Quadrafire air wash mod

[DMKNLD]

I'm looking for feedback from others that might have modified the air wash on their Quad to get better heat output. I'm trying it on my Quad Castille FS, which significantly increases the air flow through the burn pot, and thus makes for a lower but more intense and hotter burn pot flame. I have the older model Castille with the air wash on the upper part of the door, so it was easy to just lay some fiberglass rope gasket over the air wash opening to shut down the majority of air flow through it.

My question is, should I adjust the pellet feed rate to more open to still get the optimum pellet - to - air flow burn ratio, or will this just trade off increased heat output for increased pellet use? I do seem to get more ash production, as more pellet embers get blown out of the burn pot, and I do have to clean the glass more often, but it's worth the the minimal extra cleaning effort if it increases the heat output / burn efficiency from my stove.

 

[SwineFlue]

My opinion on this was that the air-wash air bypasses the burnpot, and does not support combustion. It just gets heated up and goes out the vent as wasted heat. I think that blocking it (partially or fully) reduces the airflow into the firebox: more air will go through the burnpot, but not as much as what was blocked at the airwash. You should see heat exchanger temperatures increase.

The modification puts some more air through the burnpot, so you could probably get away with increasing the fed gate trim to get even more heat by burning more pellets. But I won't advocate going above what the manual recommends.

There was a thread on this last winter. I blocked off an inch or two at each end of the airwash and was surprised at how much the HX temperatures increased. Only the top corners of the glass got dirty.