Finally: EKO 25 first firing! - Some Questions...

[Medman]

Many thanks to all who contribute so much to this forum - you have allowed me to take what I first thought was a pie-in-the-sky idea and make it reality.
I was able to fill the system with air friday and pressure test. I found about a dozen leaks in the near boiler piping. Some observations for those in process now:

1. Danfoss Valve ports are not tapered to NPT female specs. All three ports leaked badly, and I had to disassemble the entire near boiler pipe loop to fix the leaks. I used pipe dope only initially-not enough to seal on this fitting. I reassembled using pipe dope, good teflon tape, and more pipe dope.

2. The 2" inlet and outlet on the EKO are not standard NPT either. Repeat above on those joints.

3. Chinese 1.25" fittings don't mate well with nipples from Taiwan. All of the 2" nipples I bought were made in Taiwan, and they all leaked when threaded into Chinese or Thai cast fittings. All of the other nipple sizes and straight pipes were either Chinese or locally made and had no leaks. I had to use Teflon tape on these fittings as well.

4. I have yet to find a copper-to-copper union that does not leak. I was unable to get all brass in 1", and I am facing a big repair where I installed two of the copper unions. Does anyone have any way to seal these unions that doesn't involve removing them?

5. No one on this forum mentioned how bad black pipe smells the first time it is heated to 185*. I was unprepared for this and got an earful from the wife.

6. I spent the last three days getting the air out of the system. I received boiler prep and treatment solutions from Dave at Cozy Heat, but I am hesitant to drain/fill the system because of the time involved in removing air again. Thoughts on whether I should use the chemicals?

7. After firing the EKO for the first time, the boiler room filled with not so much smoke as a haze - there was a smoke smell, but I could not see anywhere it was coming from. The pipe smell was there as well. Is there a burn-in/burn-off for this unit that could cause the haze?



Operational observationsto follow, but so far the system looks good.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Small leaks in black iron tend to plug up after a few heating and cooling cycles. I think the threads mesh together better after they've had a chance to expand and contract together. Plus, you get a little rust at the leak point which can help seal things up. When in doubt: tape-dope-tape.

I would try dope and tape on the union fitting threads, though that's just a guess. I've always used either black iron or galvanized unions with no problem.

Everything is going to smell the first couple of times you heat it all up. That's true with any heating appliance.

No need to drain to add the chemicals, I don't think. Why not just drain off a quart or a gallon from the top of the boiler and add them there? The circulating water should distribute it all pretty well pretty quick.

 

[Medman]

Thanks, Eric. The problem is that the boiler prep solution says to add the chemical (1 quart for 200 gallons) to the system, circulate for 4-12 hours with system hot, then drain and flush the system. Then I would add the treatment solution (Nitrate compound) at the same ratio as the long-term treatment. To me, this means I need to drain and refill the system at least two more times. I can't see myself doing this while trying to also heat the house. Can this treatment wait until the spring when the weather will allow me more freedom to play with the system, or is it even necessary at all?
When I drained the boiler on Sat to fix the leaks, I took about 25 gallons of water out of the drain on the bottom - just enough to drain the water jacket and the near boiler pipes. I don't think the small volume will cause much problem once the oxygen has come out of the system.
The small leaks did seal themselves after heating. The leaks at the nipples did not - they were too large. The small leak I have now at the union can be isolated from the system, and I also have a cold-solder joint in the same part of the system. That's tonight's job.

The system is running now circulating the now-cool water in manual mode just to keep it from freezing in the boiler room, which has no supplementary heat. This adds to my drain and fill anxiety.
Thankfully the temp here will be around the freezing mark or above for the next couple of days.

 

[cvanhat]

i just got done installing an eko 60 with allmost all black pipe. as far as the danfoss goes, i had no prblem threading into mine.. the eko boilers 2 inch outlets are threaded with british parrallel threads. they are 1/2 inch more threads per inch. mark at ahona provided the adapters with the boiler. you can also get them from mcmaster-carr. it sounds to me like you simply did not tighten your fittings enough. i taped and doped every fitting and tightened untill i couldnt move it any more. no leaks anywhere. the tightest fitting for me wee the pices i had to cut and thread my self. i have never had a problem with any union leaking no matter what it was made from. tighten tighten and tighten some more!! as for adding your chemicals, i flushed my system first and then added the treatment to the storage tank before filling. if you have storage or a "t" fitting or someplace high in the system, that would be the place to add anything after you have drained off some water from the system.

 

[sfriedri]

4. I have yet to find a copper-to-copper union that does not leak. I was unable to get all brass in 1", and I am facing a big repair where I installed two of the copper unions. Does anyone have any way to seal these unions that doesn't involve removing them?

I had the same problem a while back when I installed my solar DHW system and used a couple of 3/4" brass unions. My solution was to put some teflon tape on one of the union seats. I figured this would seal any imperfections on the union seats when it was tightened. I used yellow gas fitting teflon tape that is somewhat thicker, but regular teflon tape may work. This was the only thing that stopped the union from leaking. Putting teflon tape on the threads of a union may help, but this is not where the seal is created on a union.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I'd wait 'till spring, then pipe in some better venting and do the chemical thing. I didn't add chemicals to my system, and I don't think most people do.

 

[Dave T]

I also had a hell of a time getting leak proof unions and I used pipe dope on the seating portion of the unions (on black pipe it is a brass insert), with the dope I did not have to over tighten them the whole point is so they can be separated without disturbing other pipes near them (BTW I am not saying what I did was right but it was effective and I opened more than one of these joints and never applied more dope they are still water tight)..To anybody using black pipe for the first time TAKE THAT EXTRA ROTATION YOU ARE QUESTIONING, I used 18" pipe wrenches and a 3' leverage bar and a regular vise mounted to a rough cut 2x12..Good luck with the rest of the work..Dave

 

[sandman59]

I have always used a good quality pipe dope with a generous amount of teflon tape on every pipe joint that I assemble. Also, a 14" Ridgid pipe wrench with a 2 foot piece of pipe works great. I have stopped using copper unions, it's less trouble to cut the pipe and install a coupler if I have to take something apart. Haven't had any problems with any of my black iron unions.

 

[Medman]

Thanks for the info. I am going to try teflon tape on the seat of the union tonight. Of the 16 unions in the system, only one, the copper-copper union is now leaking. I have tightened it until I thought a blood vessel popped in my head - still slowly dribbling water. I also don't think I will add the chemicals until spring - I should have a storage tank by then anyway. As for not tightening the fittings enough - I had that problem early on in the piping and disassembled it all and started over. The Danfoss was a different story - the pipe bottomed out in the fitting before it was really tight, and I thought I used enough pipe dope on the joints but obviously some t-tape was needed.

For the haze in the boiler room in the garage, I was thinking of a kitchen range hood over the top of the boiler, ducted out the back wall. Any thoughts or experience with this?

I hope to have the leaks in the water-air HX loop fixed tonight so I can see how much heat transfer I am getting on that side. My DHW electric tank was at 175* using the sidearm HX!
Back out to the pipe supply store...

 

[Bad Wolf]

For the Tarm which also uses the straight threads they gave me some funky hemp and sealant. You buttered some of the dope into the threads, unwound a few inchs of the hemp, frayed it out and wrapped the threads with it pretty much filling them then smoothed some more dope over the hemp. Those were the only joints that never leaked. Of the others, all but one of the drips have stopped.

Greg

 

[Eric Johnson]

For the haze in the boiler room in the garage, I was thinking of a kitchen range hood over the top of the boiler, ducted out the back wall. Any thoughts or experience with this?

Operate the boiler for a few weeks or a month before you make plans to spend any more money. If you're like most of us, you'll get the hang of making it do what you want, when you want, pretty quickly. It's a rather long (and sometimes steep) learning curve, but you can get most of the kinks worked out in the first few weeks. And it takes that long for a new EKO to really get broken in, anyway.

 

[Tony H]

on adding the chemicals, I just connected a short hose to the boiler drain and pumped them in with a utility pump in a bucket then shut off the drain. I was not trying to heat the house at the same time. Waiting until a warm stretch or spring makes sense. I might be the exception but I put in the prep the protectant and 10 gal of antifreeze in my system and it was no problem doing it off season.

 

[Medman]

Thanks for the input. I have been on the road for work, so no progress until last night. I was able to re-plumb the problem copper sections and get the unions sealed with the t-tape on the seats. No leaks during overnight firing. System pressure is at 5 PSI cold, rising to 18 PSI at 180*

NoFossil's fire starting method really is working - in my 25, I can go from cold to gasifiying in about six minutes. My wood is ideal, because I learned the virtues of dry wood the hard way with my PE woodstove. With only about 20 pounds of dry maple I got gasification from 8:30 last night until sometime in the night - when I got up at 6 this morning the water temp was still about 100*.

I decided just to add the treatment solution for now, and flush and fill in the spring. I have enough chemical to do the fill a few times anyway.

Like so many others I have a smoke smell problem, and when I am starting the fan on the EKO I get a puff of smoke out of the back of the boiler where the flue is attached. I am going to seal all of the joints next, and possibly add another 3' section of chimney to see if that helps.

Eric, you're right about the learning curve - this whole experience has been a steep curve for me, and I am liking it. I would suggest to all that you keep a log of your efforts and progress to reference at the start of each heating season. I have done so with my PE stove and it helped get things going faster at the start of the next heating season. My log book for the EKO is a binder full of info that I have toted everywhere with me for about three months now. When things settle down it will occupy a prime space on my desk in the workshop/boiler room.