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
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
and the new vent is wasted money since I cannot find a screen (and dont really want to at this point ). 
