Flue Condensation?

[strmh]

At first I thought it was from recent rains, but now I think I'm dealing with condensation.....

Breaking in my EKO 60 and due to mild temps, have only been burning smaller fires. I don't have storage yet, so there's a lot of idle time here.

I have a new masonry chimney and a discouraging amount of creosote-laced water is seeping out of the clean-out on to my new cement floors.

My wood was delivered tree length last year then cut and split this past summer, so I know it's not as dry as it should be and it probably contributing to the problem.

I guess the bottom line is, can I expect this to improve? Are there any "fixes"?

Appreciate any suggestions....

TH

 

[Chris Hoskin]

wait until it's colder outside so you get longer run times and remove turbulators if you have them.

 

[sdrobertson]

I agree on the above and remember that it takes several hot fires to fully cure all the ceramic in the boiler. Removing the turbulators will increase the chimney temps which should help some but that is a pretty big boiler and your producing quite a bit of btu's per load. Prime example for added storage.

 

[strmh]

Turbulators? These are removed from the top of the boiler?

 

[sdrobertson]

Yes, they are removed from the top. The top cover should be in two pieces. Remove the back top cover and you should see a plate held down with allot of nuts. Remove these and that heat exchanger cover will come right off. Looking down you'll see flat pieces of steel that are twisted that fit down each hole and these are the turbulators. The turbulators disrupt the exhaust so that it has to "spin" which causes it to transfer more heat to the walls of the heat exchanger making it more efficient. Also, the turbulators are hooked to a lever on the Super models which when moved, they clean the tubes. When your ready to replace these, you'll have to do a really good job of cleaning all the tubes and then they should slide back into place. Some people report that by having these turbulators installed, they could lower the exhaust temps by around 100 degrees so in theory you should increase your stack temps with them removed.

 

[strmh]

Thanks for the explanation of the turbulators. I assumed they were accessed from the top, but I definitely didn't understand their purpose. I will try removing them for now. I hope to get storage next year, plus I also plan to be heating about 3000sqft of my shop....so that should allow more full-out burns. Hopefully this condensation will subside. I hate seeing puddles of black water on my floor.

 

[willworkforwood]

Lots of idling + poorly seasoned wood is a bad recipe - I inflicted on myself a nasty tube cleaning project by doing just that last Spring. That's good advice about the turbs above, and there are also some things that you can do to help on the wood side of things. First, get a moisture meter to see what MC your wood is really at. You need to split pieces and test the middle of the new splits. Check a few pieces in all the distinct groups of wood that you have (group by date split, wood type, sun/wind, etc). Watch out for anything that's been very close to the ground - those will likely have a higher MC. Use the lowest MC wood first - chances are it will be what you split first, but not necessarily so. The MM will help you use your wood in the correct sequence. Next, put every extra minute into resplitting smaller, which will help speed up the remaining seasoning. Also, if possible, move as much wood inside as possible (assuming your house/basement has low humidity like most). If you can stack some (safely) near the boiler, that's good too. Finally, if there is a wood processor with a kiln, or a pallet distributor nearby, these can be a great source of extra dry stuff that you can mix in with your not-so-good. Get one full year ahead, starting now, and put this in the rear-view mirror. Good luck!