fellow gasssifiers

[flyingcow]

I'm getting a very good burn out of the Innova, almost too good.. But it takes at least 1 sometimes 2 full fireboxes to get my tank back to temp(I let it get down to 110 or 120 sometimes) and keep the zones in the house satisfied( it's still below zero plus strong wind). my tank is 820 gals with the Innova 30 heating it. On the second filling of the firebox, about half way thru the wood, the boiler will idle, not long, but it'll do it a few times. Hard for me to watch closely, as its next door in the garage. Plan on hooking up a way to monitor it. The reason it's idling, is that's its having a hard time getting rid of the heat. Tank will be getting close to 180 and the zones in the house are getting satisfied. My wood is very dry hardwood. Burns beautifully.



What if i filled the box half with dry wood and the last half with semi-seasoned hardwood? I cut and split this stuff in may. I'm thinking of trying to slow down the burn a little. Would this work, (and I don't want to have adjust the secondary). What problems would this cause?

I should just fill it half full the second loading, but never has quite enough to bring the tank to where I want it. The whole system is done with true "1 1/4" id pipe. The tank and its hx are actually designed for the next size up boiler.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I don't know if the Tarm blower can be set to variable speeds, but that works pretty well on an EKO, i.e., you turn the fans down to 50% and it burns longer, with lower heat output.

I don't think trying to modulate the burn with moister wood is necessarily the best approach. It might work, but you're going to lose efficiency. I think if you pay attention to how the thing operates under different conditions, you will be able to figure out how to load it to avoid idling. And a little idling is not the end of the world, either.

Somebody around here suggested putting a web cam in the boiler room aimed at the controller. I think that's an excellent idea for remotely monitoring the boiler. You could also connect a wireless thermometer to the top of the water jacket to monitor just the water temp.

 

[flyingcow]

Eric,
Thanks. i agree that using moisture wood is not the answer. Seemed to make sense, but I needed another viewpoint. Learning how to run this thing will be the best answer.

I've got a couple of 18gauge 7 wires run from the boiler room to house.
Plan on running temp gauges from the tank in the house out to boiler room. I can check when I come home at night w/out going in the house 1st.
Also will probably hook up a led light to the blower, the led light will be on a panel in house.Blowers on, light will be on. Also thinking of putting a temp probe in the extra well on top of boiler and run a gauge to the house panel(haven't found what I'm looking for, so if someone has a suggestion of what to use it would be appreciated). Those two items will let me know when fans running and boiler temp.

Also would like to put a thermometer so I can read boiler room temp from the panel in the house. This is getting to be a less of a concern, as i did not know if the boiler room would freeze.Given the temps we've had it seems to be ok.

If I get that far, I'll probably put a set of thermometers on the supply and return in the basement and hook up to the panel. Somebody posted link to a set of strap on thermometers.

My big plus will be hooking up dom coil(installer will be back in a week). Tank isn't lasting as long as I think it should be.I'm heating my dom water thru the boilermate. But also learning this thing will help out . Finish up the control wiring, I also do not have a dump zone set up yet.

Oh yeah, it does not have a variable speed fan.

 

[NHFarmer]

At first I was not comfortable when the Tarm went into idle.It seemed like it would overheat.Now that I am used to it I just load it and leave it alone.

 

[Duetech]

Flyingcow,
Putting not so seasoned wood does diminish efficiency like Eric says but it would also cut into next years wood. Just using less wood on the second filling will extend this years wood. Maybe into next year!??! The big questions are "are you willing to start a new fire every day (or so) and do you really have to get your tank temps up to the max? The last few degrees in storage may seem to give the longest run between fires but also require more fuel and ironically take your longest fires between runs. If you can go down to 110 or 120 from 180 in (let's say) 26 hour period why not go 115 to 125 in a 24 hour period from 175 especially if it takes three hours to go from 175 to 180? I don't have storage so these numbers are arbitrary but I have read similar scenarios on this forum. Less wood with the ultimate of released energy captured is probably the best description of efficiency we can come across. The only difficulty is what works best for us.