GW Rebuild Part 3 Now in Service

[Pittsburgh]

After all that work I am pleased to say the GW has finally turned into a well mannered and welcome house guest. There were 3 other changes made during the rebuild so I can’t be sure of just what or all in part made the difference. Along with the furnace rebuild I got rid of one 90 for a 45 at the wall thimble. I replaced a regular mixing valve with a Danfoss ESBE TV and moved the aquastat from the furnace to the 120 gallon buffer tank under the steps, tank temp was always 20 deg lower before.

Noticeable differences after 2 weeks of service are: ALL the DRIPPING has stopped! The refractory color has been and maintains a light shade of Tan / Grey through out, even the door. I’m averaging about a 12 hour burn out of 3 five gallon bucket sized Red Oak rounds with the temps here in the single digits at night. And the best of all the HX tubes I can see are staying clean the ash that does collect on them is white and falls off E-HA! All of which makes me a Very Happy Camper!

Now I can get to that 2 post truck lift I’m planning to buy myself for Christmas!

Merry Christmas All!

 

[bigburner]

Kind of wondering what has happened with the couple GW that were being upgraded, still believe in the concept. simple-simple-simple. building one from scratch this is the design I would use. Insulation and access are the original short comings and a good bypass. If you burn it hot all there is, is some fly ash, none of that tar looking stuff I seen in pictures on here. Glad it is working out for you. PS sent picture of the hoist.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Nice job Pitt, and congrats on the better burns!

It's also nice to see I'm not the only one with a manifold that hasn't been boxed in yet ;-)

 

[91220da]

The units are simple, simple, and awesome when they perform the way they are supposed to. The Danfoss may be the key to your happiness, when the water temps are maintained it seems to negate the dripping, creosote, and corrosion issues. I am allways pleased to see white refractory and ash on the hx vs. tar. Someone posted on here a year or two ago that the best way to clean the hx was to allow it to overtemp and burn everything off. The units that Idle alot or run cool to cold seem to have the most trouble.