Thermo-Control TC WB-600-C?

[velvetfoot]

(broken link removed to http://www.nationalstoveworks.com/howthe600works.html)

I just came across this, and it's made right down the road from me!

What do you think? Looks like true gasification and I think they've been in business for a number of years.

 

[Eli]

I own one. I need to write up a full review and will get right on that. As with everything else that is sold out there mine has not been without issues. I knew the potential for that going into this, as it is a new unit, but you would think that after a year we would be making some progress. My greatest source of frustration has been how slow thermocontrol has been in trying to address some of the issues my boiler has. Maybe you would have better luck if you could walk into their office and yell at someone.

 

[rwh442]

Interested in what issues you are having. I don't plan on buying one but would like to hear the scoop.

I know every time I have called them for a quick question they answered it without issue or BS. They may have their hands full on this new model of theirs. What is the boiler's serial number, 000002???!!

 

[Eli]

Interested in what issues you are having. I don't plan on buying one but would like to hear the scoop.

I know every time I have called them for a quick question they answered it without issue or BS. They may have their hands full on this new model of theirs. What is the boiler's serial number, 000002???!!

I believe it would be 003 if it had a serial number which it doesn't. They finally had some new information for me today. I was told last season that I would need a firmware upgrade but I am now being told that I will be getting a hardware upgrade with 65 new parts. Hopefully this will solve the issues I am having.
They are
Hit the reload button which should put the unit in purge mode and spool the inducer and it does nothing about 1/2 the time. I need to cycle the door and "trick it" into reseting itself. Then try again. Each time a small puff of smoke escaping from the boiler. My record is 7 times before it purged. It takes about 30 seconds per attempt.
Occasional puffs of smoke off the front door when the unit reaches set point and goes into idle. I can't tell if it's from the door itself or the damper but I suspect it's the damper.
Last winter I had a 6' column of ice in my chimney that occluded it down to about 2.5" on a 8x12" flu. I added a zone to my garage to increase my heat load and try and prevent the unit from idling for too long and the stack temps from dropping too much. Time will tell. Next step would be sleeving the chimney. Then adding storage might help but no one is guaranteeing anything.
The issue here is that the unit works so well. On the burn phase combustion reaches 1300 degrees yet stack exhaust temps only reach 180-200 degrees at the outlet. Couple that with my 30' exposed masonry chimney and problems pop up. During the idle phase the stove pipe is cool to the touch so I can only imagine how cold it is at the top of my chimney.
We're getting there, I'll let you know how the hardware upgrade goes....

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

Do you have boiler return water temperature protection in the piping setup?
An LK820 for instance?

 

[maple1]

65 new parts? Holy crap - I didn't think there were close to that many parts in a boiler to start with.

I've never heard of ice in a chimney like that before. Sounds like an insulated chimney might help your situation a lot, maybe also help with getting smoke to draft up rather than come out - but also sounds like exit temps that low might be asking for trouble to start with. There's no way to regulate it to up your stack temps some? Like, does it have turbulators that you could remove some of? A cool exhaust sounds good on the face of it, but can also spell big trouble when it gets down to condensing territory.

 

[velvetfoot]

But is condensing wood smoke as corrosive as, say, sulfer containing oil or gas?

 

[maple1]

I don't know where creosote is on the corrosion scale compared to fossil stuff - but it can corrode and even worse catch fire & burn.

But wood moisture condensing into an icey chimney blockage sounds like an ugly animal by itself - never heard of that one before.

 

[Eli]

65 new parts? Holy crap - I didn't think there were close to that many parts in a boiler to start with.

I've never heard of ice in a chimney like that before. Sounds like an insulated chimney might help your situation a lot, maybe also help with getting smoke to draft up rather than come out - but also sounds like exit temps that low might be asking for trouble to start with. There's no way to regulate it to up your stack temps some? Like, does it have turbulators that you could remove some of? A cool exhaust sounds good on the face of it, but can also spell big trouble when it gets down to condensing territory.

The cool exhaust is really troublesome to be honest. I'm hopeful that the new hardware will fix the other issues. 65 pieces made my draw drop also but I'm guessing its probably a bunch of little pieces to integrate the new computer they switched too. We will see when they come. There aren't any turbulators that can be removed to increase exhaust flow unfortunately. The only way to increase stack temps is to make it burn longer. But I don't know when the water vapor is condensing out. If its dropping out when the unit is idling and stack temps are very low then increasing the burn time won't help. If its condensing out during the combustion mode, where stack temps are still real low for a wood furnace, then an increased burn time isn't going to help. I normally have a great updraft on my chimney, when its real windy and cold the damper on the stove sounds like a cymbal at a rock concert as it opens and slams shut.

The icy chimney was a nightmare...I never thought to look. Thank the lord it got warm for a few days and the ice dam slid down the chimney. I heard a woosh and a boom while I was working on my computer and checked the clean out the next morning. I thought erroneously that snow had accumulated at the bottom but as i chipped it out over about 5 hours I pulled out chunks that hadn't been crushed in the fall and you could see the 2.5" round hole in the middle of the 8x12"block of ice. Only good part was that all that weight sliding down the chimney gave me a free chimney cleaning. Trying to find a bright side.


As to PFF&W's question I do not. Return temps average 140 or so and the boiler runs at 180, even with the make up water from my domestic I have never seen them drop below 115 at the return where it is measured(obviously startifying as the boiler temp never drops below 5 degrees from its setpoint) ), the unit has an 87 gallon internal storage capacity. I don't have any extra storage beyond that.

 

[keith.montgomery]

Hi! I have been using a 600 for two seasons now... It is an awesome unit - and runs perfectly for us.

We live in an open design 2500'ish sq ft house and my wife and kids kept the thermostat set at 72-74 all winter and we didn't burn one gallon of fuel oil. And this past winter for Long Island it was wicked cold ( i'm sure just like everyone everywhere else ).

Never owning a wood furnace before, it took me a little bit to get used to it, but once I did, it is super easy. To let you know how easy it is, we went on vacation for a week and my 17 year old daughter kept it going all week no issues.

Just like what the guys said here above, it's super efficient.

When we first got it I thought something was wrong because it never seemed to run, and the demand we had from the house wasn't able to kick it on easily. I was loading it fully every night ( with wetter wood ). It still worked with the wet wood, but I was putting in *ALL* wet wood filling the box up.

That caused more smoke than I wanted, and the inside of the box got more creosote than normal. Once I realized I was overloading it, and Thermo-Control helped me adjust the burn times to my particular demand it went AWESOME.

High temp is set at 175, and it will kick on at 165 degrees. Oil burner is set to kick on at 125. In a test, I wanted to see how long the heat from the 175 degree water would last without adding more wood. I didn't add wood one morning, and it basically ran my house all day until I got home at 5:30. Fire was out and the water temp was very low ( at 130 ), but the burner hadn't turned on yet. I started a fire and it brought the water temp back up to 175 before we finished dinner / went to bed.

I thought about buying the expansion tank to help at one point, but it turns out I don't need it.

Now, if I have wet wood, I may load it with only 25% with the wet, 75% dryer. Like I said, personal preference given my particular load / usage. Either way I can get this thing to perform wet wood or not.

I knew from the start about the size of the unit, I over spec'd the boiler some because I wanted a little room for expansion, and ultimately I am going to retire / move to a much colder climate that Long Island and I want to take this with me.

My installation was awesome - far less chimney than what was used from the description above. Very simple.


Typical day is I go out in the morning around 7am and add 3-5 pieces based on what the temps were going to be. The boys check at 2:30 when they are home from school, then one more time before I go to bed around 9pm.

This winter we burned a lot of wood. I blame the extra cold weather, and the ridiculous temps my wife and kids want the house set to. HAHA!

I just know that I would rather throw wood in the 600, rather than fill up that oil tank!


Love My Unit - I will never own a home without one.

Its great to see other 600 owners out there, would like to find out the different types of wood you use, and the size that you split it to?

I actually have found better burns from just whole logs mixed with split wood.