Are you a poker and stroker?

[Rory]

There's a lot of discussion about the ease of heating with a gasifier, especially with storage, compared to a more conventional stove that must have a fire going when heat is required and therefore typically needs more regularly spaced stokings throughout the day and night. My morning routine involves getting the Tarm going, then filling it up before I go to work, and it is always out well before I'm home. However, during the evenings or weekends, I like to check the fire every so often. I'm not happy unless I see a really good blast of flame in the lower chamber. Oftentimes, that's not the case, and it seem to benefit a lot by a simple poking with the iron to eliminate the bridging, however slight, and get the fuel down on the coals.

Am I the only one doing this?

 

[sdrobertson]

You're definitely not alone...I'm a poker and also guilty of opening the bottom door just to look. My brain tells me to just let it run and only open when it needs more fuel, but my curiosity doesn't listen.

 

[ihookem]

Me too. I can't help when I'm walking by to open the door. Today I called my eko a piece of junk. I put 3 or 4 logs in at noon, 20 min. later blue smoke is coming out of the chimney. I go stoke it again and blue smoke is all I get. After 2 hrs. I go out and stoke it and put in a 2x4, set to 180F, leave the doors open 5 min. and the gassification takes off like a ***** ape. I crank the heat for 5 hours. Now it's the best thing I ever bought! It's a fussy boiler sometimes. OWB remind me of diesel engines at low rpm's for a long time.I like that alot. Gassifiers remind me of an old Plymouth Barracuda we started out in third gear. Once you got it going it went 80 mph. I just have to figure out how to get a little of both with my eko.

 

[pybyr]

My Econoburn 150 is not fussy, but I do find that during some stages of the burn, or if I reload with wood before the coal bed is way down, it does seem to hit an even better stride if I give it a poke/stir; I have this wonderful old blacksmith-forged long poker from a maple sugaring set up that I found hung on the beams in my basement-- since the sugarwoods that went with this place were wiped out by a hurricane in the 1930s, part of the fun is knowing I am using a handmade, ancient and well used tool with my gasifier.

 

[NNYorker]

My 100 is not fussy either, I just need to know how to run this thing. It will tell when I did something wrong. This year has been good burnin'. Last year I loaded too much wood virtually all the time. This year my guesstimation on loading has been much more accurate. Temp., wind direction/speed, current load condition.......I believe everyone goes through the 1st year of "watching the kettle boil" -- opening the door too much, loading too much, and generally fussing with it too much. The second year I know when and how much to fuss with it SO much better and when to just leave it alone. When the coals burn down to just ash showing I just stir the ash and wake some up underneath.


ihookem---was your nozzle plugged--wet wood --or both??