Product Review - EKO Inducer from New Horizon

[stee6043]

Yesterday I had my official start to the '09/'10 burning season with an all-day burn to bring my storage tanks up to temp. This was also my first real test of the inducer I installed over the summer.

I bought the inducer from Zenon at New Horizon. The price was right but my unit arrived pretty heavily damaged. It took me an hour of heating, bending, pounding and straightening to get the fan to run in the inducer without grinding on the fan housing. This was a big pain and quite disappointing for a brand new unit. I requested from New Horizon a replacement gasket for the fan mount for my "troubles" which I never received. Another disappointment.

So on to the function of the unit. During the first fire I found a ALL KINDS of spots I had apparently missed with the RTV sealant. Holy crap did this thing leak. I might as well have lit my first fire with both doors off my EKO for as much smoke as I got in the house. For the record - the inducer has a very odd ball size which doesn't lend itself to fitting snugly over existing 8" black pipe. A metric ton of RTV sealant is required to stop the smoke. And applying sealant during a burn can be fun (re: burn on forehead).

Once I stopped all of the leaking at the unit itself I moved on to inspecting my Class A pipe joints which were previously sealed with RTV after my test runs of the inducer. The inducer is able to push fly ash (and smoke) out of just about any joint during operation. Everything needs to be sealed. I was good to go here after a few more dabs of sealant.

Once I had an established fire and good draft without the inducer I decided to try her out during a mid-burn reload. I kept the bottom door closed, open bypass, turn on inducer, open upper door slowly. Initially I thought the inducer was exceeding my expectations....but I quickly realized even on full power it wouldn't keep "all" of the smoke in the upper chamber. I still had some smoke coming out the door during loading. Unfortunately, this is exactly what I bought the unit to prevent.

This morning I used the inducer during a cold start. It worked great at getting a quick fire going. I'm pretty sure the inducer cuts my cold start time in half when compared to starting without one. Very impressed with this part of the unit.


So at the end of the day I have very mixed feelings about the inducer. Since the real reason I wanted the unit was to have smoke free mid-fire reloads I can't say I'm overly pleased with it. I think the problem is that the inducer seems to suck more air through the HX tubes than it does the bypass opening. When you run it with very little wood/coals in the chamber you can see that it actually draws fire/smoke down through the nozzle. When the upper chamber is half full with wood I think the amount of air it pulls through the bypass opening is not enough to catch all the smoke.

Overall I give it a C+. For the amount of work I had to do to get this thing functioning, installed and sealed I dare say I may not have done it had I known how it performs. Here are a few photos of my install for you:

 

[taxidermist]

I too installed mine and ran it today with about the same results. With the inducer on high it will pull the smoke out of the upper chamber with the door about 3/4 open. If the door is all the way open it will still let smoke out. It pulls about 0.10to 0.014 inches of water on my manometer. Might have been better if they shipped this with the unit when I bought it so I could attach it right to the back of the eko 60. I had to install it about 1' above the rear exit on the eko due to allready having all my plumbing done and not being able to move my unit to make the chimney line up.

So it helps but it is not the "FIX" to the eko smoke problem. I give it a C +

Rob

 

[sdrobertson]

Thanks guys for the reports

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

I bought what looks like the same controller from Zenon for my Atmos. This is just the box with the reostat. It says use only with a brush type motor & my Atmos does not have brushes. Could you tell me if the inducer motor you bought has brushes? Thanks, Randy

 

[Hydronics]

I'd have to rate it maybe a bit better. I agree, it is helpful when starting fires, it doesn't prevent all smoke from coming out the loading door as said. I'm not that disappointed because I talked Zenon into throwing it in with the boiler.

 

[taxidermist]

I'd have to rate it maybe a bit better. I agree, it is helpful when starting fires, it doesn't prevent all smoke from coming out the loading door as said. I'm not that disappointed because I talked Zenon into throwing it in with the boiler.

Is yours hooked right off the back of your boiler? If so you did not have to cobble it up like we did to make it fit into our existing system.

 

[Hydronics]

I'd have to rate it maybe a bit better. I agree, it is helpful when starting fires, it doesn't prevent all smoke from coming out the loading door as said. I'm not that disappointed because I talked Zenon into throwing it in with the boiler.

Is yours hooked right off the back of your boiler? If so you did not have to cobble it up like we did to make it fit into our existing system.

No, I slid it on the back of the boiler. If I went through what you guys did I'd be disappointed also.

 

[shoeboxlen]

After reading this I am sure glad I just went with the gasket and not the gasket and the fan. so far the gasket has stopped all the smoke stink and I have been burning about a month now. Sorry you guys didnt make out so good with your purchase. another trick for folks to getthier fire going quicker instead of the draft unducer start your fire close the top door and open the botom door make sure the flue is open give a a couple minutes and youw ill be cookin! GL

 

[taxidermist]

After reading this I am sure glad I just went with the gasket and not the gasket and the fan. so far the gasket has stopped all the smoke stink and I have been burning about a month now. Sorry you guys didnt make out so good with your purchase. another trick for folks to getthier fire going quicker instead of the draft unducer start your fire close the top door and open the botom door make sure the flue is open give a a couple minutes and youw ill be cookin! GL

The draft inducer install had nothing to do with smoke coming out the door when it was shut. My install was to help with smoke coming out the door while loading the boiler.

Rob

 

[stee6043]

After reading this I am sure glad I just went with the gasket and not the gasket and the fan. so far the gasket has stopped all the smoke stink and I have been burning about a month now. Sorry you guys didnt make out so good with your purchase. another trick for folks to getthier fire going quicker instead of the draft unducer start your fire close the top door and open the botom door make sure the flue is open give a a couple minutes and youw ill be cookin! GL

Yeah, this is a standard start procedure as far as I know. At least that's the way I did it in the past. If you run this method with the inducer the fire starts much, much faster and get's hotter much quicker. I can have 400 degrees on my flue in half the time. So again - this is really the only big "win" for my inducer install. The rest is less than stellar.

 

[shoeboxlen]

After reading this I am sure glad I just went with the gasket and not the gasket and the fan. so far the gasket has stopped all the smoke stink and I have been burning about a month now. Sorry you guys didnt make out so good with your purchase. another trick for folks to getthier fire going quicker instead of the draft unducer start your fire close the top door and open the botom door make sure the flue is open give a a couple minutes and youw ill be cookin! GL

The draft inducer install had nothing to do with smoke coming out the door when it was shut. My install was to help with smoke coming out the door while loading the boiler.

Rob

I know that the inducer had nothing to do with the smoke coming out the door However when I called suppliers lookign for anew gasket they tried to sell me the draft inducer saying it would solve that issue as well. So I figured I would relay my experience in the matter.

 

[trumpeterb]

I too have this draft inducer tied into my eko 40. My system idols alot, especially right now with temps in the 40's. I have no storage, so I expected that to happen. I installed the inducer to help with smoke out the loading door as well as to help the draft during the longer idol times. It does a decent job helping to get a fire going at startup and pulling the smoke out the bypass when loading, but I really can't use it after the fire is going. I noticed that if I turn it on when idoling, my boiler temp gradually rises higher and higher. It actually overheated once, peaking at 210 degrees. Needless to say there would be no need for gasification if the inducer keeps the temps this high. When I opened the firebox there was not a flame, but most of the wood was red hot coles. I assume I lost burn time on this load as well. Turning the inducer off solved the problem.

 

[stee6043]

I too have this draft inducer tied into my eko 40. My system idols alot, especially right now with temps in the 40's. I have no storage, so I expected that to happen. I installed the inducer to help with smoke out the loading door as well as to help the draft during the longer idol times. It does a decent job helping to get a fire going at startup and pulling the smoke out the bypass when loading, but I really can't use it after the fire is going. I noticed that if I turn it on when idoling, my boiler temp gradually rises higher and higher. It actually overheated once, peaking at 210 degrees. Needless to say there would be no need for gasification if the inducer keeps the temps this high. When I opened the firebox there was not a flame, but most of the wood was red hot coles. I assume I lost burn time on this load as well. Turning the inducer off solved the problem.

It's reasonable to assume your boiler is going to keep producing heat if you run your inducer during idle. The EKO shuts it's own fan off during idle to reduce the heat load. Running your inducer is rather counter productive at this point. I'd stick to using it during starts and reloads. The EKO isn't designed to run with the inducer during normal operation (ie. when the system is running itself).