EKO 40 "Third Burn" Question?

[Donl]

Success at Last! Attempted my third burn last night after two other attempts that failed to provide much heat or gasification.

The first attempt I ensured the primary/secondary/fan settings were as suggested in the new EKO manual (primary = 10mm, Secondary =3.5 turns, and fan = 10% open wood = 12 - 16% mcg operated 4-way mixing valve manually ). Result was poor heat output and plenty of smoke. Tried adjusting secondary between 3 -6 turns and increased fan opening to about 20%.

The second attempt obtained similar results as above. The only difference was that I got the 4-way mixing valve operating with the Tekmar controller and this kept the main pump running but still low temp (60-65 C) and unable to maintain O/P under load.

Third attempt I placed my wifes digital meat thermometer in stove pipe with all settings as per the manual. The maximum stack temperature I could achieve was 155F. I opened the Fan a bit more and the stack temperature began to increase. I kept opening the fan a little bit at a time and the stack temperature kept on increasing. When I got to about 50% open I obtained very good gasification and no smoke from the chimney. I put in some more wood and It worked great over night going into idle from time to time, but re-entering good gasification when out of idle.

My question is since I needed to open the fan up so much (50%) to obtain gasification do you think that this indicates the I should try to open the primary setting some more to see if I can reduce the fan opening? Why do you think I needed to open the fan up so much? Note: My chimney is 8" insulated and the top is 16' tall measured from the floor of the outdoor shed. Draft issue?

Don

 

[deerefanatic]

Hmm... Didn't I remember hearing that the first couple burns aren't too good due to the liners they use in the secondary nozzles of the refractory having to be burned out? I know on my homemade burner that was the case.....

Either way, you may not be getting as much draft as EKO expects. Still, if you've got the fan doing the job, it should work....

 

[mhearts]

I have a similar set up as you. EKO40. 16 ft well insulated SS tripple wall. I finished my installation a 2 weeks ago and have had the fire going for about 10 days. I too had a smokey start during the first couple of burns and I had my doubts....however things have worked out unbelievably well. I opened the secondary 6 turns and have the fan opening set at about 60- 70 % . When The fan kicks on you want a decent volume of air/ oxygen introduced into the burn. I may reduce the fan opening a bit as I continue to experiment. But it sure is gassifying at this setting...At least those settings works for me. I have not changed the primary air setting ..they are about closed as low as they will go.

Feel free to experiment. I feel experimentation is the key...Last evening I changed the fan work setting (to 8 seconds of work) and set it to kick on every 10 minutes instead of every 5 during the idle mode. I created a information collection chart and put it on a clipboard, so each fill I record my observations.

As each day goes by my operational confidence level builds and I really like this. I have burnt wood for 20 years and always put up with one extremely warm room and then cooler rooms the farther you move from the stove. that problem has been solved..... Along with not having to buy propane as a suplement.

This morning it was 30 when I awoke and the house was toasty, All rooms in you house are nice and toasty. The free shower I took was extra long due to the sidearm on the hot water heater and the fire still had a nice bed of coals to load more wood. I have been loading it 3 times a day ..trying to match the level of the wood being loaded to the outdoor tempatures expected. I may transition to loading wood twice a day as it gets colder..Once every 12 hours..

 

[hkobus]

Hi Don,

glad to hear that you got going. With regards to your Q's I would say that you may want to use a charcoal start and start with some small rounds to get a good ember bed to get gasification started. Did you get times that the fire burned a cavity above the nozzle? When this happens to me I have to break up the hang up and the stack temp rises right away.
I can't remember if you have the "super" or the regular. Mine is the regular and I made a modification to slope the floor of the top chamber. This has reduced the hang-ups a lot.
With regards to the heat load, you will have a much higher load when you first start the system, since the delta T is much higher at this time. This would mean that the water will return much colder than calculated. This would probably put you 4 way through the paces.
I still did not decide on controls yet and still learning by running on manual..

Good luck.

 

[Donl]

I am quite pleased with the operation of our EKO 40 now that I have managed to get the adjustments within the ball park to obtain good gasification. Now I will do some experimentation with the adjustments to see if improvements can be made, and to get a better understanding of the relationship each adjustment has with each other.

What I have learned thus far is that the adjustment guide lines in the "NEW" EKO manual are just a starting point. You may have to move well outside those guide lines in order to get it to work.

I would be interested in hearing what others have settled on for adjustments. If you are interested in responding please provide your settings as follows:

EKO = 25 40 60 80

Primary opening = inch or mm
Secondary = # of turns out
Fan = % open
Purge interval = minutes
Fan O/P = 1 -8

This will give us an idea of how big a range in adjustments can be from one system to another. Given that, I would be interested in finding out why?


Hi Hank!
I did get the Super, and as yet I have had no issues with bridging. You are absolutely right about the 4-way valve. During the first couple of burns that motorized valve was working so hard ensuring proper return temperatures to the boiler that I was beginning to feel sorry for it. This winter I am planning on getting real serious with the control aspect of the system. Nofossil has provided me with inspiration on this and I think that part of this project will prove to be as rewarding as to what I have accomplished thus far. It beat building a Heathkit hands down!

Don

 

[sfriedri]

I am quite pleased with the operation of our EKO 40 now that I have managed to get the adjustments within the ball park to obtain good gasification. Now I will do some experimentation with the adjustments to see if improvements can be made, and to get a better understanding of the relationship each adjustment has with each other.

What I have learned thus far is that the adjustment guide lines in the "NEW" EKO manual are just a starting point. You may have to move well outside those guide lines in order to get it to work.

I would be interested in hearing what others have settled on for adjustments. If you are interested in responding please provide your settings as follows:

EKO = 25 40 60 80

Primary opening = inch or mm
Secondary = # of turns out
Fan = % open
Purge interval = minutes
Fan O/P = 1 -8

This will give us an idea of how big a range in adjustments can be from one system to another. Given that, I would be interested in finding out why?

I have only used my EKO for one day so far, and the burn was not the best initially as everyone else has experienced, but got better by the time I added wood the third time. Probably a combination of factors causing resulting in poor operation initially, but it seemed to be working really well after about 12hrs of operation. The flame in the secondary chamber was blueish-orange and completely filled the "U" of the refractory in the secondary chamber - like a blast furnace.

Here are my current settings that I ended up with at the end of the first burn:

EKO = 40 with 550gal storage

Primary opening = 3/4"
Secondary = 5 turns out
Fan = 50% open
Purge interval = 5 minutes
Fan O/P = 6

These may change as I gain more experience, but these worked well so far.

 

[Tony H]

Don,
Nice to hear you are in operation and getting things figured out. Thanks for posting the info to let eveyone know what you find. I am almost done with the plumbing and hope to get mine filled and going in the next couple of weeks I am sure getting excited to get some wood burning!

Tony

 

[Donl]

Don,
Nice to hear you are in operation and getting things figured out. Thanks for posting the info to let eveyone know what you find. I am almost done with the plumbing and hope to get mine filled and going in the next couple of weeks I am sure getting excited to get some wood burning!

Tony

Hi Tony, Good to hear from you and hear that you are almost set to go. It's a really good feeling to see all the work you put into this come to life. Don't get too upset if all doesn't go as expected the first few burns. There is a bit of a learning curve here. I think it was Eric who said something to the effect that the first year of operation is a learning experience. Let us know how you make out and best of luck! I've attached a couple of pictures of my setup.

Don

 

[larry4406]

For those of you that have your EKO's in a remote out-building (like Don's pictures), do you use any sort of anti-freeze in the water? I am still trying to get smart on this topic of wood boilers for heat. Am contemplating one for next year's season (summer project). My wife does not want one of these in the house, but is open to the idea of this kind of system to augment our existing forced propane system.

 

[carbon neutral]

Success at Last! Attempted my third burn last night after two other attempts that failed to provide much heat or gasification.

The first attempt I ensured the primary/secondary/fan settings were as suggested in the new EKO manual (primary = 10mm, Secondary =3.5 turns, and fan = 10% open wood = 12 - 16% mcg operated 4-way mixing valve manually ). Result was poor heat output and plenty of smoke. Tried adjusting secondary between 3 -6 turns and increased fan opening to about 20%.

The second attempt obtained similar results as above. The only difference was that I got the 4-way mixing valve operating with the Tekmar controller and this kept the main pump running but still low temp (60-65 C) and unable to maintain O/P under load.

Third attempt I placed my wifes digital meat thermometer in stove pipe with all settings as per the manual. The maximum stack temperature I could achieve was 155F. I opened the Fan a bit more and the stack temperature began to increase. I kept opening the fan a little bit at a time and the stack temperature kept on increasing. When I got to about 50% open I obtained very good gasification and no smoke from the chimney. I put in some more wood and It worked great over night going into idle from time to time, but re-entering good gasification when out of idle.

My question is since I needed to open the fan up so much (50%) to obtain gasification do you think that this indicates the I should try to open the primary setting some more to see if I can reduce the fan opening? Why do you think I needed to open the fan up so much? Note: My chimney is 8" insulated and the top is 16' tall measured from the floor of the outdoor shed. Draft issue?

Don

Don,
The EKO 40 should have the fan open 100%, not 10%. The column is scewed for the damper on the fan and shows it like this:
10
0%.
The eko 18-40 use the same fan so on the smaller boilers you choke in on the fan inlet. The 40 needs it to be 100% open.

 

[markpee]

EKO = 25 40 60 80

Primary opening = inch or mm
Secondary = # of turns out
Fan = % open
Purge interval = minutes
Fan O/P = 1 -8

Don - here's my settings - look at my latest post regarding EKO refractory bricks - there's some insight there after som frustrating times with my 40.

Here's your answers:

EKO 40

Primary= 1 1/8"
Secondary= closed all the way (see the post I mentioned earlier (if someone could tell me if their air shuts completely off when their secondary in turned all the way in, that would either confirm or deny my assumptions)
Fan= 100% (you mean the setting on the controler - right)
Purge and Fan are leftr at factory settings.

 

[Donl]

Don,
The EKO 40 should have the fan open 100%, not 10%. The column is scewed for the damper on the fan and shows it like this:
10
0%.
The eko 18-40 use the same fan so on the smaller boilers you choke in on the fan inlet. The 40 needs it to be 100% open.

That sounds better. Thanks for pointing that out to me.!I have been running that fan at about 60% thinking I should be keeping it closer to the 10% I thought the manual was calling for. I will open it up now to 100% to see how that works. By the way, the boiler has been operating very well at it’s current setting and I have no problem getting 10 - 12 hour overnight burns. Just add some wood in the morning.

Don

 

[Donl]

For those of you that have your EKO's in a remote out-building (like Don's pictures), do you use any sort of anti-freeze in the water? I am still trying to get smart on this topic of wood boilers for heat. Am contemplating one for next year's season (summer project). My wife does not want one of these in the house, but is open to the idea of this kind of system to augment our existing forced propane system.

I don't use any antifreeze. I will do what ever I have to to avoid that stuff. All piping is buried below frost line. Boiler house is well insulated.

Concrete shop floor with radiant heating holds the heat very well. In fact I am beginning to think that the large concrete mass (68,000 pounds) is a very good alternative to water storage. I shut off all heat transfer to the shop for 12 hours overnight. So far shop temps only drop by a couple degrees overnight. I recharge the shop during the day. Works really well!

If I need to be away for any length of time (hardly ever in winter) , I plan to cycle the pumps periodically and pick up heat captured by the plenum in our oil forced air furnace.

Don

 

[Duetech]

For those of you that have your EKO's in a remote out-building (like Don's pictures), do you use any sort of anti-freeze in the water? I am still trying to get smart on this topic of wood boilers for heat. Am contemplating one for next year's season (summer project). My wife does not want one of these in the house, but is open to the idea of this kind of system to augment our existing forced propane system.

I don't use antifreeze but I don't have storage (next summers project) either. My loops are very simple at this stage. One loop where my boiler circulates to itself (primary) and a second loop that feeds off of the primary to heat my dhw and air heat exchanger in my oil furnace. In no way is this supplemental. The oil furnace is only there to supply emergency type back up or extended (1-4 day) absences from home. The secondary circulator runs 24-7 in the winter if the boiler is working or not. When the oil furnace kicks in for those extended absences the heat from the oil furnace also heats the water in my boiler air exchanger because of the consistent water circulation. Unless you pay handsomely for your wood you will find the boiler as primary heat source is usually more economical than gas. What I used to spend for 1 years propane for dhw is now the money I use to pay for about 1 years home heat and hot water expenses with wood but I do buy wood in bulk when I can. Also my house is warmer all throughout the house. Have fun with your project...keep us posted

 

[bird hunter]

don, here are my settings, eko 40, fan opening 100%, primary air 3/8", secondary 3.5 turns, fan speed 80%,fan purge factory setting, most important, h setting on controller called hysterisis must be adjusted for warmer temps outside, factory setting is 4 this is water temp drop before fan activates, 4 is ok in extremely cold weather, during mild weather I use 20 as it provides a much longer burn time. I have also installed a tjurland draft inducer to deal with smoke during loading, works well only draw back is ash in elbows of smoke pipe accumulates, have installed tee cleanouts to deal with this. I have posted a thread regarding, the upper door gasket and creasote smell very happy with results. Good luck to all you brave gasers.

 

[Duetech]

My settings are fan opening at 10%. Primary air is 9mm secondary air is at 4.5 turns. Purge is still at factory and I have the old controller. I find any thing over 35-40% fan opening creates too much turbulence in the primary chamber and creates burn out pockets above the nozzle and smoke in the chimney. My burn times are shorter with wider blower and chamber settings. I am still tweaking primary air to get the best burn but a larger mm opening over fuels the mix and smoke occurs and or sneezing/"exploding" of upper chamber gasses . Secondary air is where the most oxygen is needed and so I have 4.5 turns and still tweaking but 3.5 was anemic and too orange (rich). Also trying to come up with a control to adjust primary air without removing the cover panel and hope to have more on that later. My flame is predominantly yellow blue/white with very little orange and still large in volume. I may hedge open the blower setting with my next primary air reduction in order to facilitate more air for the secondary to get closer to a jetting (lean) effect. The principle of gassification with the upper chamber is to generate a gentle air flow across the wood/coals to support enough heat to charcolize the wood but not to support open flame in the upper chamber and fast air won't do that. In conjunction with that my boiler is in an uninsulated building and fast moving air will not heat well for gassificatoin purposes. My boiler water temp is right at 178*f. Burns are currently averaging at 10+ hours with no storage and that is about an hour gain from the factory settings but that is with black walnut and black cherry wood. Different woods may/will fuel differently...Stay warm

 

[Dave T]

CAVE2 I to am interested in your fix for the primary inlets without removing the fan panel keep us posted..Dave

 

[Grover59]

Last evening I changed the fan work setting (to 8 seconds of work) and set it to kick on every 10 minutes instead of every 5 during the idle mode. I created a information collection chart and put it on a clipboard, so each fill I record my observations.

Can someone explain what this purge thing is for I have my ideas just want someone to explain why it is there.

Steve

 

[Eric Johnson]

For those of you that have your EKO's in a remote out-building (like Don's pictures), do you use any sort of anti-freeze in the water? I am still trying to get smart on this topic of wood boilers for heat. Am contemplating one for next year's season (summer project). My wife does not want one of these in the house, but is open to the idea of this kind of system to augment our existing forced propane system.

I'd stay away from antifreeze. It's very expensive and can cause problems down the line. Plus, it makes doing work on your system very complicated and/or very expensive, since it's hard to get it back into the system once you drain it out. Most people (like me), have some way of pumping a restricted flow of water from our backup boilers through our outdoor installations when necessary. I've never had to do it, but if you can move just a little warm water continuously through the remote system, you won't have any problems, and it will cost you a lot less than buying antifreeze.

 

[Duetech]

Maine,
The "purge" is supposedly to eliminate ignitable gasses from the primary chamber to prevent the sneezing/coughing/exploding of the gasses but I think it just keeps the fire lit. If you run storage, I see you do, and there is not a call for heat from your boiler, then your boiler will set for how ever long with no air to the fire. Eventually your fire will die. Purging the gasses just keeps the fire burning. With no storage and no purging the gludius maximus (probably not the complete correct spelling of the butt muscle) would probably pucker cramp every time you leave the fire unattended. I haven't done it yet but extending purge cycle rates would probably save wood. Tinker giggle tinker tinker giggle giggle tinker Hoodathunkit? Heating the home can be a fun challenge!

 

[Grover59]

Maine,
The "purge" is supposedly to eliminate ignitable gasses from the primary chamber to prevent the sneezing/coughing/exploding of the gasses but I think it just keeps the fire lit. If you run storage, I see you do, and there is not a call for heat from your boiler, then your boiler will set for how ever long with no air to the fire. Eventually your fire will die. Purging the gasses just keeps the fire burning. With no storage and no purging the gludius maximus (probably not the complete correct spelling of the butt muscle) would probably pucker cramp every time you leave the fire unattended. I haven't done it yet but extending purge cycle rates would probably save wood. Tinker giggle tinker tinker giggle giggle tinker Hoodathunkit? Heating the home can be a fun challenge!

Ok that is what I thought when I first started my boiler 3 years ago, I had the problem of it Poping or should I really say making a loud bag very loud. (Back Draft) I assumed at the time that this was the case, gases where there but not much 02 and I had a pretty good draft in my chimney so I eventually pulled in the 02 and bang.
This was before storage, also when it decided to start after being idle, it sometimes would pop, when the mixture got right, this was annoying, and one of the reasons I went with storage. Before the storage I set a aquastat on my baseboard loop, so that it would kick in my circulator to the baseboard ever 30 minutes or so this would then start my fan to the boiler and keep it purged to some degree, but this wasted wood not the best option.
Storage is the best option, I think, light the fire set the timer and foget it, come back in 8 or 12 hours open my doors, open the bypass damper, set the timer, start the blower, throw wood in close the top door, wait for the flue to get to about 400* close the bypass damper, got gasification, close the bottom door walk away.

Steve