Finally found a solution to my short burn times and my fire going out.

[mjstef]

First off I'm no longer planning to sell or get a different boiler. I picked up this C-150 last fall for a pretty good price and it wasn't used much. The guy was getting divorced and having a fire sale. While I love the heat output I just was not getting anything longer than a 12-hour burn time at 40 degrees and when it was below zero, i was lucky to get 8 hours. I knew a ton of heat was going up the chimney and contemplated putting a damper in but I knew that probably wouldn't work as well as it does on a wood stove because I wouldn't be out there to control it like i could with a wood stove. I even had my air turned down to 25% but then when it got warm out the damned fire would go out. This was burning 1 to 3-year seasoned oak. This winter has been a mild winter here in northern Wisconsin and I still burned almost eight full cords of firewood.
Fast forward to two weeks ago, and Joe Borgerding reached out to me with a possible solution. He asked me if I would test a draft fan modulating control that he had put together called a Boiler Commander. I know there are a few naysayers but my experience the last 4 days proves the viability of this control. Basically, it senses the temperature in the stack via a thermo-couple and continuously adjusts the draft fan speed keeping the flue at a set point. Mine is set at 500 degrees and I've heard the fan almost shut off as the stack temperature rises. No more sending excess heat up the chimney!
When Installed the unit Saturday morning I left the draft door at 25% and ran the control on bypass just to see what my stack temperature was without the controller. Just about the end of a heating cycle I was bouncing between 850° and 875°. (I've been told on some Facebook groups that there's no way a conventional boiler runs flue temps that hot LOL) After this cycle I opened the draft door to 100% and switched the control on. The next heat cycle the control started modulating the draft fan as the stack temperature rose and kept it around 500 degrees. I watched it for the rest of the afternoon and was comfortable to load it up and go to bed around 9:00 pm. Temperatures have been hanging in the low teens at night and low 20s in the daytime. At these temps I typically get 10-12 hour burn times with a full firebox I do have issues with the fire going out sometimes though.
When I went out Sunday morning I was blown away as there was at least a third of the wood left that I had put in at 9:00 pm the previous night. I didn't put any in and left it run till 1 in the afternoon when I had to leave, that's 16 hours and there was still a nice coal bed! I was absolutely Blown Away! Like I said above I've never gotten more than a 12-hour burn time and that was with temperatures in the 40's! The next three nights I had similar results with plenty of wood left over in the morning and 16-plus hours of burn time. I loaded the stove every night between 9:00 and 9:30 and in the daytime, I threw two or three splits in around 1:00. All the wood I've done the testing with the last 4 days was run through a processor 3 years ago for my indoor sealed fireplace and stored in a covered wood shed so it's all 16 inches and that makes my results more impressive as I'm not burning 20-24" splits and rounds like I have been all winter.
I have put text on all the following photos of the date and time that I took the photos so you can see my results. I'm also seeing a more steady graph on the temperatures than I used to. I would have the boiler overshoot 5° to 10° before and now It's lucky to overshoot 2°. Basically, this makes my boiler a hybrid between a gasser and a multi-pass Without the gasser problems or expense of buying a gasser. The flu has been running clean at 500° degrees as seen from the photo of the multi-pass chamber as well. I'm just happy to see a third less wood being thrown into boiler and I don't have to worry about hauling butt home to refill the thing so it doesn't go out now! I also don't have to worry about my low temperature alarm going off on my monitoring system on my phone when I'm out of town and having to call the wife at 5:00 a.m. to load the boiler because it's out of wood.

 

[sloeffle]

You posted this same exact message and pictures in the Heatmaster Facebook group. If I was a betting man, I’d bet you and Joe are in business together or you are getting kick backs from him.

Hate to break this to you but guys on here have been doing the same thing on their Tubdra furnaces for years. There isn’t really any magic in what he’s doing.

 

[mjstef]

You posted this same exact message and pictures in the Heatmaster Facebook group. If I was a betting man, I’d bet you and Joe are in business together or you are getting kick backs from him.

Hate to break this to you but guys on here have been doing the same thing on their Tubdra furnaces for years. There isn’t really any magic in what he’s doing.

Hey I had no idea it was discussed but it's a great idea. I wouldn't mind reading other threads on this issue if you have links. I don't know Joe from Adam but he reached out to me with a solution that worked. That is the only reason I shared it here. I had nothing but issues and was ready to dump this boiler.

As a side note I have a four year old EPA wood insert that I used to heat my house with. I could not shut the air intake off more than 50% and there is no damper in the flue to choke the stove back. Thank the government for that BS. I was getting many runaway situations on really dry wood where my triple wall in my chimney chase was hitting 300° in these situations. This honestly scared the hell out of me. After the first winter I pulled the stove apart and made a choke off plate where I can now shut my air down 100% if necessary. The first winter after doing this my refill times went from 6 hours to almost 8 hours. This is the reason I knew Joe was on to something here. In the end necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[sloeffle]

Glad to hear that you are satisfied with the product and not just a spokes person. In this day and age it feels like we are bombarded with advertisements all of the time, even when we think they aren't.

There's a pinned thread in this forum that has the word Tundra in it. All of the info in that long thread. The newer EPA wood furnace tend to produce a lot of coals. The PID controller monitors the stack temperature, it opens up the damper when the temperature goes below the setup point so you can burn the coals off. It essentially the exact opposite of what the Boiler Commander is doing but it's the same principal. PID monitors stack temperature and then make a decision based off of the input on what to do. Did you have to wire your fan into the PID controller ?

I actually have a very similar setup in my basement for OWB and Geo to break the Y1 heat pump connection. On the Auder PID controllers that I have you can setup alarms too. I have alarms setup if my outgoing water temperature goes below 140F or if it gets too cold ( AC blowing across the coil ) in the summer.

 

[mjstef]

Glad to hear that you are satisfied with the product and not just a spokes person. In this day and age it feels like we are bombarded with advertisements all of the time, even when we think they aren't.

There's a pinned thread in this forum that has the word Tundra in it. All of the info in that long thread. The newer EPA wood furnace tend to produce a lot of coals. The PID controller monitors the stack temperature, it opens up the damper when the temperature goes below the setup point so you can burn the coals off. It essentially the exact opposite of what the Boiler Commander is doing but it's the same principal. PID monitors stack temperature and then make a decision based off of the input on what to do. Did you have to wire your fan into the PID controller ?

I actually have a very similar setup in my basement for OWB and Geo to break the Y1 heat pump connection. On the Auder PID controllers that I have you can setup alarms too. I have alarms setup if my outgoing water temperature goes below 140F or if it gets too cold ( AC blowing across the coil ) in the summer.

Yes the fan is wired into the controller. I'll check out the thread you're talking about. I agree we're bombarded daily. I very rarely promote anything was it typically causes trouble but I know many people are having issues like I was that it would help.