EKO 40 burn questions

[Noeske15]

I’m on year 2 of using an Orlan EKO 40 boiler that came with the house I purchased. The guy I bought the house from quickly showed me how to use it but most of my knowledge on it has come from trial and error and this page.

For the first month of burning this year the boiler maintained a nice coal bed in upper chamber and hardly ever had to clean out the lower chamber. Now all of a sudden my coals are blown into the lower chamber and my wood bridges it seems. I didn’t change any settings or wood.

I just checked all my air settings and cleaned my nozzles of any ash. Is there something I’m missing?

Also is this boiler designed to maintain a coal bed or is it supposed to be in the lower chamber and burned up?

Thanks for your time and don’t hold anything against me this is my first gasification boiler and other than this I’ve had minimal issues once I learned it!

 

[hobbyheater]

It sounds like you have some wet wood!

 

[Noeske15]

It’s the same wood I’ve been burning all season all kept inside all meter 10-18%.

 

[brenndatomu]

all meter 10-18

Internal or external? 10% sounds too low for MI. 15% is about as dry as you can expect to get wood in many places...other than maybe during a short period of extreme weather each year.

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrn/fplrn268.pdf

Wood should be room temp and resplit, testing done on the middle if the freshly exposed faces. External and end grain tests mean nothing really.
I'm finding out that consumer grade moisture meters are not real accurate either...one meter to the next can vary 3-4% on same piece of wood

 

[Noeske15]

That is internal and I have the luxury of storing my wood in with the boiler so it dries it out more. I don’t take what it reads out to heart. I’ve seen as low as 8 on the meter so adding in the 3-4 swing I assume it’s not that low.

Just trying to figure out what changed to where I’m not maintaining as nice of a coal bed. Every time I think I have this boiler figured out it throws something at me

 

[Woodman1]

Is your nozzle excessively worn?

 

[hobbyheater]

What size is your wood split to? If your wood was split from a 12 inch round how many pieces would you get 2, 3 , 4, 5, 8 , 9, or 10 !

 

[salecker]

Size of wood makes a big difference.
For years my splits got bigger as it was a way to control my flu temps.All i have to burn is spruce and chimmany temps were always to high for my liking.
I did a modification this fall and my temps have dropped to a good range of running right around 400F with spikes to 600F after a reload and coal stirup then settles back to 400F
But now a lot of my splits are to large and i sometimes end up with the fire not burning well and requires a bunch of small splits to get the coal bed back.

 

[49chevyman]

Size of wood makes a big difference.
For years my splits got bigger as it was a way to control my flu temps.All i have to burn is spruce and chimmany temps were always to high for my liking.
I did a modification this fall and my temps have dropped to a good range of running right around 400F with spikes to 600F after a reload and coal stirup then settles back to 400F
But now a lot of my splits are to large and i sometimes end up with the fire not burning well and requires a bunch of small splits to get the coal bed back.

Is your nozzle excessively worn?

Worn nozzle made a big difference on my EKO 40. Followed advice of others here and made a drop in 310 SST plate 12”x 4” with a 1”x7” hole in the middle. Saved me a cord of wood per season and really made a strong blue flame in the bottom chamber. Small splits to start and build coal bed, then I can put in anything that will fit through the door.

 

[Noeske15]

Thanks all for the info! I’ll check my nozzle this spring when I shut it down for summer. I believe my culprit was the oak that was mixed in was the biggest reason I separated it from my other wood and am able to maintain a really nice coal bed. So I add in a few pieces in just to burn away.

I just had a leak yesterday in my piping and am currently working to get my coal bed back

 

[Noeske15]

Also does anyone know what the measurements of the nozzle are supposed to be?