream owners still active as I source components and seek olutions to the problems that are certain to crop up.
Of course i have contacted Kerrcontrols who are not too far from here, but the return silence is deafening.
Click to expand...
Do you have storage in place ? Jetstreams don't function well without storage . What condition is your refractory in ?
 
Interesting perspectives. As Maple1 pointed out nobody around here knows about wood gasification except for a couple of people building rocket stoves for their greenhouses.
 
hobbyheater said:
Do you have storage in place ? Jetstreams don't function well without storage . What condition is your refractory in ?
Click to expand...
No storage in place but it is definitely part of the plan. As to refractory; it looked to be in pretty good shape when I bought the furnace and from what I could see from looking down the loading door. I did get a new nozzle from Kerr shortly after I got the furnace so I am good there. I think the best plan is going to be to lift the top off and give the refractory and the heat exchanger a good look over.
 
I and expect a lot of others do a crappy job of documenting our system designs. We know how our systems work but if anyone else tries to run it diagnose it and fix it they are in for a tough time of it. I go through commissioning on fairly complex systems and the documentation is part that always take a lot of effort. If there a good documentation package and system description a trained technician should be able to diagnose it.

When I designed the controls on my wood boiler,I added a lot of complexity to the system so that if the main power switch is turned off on my wood boiler the system defaults to the original oil boiler configuration. No need to open or close isolation valves, it just works like a regular run of the mill oil forced hot water system. It automatically switches from wood to oil as matter of course but unless the master switch is turned off the systems have to work in tandem.
 
woodsmoke said:
No storage in place but it is definitely part of the plan. As to refractory; it looked to be in pretty good shape when I bought the furnace and from what I could see from looking down the loading door. I did get a new nozzle from Kerr shortly after I got the furnace so I am good there. I think the best plan is going to be to lift the top off and give the refractory and the heat exchanger a good look over.
Click to expand...
Use the nozzle you have to make a reusable mold as the nozzels only last about five years.
 
Have always felt the Jetstream was the most mature design. Dick Hill agreed.
One thing that always bothered me about this design and gasifiers in general is that the refractory zones are not made with simple firebrick, normal density and lightweight.
Certainly servicing the Jetstream refractory is a project, but one would think a company like Kerr would refine it in 2020.
 
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tom in maine said:
Have always felt the Jetstream was the most mature design. Dick Hill agreed.
One thing that always bothered me about this design and gasifiers in general is that the refractory zones are not made with simple firebrick, normal density and lightweight.
Certainly servicing the Jetstream refractory is a project, but one would think a company like Kerr would refine it in 2020.
Click to expand...
Kerr appears to be absolutely uninterested in this boiler. Attempts to contact them have met with no response. The local Kerr controls outlet won't even let you into the store unless you are a contractor and as I have posted before local contractors know nothing about this system and are even less interested in getting involved with one, even to sourcing components.
Significantly, I was talking to one of the larger local heating/plumbing outfits and he indicated that he has never been call on to install a full blown hydronic system. The only systems they have installed would be something like an infloor system in a bathroom or garage heated by an electric furnace. Most new builds are still using electric baseboards and when people get tired of paying high electric bills they switch to air source heat pumps.
 
hobbyheater said:
Use the nozzle you have to make a reusable mold as the nozzels only last about five years.
Click to expand...
Sounds like good advice, I think I also need to build an access door . I was looking through some of the literature that came with the boiler and I think I have a rough drawing that provides dimensions for the refractory base. They are on letterhead of a company in Quebec. I think that this might be an outfit that could rebuild the base if required. Going to contact them and see what they have to say...
 
woodsmoke said:
Sounds like good advice, I think I also need to build an access door . I was looking through some of the literature that came with the boiler and I think I have a rough drawing that provides dimensions for the refractory base. They are on letterhead of a company in Quebec. I think that this might be an outfit that could rebuild the base if required. Going to contact them and see what they have to say...
Click to expand...
It would be interesting to know the serial number of your unit , the unit I'm running now is 175 and my original one was 528 .
 
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