First full season up and running on a Garn 2000

[denvershepherd]

Hello everyone,

This will be my first full winter running my new Garn 2000 and I have some questions. After the instal in March of this year I ran it for a month since it was still cold and it worked great. I've had it running for almost 2 months (Sept, Oct) now and it's still working great but I wanted some other Garn users input on some things.

I've been having some issues trying to gauge how much wood to put in as the temperature of the water approaches it's limit. What I mean by that is if the temperature of the water is at 170 degrees and I put more wood into the already burning fire, I usually go over the recommended temperature. Maybe it just comes with experience knowing your wood and knowing that if I put this many pieces of this size wood in the burn chamber that I should expect X degrees of increase in the water? So far I've been overshooting the mark and as soon as the take reaches around 190 degrees the water from the overflow tube on the front bottom of the Garn starts to drip all over the floor. I've put a little container there to catch it now but I still don't like that I'm losing some of the water in the tank.

I've got some more questions but I'll leave it at that for now.

Thanks,

Neil

 

[Coal Reaper]

Search weighing wood. You can calculate how many pounds if wood you need to burn in order to bring tank to desired temp. There is a correction factor that is different for each system that you will need to figure out through your own trials.

 

[heaterman]

"Maybe it just comes with experience knowing your wood and knowing that if I put this many pieces of this size wood in the burn chamber that I should expect X degrees of increase in the water?"


Exactly.
Give your self til the end of this winter and you'll be a pro at it.
Understand that what you are dealing with is a moving target of sorts. The variables are the wood itself, the current weather conditions, changing loads in the house and where exactly in the burn of the previous load you are when you refill.

 

[TCaldwell]

with my garn model 1900, 1905 gal approx, the numbers range from 2.5 to 3 lbs wood per degree of water raised. The difference is in the quality and moisture content of the wood. With a 85lb load at 2.5lbs=a 34deg raise in water temp. The tank temp display on your controller is the supply temp, the average tank temp should be what you use for the wood calc. I use a azel relatively inexpensive two sensor display, that can be averaged and reset after each burn. One sensor is towards the bottom and one towards the top, I average the 2 readings before a burn to get the start temp and calculate the wood needed to reach my target temp. At the end of burn the azel will capture the high temps that can be averaged for the ending water temp. 85lbs should be about your max load at the start, if your calculation says you need more, add the balance at about 1 hr.