Econoburn/Barometric damper

[gradwell]

Just received my Econoburn 150 yesterday. I am assembling materials to start the install this weekend. while reading other posts, I see where there are many negative comments about installing a Barometric damper. Upon contacting Hank at Econoburn, he stated that in order to operate correctly, .02-.05 must be acheived therefor requiring a Barometric damper. I took the advice, and ordered it today from a local supplier. My concern is that from what I have read here, there seems to be a higher risk of chimney fire as well as other factors. Being new to wood, this has obviously made me nervous. Especially since the unit and chimney are about 180 feet away from my house so that keeping a nervouse eye on it will be impossible as I dont want to sleep in the barn with it.
* Am I over reacting?
* Should I not even consider using the Barometric damper?
* Are you other Econoburn users using this setup? Have you had any problems?
* Would it be safer and just as effective to use a standard manual damper?

Thanks for the help, Joe

 

[Nofossil]

A chimney fire is pretty hard to accomplish with a gasifier. I don't use any damper with mine, though I don't have an Econoburn. As far as I know, the only risk from too much draft is that the unit won't shut all the way down when the fan is off. Mine will still gasify for a while, for instance.

 

[antknee2]

Hi Joe
I have a Econoburn 100 hooked up with a barometric damper and a very sensitive professional quality draft gauge always monitoring draft conditions . Keeping a on eye the gauge is a good learning experience . Once the boiler gets into full gasification mode it will swing the door fully open on the damper and still maintain a .05 wc. draft and my chimney is only a total length of 14' using 8'' triple wall pipe . Like Nofssil has noted , if you run the Econoburn boiler with dry wood an full heat load , the inside of your chimney will have a non burnable fine dust coating . Once you get the hang of it I think you will be sleeping allot better than somebody listening to a oil fired boiler running all night .
Anthony

 

[pybyr]

Hi Joe and welcome

I've been burning wood on and off for 20 years in various crude and sophisticated devices in various places I've been.

I was always told that a barometric damper was a NO-NO on any solid fuel appliance, so was really puzzzled when I got my Econoburn 150 (install still underway) and saw that they strongly recommend a barometric damper.

So I called the company and ended up grilling and having a really good chat with their VP Mark Odell

here's what it boils down to

too much draft pulls the fire through the heat exchangers too fast, before the water can capture the optimal amount of heat, so that more heat than needed goes up the chimney instead of into your heated space

barometric dampers modulate the draft so that your fire only goes up the chimney at a rate that is just safely sufficient to keep the hot gases rising and maintain the draft/ rise that makes any "passive" chimney work

primitive solid fuel appliances were so crude that a barometric damper was an invite to having combustion byproducts spill out the damper and asphyxiate you-- or to have combustible condensation of creosote accumulate in your flue to the point that then suddenly it lights off, and then the barometric damper flies wide open, supplying an abundance of air to a "downward aiming rocket" (chimney fire) that produces really ugly results.

gasifier boilers, properly designed, leapfrog all of those pitfalls [and I reached that conclusion only after overcoming a LOT of skepticism based on what I'd always been taught] and if you want max efficiency, you want a barometric damper

some day, although it'll be a few years out, we'll probably see "sealed combustion" wood-burning appliances where the combustion air comes from a dedicated outdoor air inlet, and via other controls, the barometric damper (which loses some heated air from the heated space during both active burns and in passive heat escape up the chimney when the burner isn't even running) won't be needed. But we're not there yet, and in the mean time, follow the instructions and put in the damper and get or borrow a good draft gauge to set it up properly.

PS, my Econoburn is in, and will operate in, my basement, and I am pretty hugely personally risk-averse, and so while I can only advise myself and not anyone else, you can feel pretty good that Hank is steering you OK

 

[Barkeg]

I just fired up my Econoburn 100 for the first time last week. I'll echo the good reviews of Hank's service. After my contractor and I fired it up for the first time we measured the draft and found it was solid at .04. I do not have a damper. See photo. Total chimney height is 12 feet above the flue via 4' excel ultra black (two wall) and 8' of insulated (silver). With that draft you have to be careful opening the door to load it as you'll get quite a bit of smoke if you open it more than about halfway. It sure was fun to see it cooking along after all that work to install!

 

[Piker]

I suggest installing the damper. In the rare event that you need warranty service of some sort, it may make a difference. The damper's purpose is two fold: 1) prevent the gasses from escaping the heat exchanger too quickly during gasification, and 2) to prevent a hot chimney from continuing to draw air through the boiler after the high limit has been reached... preventing overheating. It is questionable whether or not a barometric damper is necessary for outdoor installations that have only a stack of a few feet or so.

make sure you have an ash cleanout. These gassers will throw a bit of very fine ash up the stack... which can accumulate in an elbow or "T" if the stack is very tall. Had a guy's plug up once becuase he did not install a cleanout on the stack, and gasification ended until he cleaned it out.

cheers

 

[Barkeg]

Those are good tips. I have to admit I'm new to the boilers and have limited experience with wood stoves. I have not seen a damper on a wood stove before. Are the boilers that different? Will I see that much accumulation of ash in the chimney if it is cleaned annually?

Gary

 

[Piker]

gasifiers are pretty different. Put the damper in as instructed and you will be fine. I recommend making sure you have an easily accessible ash cleanout that you can get to. Depending on the wood you use, your ash level will vary. You won't need to have your chimney "cleaned" more than once per year... but depending on how your chimney is set up... you may need to remove the ash more than once.

cheers

 

[pybyr]

I just fired up my Econoburn 100 for the first time last week. I'll echo the good reviews of Hank's service. After my contractor and I fired it up for the first time we measured the draft and found it was solid at .04. I do not have a damper. See photo. Total chimney height is 12 feet above the flue via 4' excel ultra black (two wall) and 8' of insulated (silver). With that draft you have to be careful opening the door to load it as you'll get quite a bit of smoke if you open it more than about halfway. It sure was fun to see it cooking along after all that work to install!

congratulations on getting yours up and running-

one thing to factor in is that draft can vary tremendously depending on varying conditions such as weather and wind

your 0.04 is a measurement under one set of conditions

one of the roles of the barometric damper is to keep the draft similar under varying conditions

I don't think there's much hazard to not including the damper- but I think the boiler will more consistently be able to extract more heat from the fire when the damper is keeping the draft at optimum under all conditions

that said, the damper (at least mine on my oil burner) lets some amount of household air up the chimney under nearly all conditions, even long after a firing. cold air from outdoors has to come in somewhere to replace that-- so that's probably some net seasonal overall system loss from the B.D. with some chimneys/locations, the damper may stay shut when there's not a fire (my oil system's damper is set up properly with a very sensitive gauge)

more experienced minds than mine will have to advise on whether the net gain in heat extraction from a B.D. outweighs losing some heated air up the chimney in the overall scheme of things

I'm going to install the BD, based on some in depth conversations with Hank and Mark Odell at Econoburn that satisfied me that their recommendation is based on a lot of thinking, not just assumptions, and an apparent strong desire on their part to have people have good results with their product.

 

[NNYorker]

I have mine installed like Anthony D has his. I live on top of a quite large hill and the wind is blowing 98% of the time--winter time a lot of high winds. Much more controlled burn than the "Acme", I mean Adobe, boiler.

I have not done any draft measuring yet--on my list of to do's. My totally scientific guesstimate in setting the BD is just that - a guess. Burns on high wind days -- no runaway fires-- temp might rise 5-8 degrees above set point. I can live with that. Days with moderate winds-- temp holds steady--plus 1-2 degrees.

Yes, you do feel air being drawn out of the room. The Eco is located in my 24x26 attached garage(2x6 insulated walls,2 insulated garage doors, and one outside entry door). The garage temp . has been 50-60 degrees w/o using the ceiling hung Beacon/Morris unit.

Still staring at my wood every day trying to get it drier.

 

[antknee2]

I just fired up my Econoburn 100 for the first time last week. I'll echo the good reviews of Hank's service. After my contractor and I fired it up for the first time we measured the draft and found it was solid at .04. I do not have a damper. See photo. Total chimney height is 12 feet above the flue via 4' excel ultra black (two wall) and 8' of insulated (silver). With that draft you have to be careful opening the door to load it as you'll get quite a bit of smoke if you open it more than about halfway. It sure was fun to see it cooking along after all that work to install!

Hi Barkeg
Looks like a nice clean professional install , great job . What I found with my EBW 100 was a big increase in the draft as the boiler went into full gasification with very dry hard wood and sustained full load . The barometric damper was pined open and still pulling a .04 - .05 wc draft and of course as the fuel load went down so did the draft . My boiler only has a 5' above roof line and 7' inside chimney with factory set air settings , not much of a chimney . From my observations [ what may happen is] higher than needed draft will pull to much air through the heat exchanger tubes and waste tons of valuable heat up the chimney . I wish you good luck with your set up . Just wondering what was your coldest temperature outside so far this year ?

 

[Barkeg]

We saw temps down to -55 to -60 F for about three weeks straight in January. It's pretty rare to get that cold. The boiler did fine keeping up except for those long cold stretches when we would supplement with our wood stove. Turns out I clogged up the heat exchanger tubes pretty well burning wet lumber. This year I've had lumber split and stacked since April so I expect better performance. It took me a while to figure out how to get the HX tubes clean but they are shiny now. I forwarded a paper to Duane at Econoburn that shows how I got it done. we'll see if he thinks it's worthy of "factory recommended procedure" . I'll be happy to post it if anyone else is looking for a way to clean the heat exchanger tubes on an Econoburn. Bottom-line is that the twisted wire brush that Econoburn recommended just wasn't cutting it.

Anyone know where you can get just the barometric damper without the Tee? I have a Tee on hand and would prefer to save money and just add an automatic barometric damper to it. Anyway, so far so good, thanks for all the help.

barkeg

 

[pybyr]

We saw temps down to -55 to -60 F for about three weeks straight in January. It's pretty rare to get that cold. The boiler did fine keeping up except for those long cold stretches when we would supplement with our wood stove. Turns out I clogged up the heat exchanger tubes pretty well burning wet lumber. This year I've had lumber split and stacked since April so I expect better performance. It took me a while to figure out how to get the HX tubes clean but they are shiny now. I forwarded a paper to Duane at Econoburn that shows how I got it done. we'll see if he thinks it's worthy of "factory recommended procedure" . I'll be happy to post it if anyone else is looking for a way to clean the heat exchanger tubes on an Econoburn. Bottom-line is that the twisted wire brush that Econoburn recommended just wasn't cutting it.

Anyone know where you can get just the barometric damper without the Tee? I have a Tee on hand and would prefer to save money and just add an automatic barometric damper to it. Anyway, so far so good, thanks for all the help.

barkeg

Glad to hear another happy gasifier story.

As to the barometric damper and tee, the pretty-near universally used Field Controls barometric dampers (you'll probably want a Field Controls RC 8 inch):
http://www.fieldcontrols.com/draftcontrol.php
don't really come with a standard 'tee' fitting-- they come with a sheet metal adapter that straps around a main flue pipe after you've cut a hole in the pipe, to "create a tee" for the damper to be mounted in.
No problem, as far as I know and as best I can tell, if you merely mount the working part of the damper into a regular tee (I've done that before). But my point is that you aren't really getting a true tee in the package with the damper- so you're not really buying two tees. I kept the Field Controls T- adapter sheet metal thing in my spare parts trove and later found it handy for something else.

Do make sure that, however and wherever you mount the barometric damper, that the face of the unit is vertical and that its pivot hinge is horizontal- otherwise it can't be set (or function) properly. And get/ borrow a draft gauge (or make an inclined manometer) to set the weigth that regulates the draft properly-- an eyeball "looks close" is useless for this.

I'd be interested in hearing about your brush set-up- always interested in learning new approaches.

 

[Gooserider]

One of the things I've seen suggested by various folks when burning an intake side fan unit like the Econoburn or EKO is to have an electric draft inducer installed in the stack for use when loading wood into an existing fire, so that you don't get smoke out the front door...

If doing this, what is the best approach to having an inducer co-exist with a baro-damper? It would seem to me that unless there was some sort of auto-close on the baro, turning on the inducer would just pull air through the baro instead of the boiler, which kind of defeats the purpose...

Gooserider

 

[pybyr]

One of the things I've seen suggested by various folks when burning an intake side fan unit like the Econoburn or EKO is to have an electric draft inducer installed in the stack for use when loading wood into an existing fire, so that you don't get smoke out the front door...

If doing this, what is the best approach to having an inducer co-exist with a baro-damper? It would seem to me that unless there was some sort of auto-close on the baro, turning on the inducer would just pull air through the baro instead of the boiler, which kind of defeats the purpose...

Gooserider

I've sometimes stuck a heavy magnet on the bottom of the baro "door" to boose the effective draft while loading new wood in during a burn (of course, you have to remember to remove the magnet). I suppose the ultimate might be a solenoid on the barometric damper, and which would be wired to the same supply/ switch as the booster for simultaneous/ coordinated effect.