Eko 25 heats and smokes up the house

[Tree farmer]

I would like to thank those who contribute a lot of info on this site, especially the regulars. After sifting through much of the suggestions for reducing blow bye on the top door gasket on my Eko here is what I have found, done and still have not eliminated. The bolt holes in the door were sealed right off to prevent blowback. First fire showed substantial smoke escaping the gasket on the hinge section only. I had read about this prior and expected it to some degree but not this. So off comes the door, crank the hinges in as far as the adjustment allows then look close at the gasket in this area. Go figure - they not only leave the tape on the butt ends of the gasket so it won't seal but leave a 1/4 inch gap between the butt ends for smoke to billow through. This is a smoke chamber that is under pressure from forced air? - someone in the engineering dept needs to go. I filled the gap with high temp silicone, oiled the crap out of the gasket and have ran for about 1.5 solid weeks. Still leaks as I can smell the acrid smoke all the way upstairs and my wife is having asthma attacks in the middle of the night. Needless to say she is not real happy and as a result neither am I. I will let it go out tonight since the weather has warmed and purchase some flat stove gasket to use as a backer under the gasket in this section. Has anyone else come up with a better remedy and if it is in your basement do you get acrid smoke smell upstairs still. The only other thing I can see is installing a vent with duct above the boiler and will probably do this anyway since loading sometimes creates a billow of smoke in the basement. This seems crazy after spending 8G's with install whih my wife constantly reminds me along with grinding in the current oil price. Sorry my sob story is so long.... Oh, I e-mailed Orland my complaint as well and no reply yet.

 

[Kipstr]

Ditto that. My boiler room has a door and I keep it closed most of the time. It smells less when I closed the fan shuter down to about 1" and cut the fan speed to 80%. Stack temps (out side of the pipe temp) just under 300 deg. and blue flame.

I have been very disappointed with the smell. And I have tried oil (big mistak) on the gasket. That was about 5 fires with oil smell.

I think the 50% fan shutter opening for my system was to much. I could burn a load of wood in 2-3 Hrs.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Nofossil has an EKO 25 in his living space, and I know he's discussed his techniques for keeping smoke and smell to a bare minumum in various threads here in the Boiler Room. I think if you do a search, you'll find them. Basically, after the brief break-in period, an EKO shouldn't emit any smoke or odor when the firebox door isn't open. If it is, then it's probably a gasket/air supply issue that can be resolved through adjustment. You will get smoke when you load the stove, especially if there's still a fire going when you open the door. You can mitigate this by opening the secondary combustion chamber door and the bypass damper before opening the firebox door. The best approach is to only load the stove when it has burned down to coals or burned out. Easier said than done, I know. Those of us who have our boilers in outbuildings aren't as concerned as those who have them in the house, which is why I'm defering to nofossil's experience. My point is: don't get discouraged just yet.

 

[Tree farmer]

I did cut the fan speed down to 70% and that seemed to help some. Right on with the timing of loading the wood I have that down pretty good. I have been able to get rid of the visual smoke but when I keep my head above the door when the fan comes on I get the distinct odor of escaping smoke. I have read most of nofossils threads, can't bring myself to do the foil job on a 6k stove but am going to try the beefed up gasket backer in the hinge area tomorrow. A friend bought the Tarm solo 30 and said his came with a rubber replacement gasket to be put on immediately- maybe they figured out something better. Thanks for the support... if they (Orland) give me any info on a better gasket I will be sure to pass it along.

 

[Nofossil]

I'm starting my fourth season with my EKO in the basement. The boiler room has no door, and there's an open staircase to the upstairs. Any smoke at all is immediately apparent.

When I first got my EKO, there was a TINY defect in the flange that the top door gasket seals against. It emitted a barely visible wisp of smoke that was acrid and very noticeable. I tried adjusting and tightening to no avail. Finally I put a dab of high temp caulk on it, put a piece of aluminum foil over the caulk, and shut the door on it overnight. Solved the problem completely, and it hasn't returned. Unless I mess up, there's no objectionable smoke or odor at all. If the fire is really hot there's a faint 'hot metal' smell, and maybe a trace of woodsmoke when I light it. Most times, there's no way that people upstairs can even tell that it's running.

Sounds like some of the newer ones are arriving with poorly adjusted doors and gaskets. Getting a good seal is really critical and difficult. My brother had the same issue for weeks when he built his from-scratch gasifier.

Bottom line: they should not smoke, and they don't have to.

By the way, my bypass damper does not stick at all. Maybe I live a charmed life.

 

[Sizzler]

I've also been having issues with my gasket leaking around the top and corners of the loading door. Put nose over loading door and you can smell and at times see smoke/creasote escaping the door. I tried soaking the gasket in motor oil for about 1/2 hr and indeed that was a huge mistake. My last 6 or so burns the garage smells like a 78 Pinto with a bad valve cover gasket. I have some oil dripping down onto the fans when everything gets up to temp. Suppose I let it soak to long. Going to try a 1" or 1 1/4" high density rope and some high temp silicon and start over from scratch. Aside from that, Everything is working great.

 

[Tree farmer]

If I can get rid of the smoke smell I will be golden, my damper problem no doubt is related to the less than ideal wood moisture content. I am going to try something with high temp silicon that buggsie mentioned - go over the existing channel in the gasket with silicon so you end up with a silicon seal. I love the heating time compared to my old Nashua wood stove, I load it and it goes for 10 to 11 hours no problem and I have a steady temp upstairs of 71. Maybe if everyone that has an issue contacts Orland they will fix it right with a redesigned gasket.

 

[Eric Johnson]

By the way, my bypass damper does not stick at all. Maybe I live a charmed life.

I think those of us with the newer models where the bypass damper is a metal-on-metal arrangement (instead of having a gasket like the older EKOs), are the only ones with the damper sticking problem.

 

[Nofossil]

By the way, my bypass damper does not stick at all. Maybe I live a charmed life.

I think those of us with the newer models where the bypass damper is a metal-on-metal arrangement (instead of having a gasket like the older EKOs), are the only ones with the damper sticking problem.

Dang - I was hoping for the 'charmed life' theory. Mine is in fact an older one with the gasket in the bypass damper. I wonder if they changed the design of the door gasket? Mine is a 1" square rope.

 

[sfriedri]

If I can get rid of the smoke smell I will be golden, my damper problem no doubt is related to the less than ideal wood moisture content. I am going to try something with high temp silicon that buggsie mentioned - go over the existing channel in the gasket with silicon so you end up with a silicon seal. I love the heating time compared to my old Nashua wood stove, I load it and it goes for 10 to 11 hours no problem and I have a steady temp upstairs of 71. Maybe if everyone that has an issue contacts Orland they will fix it right with a redesigned gasket.

Putting high temp silicone on the upper door seal worked for me. Brooksie's method of creating a new gasket with a thick layer of silicone I'm sure works great, but for mine all I did was completely cover the exposed surface of the fiberglass rope with silicone. Before trying the silicone I also tried soaking the fiberglass rope in mineral oil but this did not work. One thing I noticed about the slicone is that creosote does not seem to stick to it, so once you coat the gasket it stays cleaner.

Besides the door gasket and the bolts on the doors, the other place on my EKO that was not sealed well was the panel that holds the draft fan to the boiler. When I got the occasional puff-back I noticed that smoke would escape around this panel. So I also gave the surface of this gasket a good smooth coat of slicone and also put a bead of slicone around the outside of the gasket where it contacts the heavier steel of the boiler. I think that when the boiler goes on standby that smoke occasionally will enter the space behind the fan panel, even though there should be negative pressure in the upper chamber due to the chimney draft. With the added slicone I never see smoke escaping around this gasket. The final tweak that I did was to improve the seal of the flapper valve that covers the hole in the panel the fan blows through. It is just a thin piece of metal and I bent it so that it would close completely.

If all the above don't work, you may need to try one of the draft inducing fans that you can mount on the flue pipe, which should reduce the pressure in both the secondary and primary chamber, and help to reduce the smoke that comes out when you load the boiler.

I would tend to agree with your opinion that some things on the boiler could have been engineered better. A basic one would have been to locate the exit for the bypass above the top of the loading door to reduce or eliminate the smoke that sometimes comes out during loading. They could have had the ceiling of the primary chamber slope up towards the back and then put the bypass exit higher.

 

[Grover59]

I am glad I am not the only one that had this problem, I don't have the same boiler but when I first fired my Blackbear up I also had the smell of smoke from the top door. My boiler is located in my basement, we replaced the door and the gasket, it did help but not much. The guys at Clean wood heat then came up with a real heavy cross bar for the door with a t-screw, this more or less did the trick. I can wind that door tight on the frame and I mean tight, this became there standard door after mine. I also installed a small vent fan that pulls air above the door when the boiler is running, this also helps when I load it. I do agree the best way to limit the amount of smoke when loading is to wait until the wood is reduced to coals, I am getting very good at that lately.

Steve

 

[antknee2]

Another thing you might want check is the access panel on top of the boiler in back by the chimney vent pipe . When the fire is out take off the plate and check for discolored gasket material . The plate may need to be tightened down as the gasket settles .
Anthony

 

[Fred61]

I seem to have eliminated the creosote smell but I tried so many things it's difficult to conclude which action contributed to the success. I believe that sealing every connection, seam and slip joint in the smoke pipe with RTV high temp silicone was the biggest improvement. I did crank the hinge blocks in one turn. Why do you suppose they don't put a stud on both top and bottom of the hinge? Only one more cut with lathe or screw machine. Somewhere in the instructions that came with my unit they suggested the use of graphite on the door gasket. The only graphite I had on hand was an aerosol can of Lock Ease so I sprayed it on the door gasket. It may have helped but the liquid "carrier" in the fluid is petroleum distillates. I didn't smell it much when I fired up the unit that evening because I used to be in the coating and adhesive business and was exposed to so many solvents I can't smell them. That is not the case with my wife! I heard abuot the "chemical odor" from the time she walked in the door 'til she went to bed. I don't know if it helped but if you try it you might want to take the door outside and try to evaporate it with a heat gun.
One other thing I do is periodically run a stone hone over the surface that the gasket seats.

 

[Dave T]

I just encountered an experience very similar to some of you with the smoke and backdraft and smell in the house, I was able to close up all the issues and quick if you have triple wall or any type of stove with a plug for a clean out the cleanout plug needs to be checked and possibly tightened back into the pipe..Mine fell out after a puff and I had terrible draft, I am just learning to burn my EKO..Dave

 

[Tree farmer]

I am almost there, put a layer of silicon in the lip seal on the top and bottom door. That seemed to almost eliminate most odor. Took the the fan panel off as SWF suggested and sure enough there was a black creosote mark on the gasket in the top right corner, this piece of gasket on that side was loose and not adhered on the back like the rest of the gasket. Placed a layer of silicone all around the gasket and under the loose section. No fossil was right- I found a bump on the bottom corner of the top door opening in the steel, like someone never ground to flatten for a good seal. The silicone on the gasket seems to seal around this defect. My smoke pipe sections were sealed with refractory cement right from the start. Thanks again all for the remedies I will pass them all on to a friend who is hooking his up. It's hurting my ears to have listen to my oil boiler right now. When my Eko has been smoke free maybe I will post the 1 through ? steps to a smoke free unit. ;-)