This Wood Gun is amazing!

[infinitymike]

I got a fire going yesterday morn at 7am (1st one in a week). Loaded it up to the top and went to work. The house was at 64* so I figured by the time we all got home it would be warm instead of even cooler.

When I got home at 5pm the unit was running, water temp was around 160, the house was at 70* (which is where I have the stats set) and the fire was burning and there was still some big charcoaled splits left.
I threw a couple splits in to keep it goin.
10pm last night I loaded it up full. I woke up at 2:30am and heard the zones circulating (still an issue that I haven't fixed but may not want to since I like knowing when the house is calling for heat) Was tempted to check the fire but went back to bed.
At 5:30am I checked on it and it was burning real well and still had half the wood from 10pm (it had dropped to 26* last night)
I added 3 more splits at 9 am and it shut down on its own around 9:30

I was home in my office all day (I hate paperwork days) the house never called for heat until at 4:30pm I heard the unit kick on. I waited about 15 minutes and went out to check. Yep it was amazing after 7 hours of sitting dormant it "re-lit" and was burning real well, super hot coals with plenty of the wood from 9am.

This has happened several times through out the season. However there have been many more times after only 4 hours the unit wouldn't "re-light"

Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

I'm kinda glad it got cool again. I love burnin. Was feelin a little lost for the week it got warm.
What will I do all summer?
Oh I know, split lots of wood!

 

[muncybob]

I wonder what is different between the non light periods and the one you describe above? Different type of wood that produces "better" hot coals that last longer? Sure would be nice to be able to restart after long periods consistently!

I don't trust it to restart after long periods so when I know the outdoor temps will be marginal I kick on the cycle timer....of course, storage would solve all that. Maybe one day down the road a bit.

 

[infinitymike]

I have all the same wood. Cords and cords of red oak. It's funny, I posted that and then this morning it didn't relight!!
The 2nd floor zone called at 10:15pm just as I was leaving to drop my sons friend off at his house so I couldn't check the WG.
When I got home at 11 my wife was all excited and said she put some wood in it. It was reasonably mild last night and the WG didn't turn on until 5am.
When I went out to check on it it didn't relight and the low temp shut off had shut the unit down and the oil burner was running.
So much for my bragging.

I would love to figure out what are the perfect conditions to get it to relight after 6 hours.

Oh, I know, get the cycle timer!
Or even better, get storage!

 

[goosegunner]

Add a significant amount of storage and you will be even more thoroughly amazed.


gg

 

[Fred61]

In all the different appliances I have burned wood in, whether it be a cast Iron wood stove, barrel stove, my old WG or my present EKO, after about a 12 or 24 hour time period I have opened them up, stirred the ashes or coals and found them dead cold. But every so often I would stir the ashes and voila! a little glowing coal. Most of the wood burning nuts by now know that with forced draft, that's all it takes to kindle a fire. It all has to do with the way the fire "banked" itself. How much a particular coal was insulated by the ash.
I had advised a new owner on this forum to get used to it and took a ration of chit for it but for the most part it's no big deal. I'm sure you didn't suffer much from the incident. If it were cold out, it would have re-kindled. When it's warm out and there is more time between burns, the consequences of no re-light are small. A cycle timer was not available when I had my WG.

 

[infinitymike]

In all the different appliances I have burned wood in, whether it be a cast Iron wood stove, barrel stove, my old WG or my present EKO, after about a 12 or 24 hour time period I have opened them up, stirred the ashes or coals and found them dead cold. But every so often I would stir the ashes and voila! a little glowing coal. Most of the wood burning nuts by now know that with forced draft, that's all it takes to kindle a fire. It all has to do with the way the fire "banked" itself. How much a particular coal was insulated by the ash.
I had advised a new owner on this forum to get used to it and took a ration of chit for it but for the most part it's no big deal. I'm sure you didn't suffer much from the incident. If it were cold out, it would have re-kindled. When it's warm out and there is more time between burns, the consequences of no re-light are small. A cycle timer was not available when I had my WG.

Yeah I remember that incident and I didn't suffer at all.

What I love is that when it's dead cold, black coals and I turn the fan on and put the propane torch to them they start glowing bright red and in less then a minute I have the entire bed of coals roaring hot. No need for paper and kindling. I drop a split on it and away she goes.

 

[velvetfoot]

It sounds like the WoodGun works pretty well without storage, true?

 

[infinitymike]

It sounds like the WoodGun works pretty well without storage, true?

It does. Thats the big claim that they make when selling it. However, from what I have learned here, no matter the unit a gasser will work best when used with storage. Burning a full load from start to finish with never shutting down is the best way to go.

 

[Fred61]

Yeah I remember that incident and I didn't suffer at all.

What I love is that when it's dead cold, black coals and I turn the fan on and put the propane torch to them they start glowing bright red and in less then a minute I have the entire bed of coals roaring hot. No need for paper and kindling. I drop a split on it and away she goes.

I've been doing that same thing lately with my EKO. Position the charcoal over the nozzle, place a split on either side of the coals, start the combustion fan with bypass damper open, get coals glowing with torch, throw on about three of my smallest splits, and close the door and close the bypass flap. It's instantly gassing. I've historically started my fire in the normal way, ie; burning straight up until small load was totalally ignited as measured by flue temperature, but recently I realized that by that method, I was burning out my charcoal over the nozzle which is key to gassing, making the process take longer because I had to wait for the fire to create new charcoal.
The payoff is that I can walk away since all doors and levers are in the safe operating position, whereas with my previous method I was trapped in front of the unit because I didn't want to leave the fire un-attended and possibly forget it.

 

[infinitymike]

Whats great about the Wood Gun is there are 6 nozzles equally spread from front to back. So I spread the charcoal out evenly and start from lighting from the back to the front and presto magic instant gratification....I mean instant gasification....oh wait they are one in the same