For those of you who are running an Econoburn without water storage. What exactly does it do when it kicks into idle mode? The reason I'm asking is that I will not be around much to tend the fire during the day so I'll have to really load it up and I am concerned that when it kicks into idle there may be some smoke issues with the neighbors.
Econoburn performance in idle?
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wantstoburnwood
Member
No there isn't any smoke worthwhile if you have good dry wood. I load my econoburn up during the day and it is usually fine . i guess that is where us people without storage use more wood.
wantstoburnwood
Member
As with any gasser without storage, as the boiler cycles on and off there will be a short period of time just after the fan turns on when the boiler will produce some hazy smoke as the coal bed and refractory come up to temperature. It generally clears up within a minute or two and shouldn't bother your neighbors providing they are reasonable folks and your stack is high enough.
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heaterman
Minister of Fire
As with any downdraft gasser, it basically just maintains water temp on a call for heat from the aquastat. Efficiency drops off some due to the lag in between the time a call for heat occurs and gasification starts. Best burn with cordwood is always one that is hot, fast and completely uses all the fuel.
heaterman said:
I think its important to point out that it's not just the lag between the call for heat and the time gasification starts that causes the inefficiency... the release of pyrolysis gasses does not come to a complete halt during idle, nor does the production of heat altogether. This is why over sizing can be so detrimental to efficiency... as the firebox (and fuel load) size grows, so does the portion of heat load satisfied by the energy produced during the low efficiency smoldering inherent during idle time. Obviously there are different levels of this scenario, the extreme of which would be a boiler oversized and over fueled to the point where it never needs to gasify to meet demand.
It's also important to note that the effects of oversizing can be reduced by more closely monitoring the fuel load. As you said... hot and fast is good... to keep a burn hot and fast when the heat load is small requires smaller fuel loads, shorter burn times, and more frequent tending. Oversizing can offer some flexibility to have longer burn times when you need them, though at the expense of reduced efficiency and increased emissions.
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