EKO 40 start up problems

[Northwoodsman]

Wow !

I finally have my EKO40 installed and am using it with 2 x 500 gallon of water storage.

I have been burning it for about a week now and have experienced a few problems and was hoping someone can help me out:

1.) Excessive amounts of creosote build up are occuring in the upper burn chamber (I am burning hard maple that has an approx. moisture content of 20 %). This is causing the flap and door to stick.

2.) I am having to move the logs around in the upper chamber quite frequently (every few hours) when burning in the gasification mode or else my gasification burn goes to zero. However, when its burning properly it does burn very nice and hot with no smoke out the chimney.

I was reading through the EKO manual and noticed that my fan opening was supposed to be at 100% open for the EKO 40 but is currently only 50 % open (as received from Cozy Heat). This leads me to believe that maybe the secondary and primary air settings are not correct either. Before I take off the cover and check these settings I was wandering if anyone else has been through the learning curves and have achieve the best settings.

Thanks everyone for your help !!

Brian

 

[Eric Johnson]

Hi Brian. Sounds like you're on the right track.

There's at least one other thread dealing with the sticking bypass damper. My solution was simply to turn the handle around so that you can open the firebox door while the damper is closed. This involves driving out the small retaining pin, turning the handle around so that it operates in a clockwise direction, and replacing the pin. When you do that, you can open the main door and push the damper open with a stick, poker or whatever.

The proper way to load an EKO is right up to the brim. If you do that, you shouldn't have to play around with the wood too much, and it should maintain gasification for the duration of the burn. But, nothing is perfect, and if you have to go out there and stir things up to get it going again, then that's what you gotta do. If you mean that you're getting no smoke but no flame in the gasification chamber, then either the flame is invisible or you're getting hot gas.

As is frequently noted here, there's a fairly long learning curve to operating these boilers. Most of us have noticed that we get better results with experience, though we can't really point to why.

My understanding is that these boilers are shipped from Poland to the distributor in West Virginia and then directly to the customer, regardless of the dealer you bought it from. So the factory settings are just that--set by the factory. And sometimes they don't set things right, and sometimes you have to adjust the settings anyway for your situation (draft, wood condition, air supply, etc.). I don't have time to get into the details, but there are a few recent threads discussing this, along with some photos of where the adjustments can be made and how to make them on an EKO. I think some of the photos are in the new manual, which can be downloaded from the New Horizon Corp. website.

 

[Nofossil]

Logs that are too large won't burn as well - not enough surface area. If that's what you have, try mixing in some smaller chunks.

 

[jebatty]

Search the forum for "bridging" and you will find lots of ideas, solutions, etc. to deal with the wood load hanging up and gasification being interrupted.

 

[Duetech]

Nofossil has a very good point I have verified and your EKO manual will too. The manual states you should not use anything larger than 7" diameter. I have tried logs larger than 7" and had the hang up problem. Even 7" is not that user friendly. One other thing I have noticed is logs that are too long do the same thing. The chamber is about 21" from front to back. I now cut my wood at about 20" and eliminate all but a few hang ups. The tapered slope in the bottom of the combustion chamber facilitates an auto feed based on the diminishing size of the wood used, due to burning, and gravity. Since your moisture is right and you are having to "poker" the wood try shortening the wood by an inch in your next cuttings and making the slits smaller.
My fan opening is open to about 2/3 and gasification is great. Any further open and the unit seems to sneeze or cough which is apparently caused by too great of an oxygen supply in the upper chamber. If you have had good gasification at times I would not tinker with the secondary air flow. The system is not prone to fluctuations in air flow. If your wood is hanging up though you won't get enough coals at the nozzle to supply enough heated fuel to ignite upon contact with the secondary air. Try this...put a bag of charcoal briquettes in your unit the next time you need to load it. Be certain there is a good bed of coals prior to loading in the briquettes. If you get good gasification throughout the burn of that loading I would call the culprit 99% the size of the wood you are trying to burn given the moisture content you quoted. My unit has been running almost non stop for two years as I heat my dhw with it during the summer. So I have loaded my unit a lot and have learned a lot of what not to load. Life is easier when the wood size is smaller ...Keep warm...Cave2k