Eko Orlan 60 gasser fine tuning

[Maine wood burner]

I live in a large old farmhouse in Maine. I have been heating my house with a New Yorker for 20 years and with a waist oil boiler for 7 years. I have purchased a used Eko Orlan 60. I have plumbed a loop to a 1000 gal storage tank. There is a circulator (Taco 0010) pulling return water into the back of the Eko. I have an LK armature tempering valve to prevent cold water from being fed into the boiler. I have a loop plumbed to bypass the tempering valve. I have been leaving the bypass valve closed. From the Hot water supply loop to the storage tank, I have a tee that feeds hot water to the oil fired back up boiler. Both of these loops have flow check valves. There is a circulator in this line Sending hot water to the oil boiler and the house header. If I don’t have the storage tank valve off, I have to run this circulator (Armstrong Astro 210) on the low setting. Also I have a ball valve closed more than 50% to reduce flow through this circulator feeding the oil boiler. If I don’t throttle the valve, I pull water from the storage tank. My intent is to pressurize the loop from the Eko to the storage tank with more flow than the circulator feeding the oil boiler will steal from this loop. The idea being, any hot water not being pulled from the loop will be circulated through the storage tank, and back to the Eko Hot water return. All plumbing is 1-1/2”. The Eko is about 3ft lower in elevation and about 60ft of plumbing from the oil boiler header. I have a couple of issues.

First, I. The Eko feeds the oil boiler or directly into the header, depending if there are zones calling for heat. My house can have multiple zones calling for heat. The oil boiler can read as low as 140 def F. The storage tank is reading 170 deg F at the top of the tank. At this time, I would expect the Eko to be running at full capacity. However, all to often, the Eko is up above its set point of 195 beg F. The Eko is
running all to often in sleep mode and creates too much creosote. When the house drops too low in temperature, I will close the valve to the storage tank and turn up the circulator to the house to high. Still, the house boiler is reading 140 deg F and the Eko is above 195 in sleep mode. I cannot figure out why the circulator is not removing more BTUs from the Eko. I have swapped the two circulators. This has not helped. I was thinking about replacing the Taco 0010 at the back of the Eko feeding the loop to the storage tank with a larger capacity circulator. But I am not sure that this is the problem. Is there any way that water could flow through the LK armature tempering valve in an unintended direction?

Second, I don’t seem to have any trouble achieving gasification. However, after about 10 minutes, I check the lower door the confirm gasification, and there is none. I open both doors and poke the coals under the wood and then check for gasification. At this point, it looks great. However, after another 10 minutes, no gasification. I don’t have a wood moisture gauge yet. I have been burning hardwood (split 18 months). Also, I have been burning pine (split more than 24 months). Also, hardwood (split 8 months). I have tried all combinations of wood and have had the same results. I have the primary air adjustments at approximately 9-10 mm. The secondary air is adjusted to about 3 to 3-1/2 turns. The fan openings from 3/4” to mostly open. I confirmed the bypass damper is sealing by removing the access panel at the back top of boiler. No smoke leaking. I cave cleaned the heat exchanger tubes by pouting lighter fluid down the tubes and lit with a torch. I blew compressed air through the fans to clean them. If I place my hands to block the air feed to the fans, I can feel the pull through the fans. I have cleaned out the tubes feeding air to the nozzles. I flushed with compressed air to confirm they were clear. I have 0.10 in of draft from the chimney. I’m wondering why gasification stops after a few minutes.


Thank you,
Jon

 

[Woodman1]

Can you post a plumbing diagram?

 

[Maine wood burner]

I have experimented with the ball valve adjustments. I have noticed, based on temperature gauges, that sometimes water seems to be flowing in unexpected directions.
thanks,
jon

 

[Maine wood burner]

 

[Maine wood burner]

View attachment 290593

 

[Woodman1]

I dont think I am going to be much help for you. That diagram is way beyond my abilities.

To start with, how does that ak armature valve work? If it operates the same as my danfoss I guess I dont see how it could work in that configuration? I am not familiar with that valve so maybe I'm not seeing it correctly?

 

[Maine wood burner]

The valve is supposed to flow into the top and out the left (until water reaches desired temperature), then hot water flows in from right to left. I believe when the hot water return temp is too low, the valve restricts some flow from the right and mixes with hot water supply from the top of the valve.

 

[Woodman1]

What you described works the same as my danfoss valve.

I assume you mean cold water flows in from right to left. If you have it plumbed as it is drawn you are drawing in cold return water to your boiler directly from the bottom of your storage. If you are using that valve for return boiler protection it should be plumbed in between the bottom of storage and your boiler

 

[salecker]

One thing i see is the pump on the return to the boiler.
I was told the pump should be on the hot side of the boiler pumping away from it.
Other than that the rest looks really overly complicated for some reason

 

[Maine wood burner]

Hi Woodman 1,
The mixing valve is plumed so that water from the bottom of the storage tank tees in with the water return from the oil boiler then feeds into the right side of the valve.

 

[Woodman1]

So your drawing shows water going directly from the bottom of your storage to the eko. Is that not correct?

I know there is more than one way to plumb these but alot of this does not look correct to me

 

[Woodman1]

Here is a very basic way I would have it set up. I didn't include every detail like air separator, and high spots to bleed air. Hope this helps

 

[maple1]

View attachment 290593

That is quite complicated looking. Not sure I can cipher it all.

In order for the mixing unit (Termovar?) to work right, it needs a hot feed and a cold feed and a mixed output. I dont see how that can happen here. I see direct routes for the cold return water to the wood boiler circ at the bottom, both through storage and through the loads.

 

[Maine wood burner]

That is correct. The return from the oil boiler connects with the line from the bottom of the tank feeds into the right side of the mixing valve.

Here is a very basic way I would have it set up. I didn't include every detail like air separator, and high spots to bleed air. Hope this helps

View attachment 290680

I made a mistake when sketching my plumbing diagram. The water from the bottom of the tank does have to pass through the tempering valve. This is the corrected sketch.
Thanks,
Jon

 

[Woodman1]

Ok. You may need a ball valve before the mixing valve in order to balance between your system. The water will take the path of least resistance and just loop around the primary loop causing the eko to go to high set point without sending hot water to house or storage.

 

[mwk1000]

Ok. You may need a ball valve before the mixing valve in order to balance between your system. The water will take the path of least resistance and just loop around the primary loop causing the eko to go to high set point without sending hot water to house or storage.

I've been away a while but I am getting my eko 60 back in action seems like it will be a lifsaver (again). I learned as well that my flows would sometimes get reversed from/to the plate exchanger. As part of the refresh I added one way valves 's to stop that ! . I had a heck of a time with it constantly overheating wich it has never done before. ( since 2008 ) I replaced the taco vrtx150 air separator hivalve (leaking ) and disassembles all the lines and snaked them pulling my hair - all was remakably clean. Turns out the air separators internal screen had detached and the round steel bottom plate for the screen was off and nicely slid underneath the water output slot severly blocking the flow - Grrr... But happy to have found the culprit and get it back in business. That did NOT want to come out and the new vent is wasted money since I cannot find a screen (and dont really want to at this point ).


This thread sounds quite similar the the control setup I have been using , I have less valves but I did an arduino sketch back in 2008 that has been runnig fine all these years making the same type of control choices . I posted the code on this formum back then I put temp sensors on Boiler in/out, Tank Hi/Med/Low, and heat exchanger source/tank in and out ( 4 sensors ) then let the sketch decide when to turn the tank circulator on & off

 

[mwk1000]

FWIW My eko will behave the same way when my wood is to wet (or too big) it bridges and the gap around the nozzel weakens the wood gas flow... Also when the unit is still cold < 160 It's big and usually takes about an hour to get set and start chugging away...

 

[brenndatomu]

I would also think wood too wet...try splitting some of your wood down smaller, and make sure you have an extra big bed of coals...the wood gas being pulled through the bed of hot coals, then preheated oxygen being mixed in at the nozzle is what makes the magic happen.
Also, you aren't losing that 0.10" chimney draft after a bit, are you?

 

[brenndatomu]

Also, how to you put the wood in the firebox...tossed or stacked?
If its stacked ( I think that's the better way) then you might experiment with stacking E/W vs N/S...I think many models prefer one or the other.