still need eko help

[trumpeterb]

I am running my eko 40 now for the first year, and I am trying to fine tune it. I have read the sticky on this topic several times, but I am still having issues. I have adjusted my primary air intakes to 9MM as recommended in the manual, I have adjusted my secondary intakes to 3 turns, and I have my fan opening set between 1 and 1.25 inches at the widest part. The fan is also set at 60%, which seemed to yield the best results. The problem is that I am still getting lots of smoke out the chimney when gasifying, and my flame, although whitish-bluish, is small...not filling the entire combustion area as it did when I had the factory settings. The problem with the factory settings was that I got so much creosote buildup in the loading chamber, it would cause the gasket to stick to the opening or pull out of the door completely when I opened the door, and the bypass flap would also stick shut. This problem seems to have gone away somewhat with the new settings. My wood moisture contend is 18-20% consistantly. I am not sure what to do. Is it better to have the smaller blue-white flame or the larger yellowish flame? Any suggestions?

 

[stee6043]

Let me tell ya - there is absolutely no reason to worry about creosote in your upper chamber. Not a single reason. DO NOT tune your boiler to avoid creosote in the upper chamber.

I'd start back tracking immediately. If you had a better flame with the factory settings I'd start moving back in that direction. Judging by your description above I think you may not be pushing enough air in. If you're running the fan at 60% and you only have the blades open 1" I think you might be choking it down too much. Does it take forever to start fires?

Your goal is a blueish flame that fills the whole nozzle. Mine is not always 100% blue but it always fills the nozzle. I typically have some blue and some orange. If I remember correctly I'm 9mm primary, 5 or 6 turns on secondary, 60% fan speed with my shutter wide open.

How many burns have you had? You may still also be heating all of the moisture out of your refractories. This can cause some white "smoke" which is actually steam and will dissapate shortly after leaving your chimney...

 

[shoeboxlen]

dont think there is a way to not get creosote in the upper chanber of an eko even in the display models at dealers they have creosote and they jenneraly burn oak seasoned splinters.

 

[trumpeterb]

Those are great thoughts. I have only been burning the stove for about a week. I am not sure how long it takes to dry out the stove, but some of the smoke may very well be steam...I don't know for sure. Perhaps I will try opening the fan blade all the way and seeing what that does to the burn. I will keep my 9MM setting and try adjusting the secondaries 4-6 turns out and see if it throws more O2 to the combustion chamber. There are so many variables to consider, it's like a puzzle.

 

[stee6043]

Yeah, you can play with these things all day long. But ulitmately it's still kicking out a ton of heat, right? Most folks can be quite happy with gassers even if they don't ever touch the air settings. My recommendation to you would have been to burn for a month with stock settings and then start playing. But it's too late for that!

 

[trumpeterb]

I tinkered with the eko tonight and set the primaries at 10mm, the secondaries at 5 turns, the fan at 70%, and opened the fan blades all the way. I started a fire and was able to get a whitish/blue flame with hints of green. The flame filled the nozzle for the most part. It didn't roll down the u-shaped fire brick like the yellow flame did at factory settings, but it was sure throwing heat. I will leave it there for now and see if I get major bridging. It is too bad these things don't have some sort of auto shaker that recognizes a lack of flame in the nozzle and then shakes the firebox and positions the hot coles over the nozzle...maybe I should pattent something like that.

Here is another question...the rope gasket on the top door keeps sticking to the firebox when I open the door. It pulls the gasket out of the door and I have to try and push it back in without burning myself. Does anyone have a suggestion how to eliminate this problem? Has anyone experimented with putting a thin coat of high temperature silicone caulking on the rope gasket? I don't know if this would work or not, but the creosote surely likes to act like glue right now.

 

[leaddog]

spray the gasket when you have it installed in the door with silicone. soak it pretty good and that will help.
leaddog

 

[Gooserider]

Do you have the old fashioned "rope" type gasket, or the new rubber coated style? If you do a search on EKO Gasket, there have been a couple threads on it, including various efforts to glue it in, and coat it with different substances, a lot of which seems to help, but possibly the best fix is to get the new style orange gasket with the silicone rubber coating - looks sort of like a giant orange sausage, and supposedly solves a lot of the sticking issues.

Gooserider

 

[Tree farmer]

Get the new gasket and save yourself some headaches and a lot of screwing around. I fooled with my settings and ended up almost at factory settings in the end. Wood type and moisture have an influence on how much creosote you are getting but I have found as nofossil has said before small loads half to quarter full to make it run more, especially in these warmer temps burn best. My bypass used to stick all the time so far this year it has not stuck once.

 

[jbush]

Greetings. This is my first posting, but I have been following this site for months. I have learned a great deal from this forum and for that I thank you all. I too have fired up my brand new EKO 40 for the first time and have some of the same issues with creosote in the primary burn chamber. I have been burning now for about 3 weeks and the rope gasket does not seem to be sticking as often, but the draft door does stick regularly. I just pop it open with my poker and try to scrape it clean. Other than that I couldn't be happier with my boiler! I have found the factory settings to be pretty efficient. The only adjustment I made was to turn the secondary adjustments to 4 turns out and that seems to keep me in gasification a little better. Like most of you, I am not happy unless I am tinkering. We are experiencing a slight warm up in southern Michigan and I find myself frustrated and wishing for colder weather. This truly is an addiction!! Trumpeterb good luck with your EKO. I think you will learn more in your first few weeks of burning than you have in months of research. That said, I don't think I could have gotten to where I am today without this site!! Thanks again.

 

[Hydronics]

As others have said, it seems to take some time to get a hang of running these, I've had my 60 going off and on for a couple weeks. It seems like each burn improves, probably due in part to the refractory driving out moisture. I verified tonight before start up that the secondary nozzle holes are lined up with the tubes with a flexible pen light from Grainger's. The adjustment washers are also lined up with the tubes & will completely block them when shut. I will try again but the secondary adjustments don't seem to have an effect on the flame even with the shutters mostly closed?? One lesson I've learned is to not rush into gasification before establishing a good coal bed.
Overall I'm becoming more confident in the boiler though.

 

[Tony H]

I would not get too worried about buildup in the upper chamber just scrape it off once in a while. Seems this time of year with no storage you will build up a bit more than later in the year when it runs harder. Look in the chimney if it's like mine there is very little creosote in there and mine has never been cleaned .
I wonder if you are getting too much buildup on the gasket if your door could use some adjustment , I get buildup on the inner door but not alot onto the gasket and with the door handle reversed I just turn the handle it opens the latch and if I continue to turn it pushs the latch against the frame and gently opens the door. Then again you might just want to throw some rtv sealant to stick the gasket in better until you get a new improved one.
Reverse the upper chamber door handle so you can open the door if the damper gets stuck and use your poker to push it open or what I do is hit the end of the handle with a piece of wood.
I did a bunch of adjusting last year and got a nice blue flame but with wood that varied quite a bit it had to be tinkered with way too often for my taste. The settings I have now with 10mm open 3-5 open turns and 1" or so and full fan I think give me more of a blueish orange flame and lots of it with very little smoke at full burn and best of all don't need to mess with them just clean out ash throw in wood and enjoy the heat.
Rambling over