Timing {of a GreenWood} is everything . . .

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

While it was in the 80's and {gulp} 90's here in NY, I let the GW go out. Last night was headed for the 30's so I fired it up when I got home from work {thinking to myself, "I'm glad I have a job to come home from and a house and wife when I get there} Anyway . . . I fire it up, reheat the Viessmann, bring the DHW back on line at 145* and load the GW with med-large hunks of slab. Usually I am amazed at how much wood the GW heats when you re-fire with cold refractory, so I went out to check the beast about 4AM.

And I thought, "Well, wonder where that water sitting on the top of the GW is coming from?" To make a short story long, the water is coming from the pipe which comes up through the skin on top, at the front. The more I dug at the crud around the pipe, the more the water started pissing out. Thankfully there was not much fuel to unload, so I quickly had the remaining water cooling down.

"What has this to do with timing", you say? Well, I generally don't follow anything from nor about Greenwood cause . . . well, cause they suck. But I just read someones post about GW going belly up? LOL, ok, so, like USUAL, I got to fix stuff without GW's help.

I have no time at the 'mo to start ripping and tearing, but it should be interesting when I do. It seems to me that the skin rusting out should not cause water to see the light of day. And I can't see how Iron pipe could rust through that quickly. I suspect either the steel from the tubes or else where the tubes meet the iron. Should be fun.

Maybe I should have bought a sandblaster and a MIG Welder instead of a new Kubota 50 HP 4WD wood-getter??? :roll:

 

[altheating]

Sorry to hear about the leaking GW boiler. Sandblasting and MIG usually won't work. Welding on rust and trying to fix rust usually means more rust. How old is the Greenwood? I have worked on two Adobe boilers (Greenwood look a likes) and once they started to leak there was no stopping it. from what I seen the acid from the creosote just eats through the heat exchanger and outer skins. Hopefully your fix will be simple.

 

[jebatty]

Makes me shudder to think of a boiler failure. If you haven't done it yet, it might be instructive to get a pH reading on your boiler water. Low pH can eat steel up pretty fast too.

 

[muleman51]

OK, so I have an adobe,which we we know are questionable at best, what should the PH be and what would you use to clean the system. I know it needs to be done, but with storage we're talking about 100 gallons. I would like to start this project sooner than later so maybe for once I'll be ready in the fall to start heating when I want to.

 

[jebatty]

Most of what I've seen recommends pH of about 8.5. I've never cleaned my system. I have a 50 micron hot water filter on the return line which catches most everything which might suspend, and I will drain a little water about once a year from the two drains on the bottom of my boiler and from the drain on my storage tank to see if anything looks unusual. With a closed system, there should be little maintenance, as once everything is stabilized, there should be no changes unless water is added.

 

[muleman51]

My water stinks and is pretty dark. I'm sure its residual from the propane tank. I just rinsed it last fall before I used it.

 

[Jesse-M]

Iseedeadbtus, I built the same boiler last fall and Had a good winter with 74* in the house. I took the thing apart a couple weeks ago, and found the exact same thing around where the pressure vessel pipe exits through the top skin. There is definitely some serious corrosion properties in that black crust that forms there. Mine wasn't leaking, but I was very surprised at the amount of deterioration.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Don't keep us in suspense Jess. . . what'd ya do to 'fix' it??

 

[Jesse-M]

I haven't yet, but I have several ideas that I'm going to try for next season. I think that the puffing I get with a new load of wood is part of the problem. the thing is air tight except around where the pressure vessel enters and exits. It doesn't take long for the puffing to break any kind of seal at that spot. I'm going to put a nipple through the side wall towards the front that will open and close with the damper actuation. this will be the same as cracking the door, which is the only way i can get the huffing and puffing to stop.

 

[2.beans]

how much uninsulated pipe do have on your boiler inside the room its in? my friends boiler huffs and mine doesnt . im just trying to figure it out. thanks

 

[altheating]

When you say it HUFFS, do you mean that as the door is opened you get an explosion of gasses (Woofing) or are your refering to smoke coming out of the door?

 

[Jesse-M]

how much uninsulated pipe do have on your boiler inside the room its in? my friends boiler huffs and mine doesnt . im just trying to figure it out. thanks

All of my pipe is insulated.

 

[Jesse-M]

When you say it HUFFS, do you mean that as the door is opened you get an explosion of gasses (Woofing) or are your refering to smoke coming out of the door?

Huffing, meaning the thing is breathing in and out so hard you think the skins are going to blow off. Not really that bad, but I wouldn't want it to happen when I wasn't standing nearby. I know its a fuel air mixture problem, and I have been able to minimise it by blocking half of the intake holes with a log when reloading. Doing away with the problem all-together would sure make things easier.

 

[2.beans]

mine does it very little once and a while but my buddies will bounce a quarter. i was asking about the pipe because he has 4 feet of uninsulated pipe inside before it goes to the insulated outside pipe. he also has a draft inducer. if you turn that on it makes it worse. the only thing that stops it is opening the door or adjusting the draft door down. i find it odd that his does it and mine dose not. i know should be air/ fuel but they both get the same air and fuel. our only differences are the chimney.

 

[Jesse-M]

I tried a barometric damper thinking that might help but it didn't. the only thing that makes it better, other than cracking the door , is closing down the air intakes. I also thought it was just with a fresh load of wood but its happened to me half way through the burn. I'm going to try an air intake at the front of the boiler, actuated off of the rear damper, to simulate cracking the door.

 

[2.beans]

why do suppose mine doesnt do it? any pictures of your chimney and back of the boiler all hooked up? i have three of these that i can look at to compare stuff. one of them is a smaller unit that doesnt have the issue but is chimney piped like mine. straight out the back thru the wall into insulated pipe then up 21 feet to 24 feet.

 

[Jesse-M]

Mine is straight out the back about 10", then 90* up 15'. Its 8" black stove pipe that i wrapped with 1" insulation then wrapped with 10" galvanized 24 gage pipe.( no cap ) The 10" and 90* elbo are not insulated. 2beans have you had any deterioration problems around your pressure vessel.... enter and exit?

 

[NNYorker]

When my Adobe was running --It too did huff and puff like a steam -fired locomotive. The top skin would rise and fall a 1/2" or more looking like it would blow it's top. I had about 8 ft. uninsulated black pipe to the ceiling/insulated thru the roof. The Adobe had a forced draft . I too experimented with restricting air intake while both running the draft fan and cutting power to it(natural draft). I fabbed a sliding cover to restrict the 6" pipe feeding the draft fan. Many times the cover would close off 50-80% of the intake opening. This would reduce the huff/puff cycle to virtually nothing 90% of the time. See the cob-job at Adobe Problems--Page 9 for pictures.....

 

[2.beans]

Mine is straight out the back about 10", then 90* up 15'. Its 8" black stove pipe that i wrapped with 1" insulation then wrapped with 10" galvanized 24 gage pipe.( no cap ) The 10" and 90* elbo are not insulated. 2beans have you had any deterioration problems around your pressure vessel.... enter and exit?

mine just like yours except im at 21'. my father inlaws is at 24' , no huff . my buddies that huffs is at 18 feet with the 4 four feet uninsulated inside. i havent pulled any sealant or tin away from the supply and return of the vessel but i dont have any noticeable corrosion either. im on my thrid year and last year i ran it for my dhw through the summer. i run mine wide open most of the time with hardly any idle time. my buddies homebuilt seton rotted the back panel open at the bottom in one season from to much idle time. so id suspect that he may have issues with his vessel. i wonder if prolonged idling and creostote build up then burning off can contribute to the huff? i plan cleaning the vessel tommorow morning ill take some pics. i havent done it since last year so im curious to see how it looks. last year was the first time i cleaned it and i had some idle time previous to the cleaning. ive run it alot hotter since then to try and keep the vessel clean, we'll see.

 

[2.beans]

i inspected the vessel supply and return of the vessel. the return appears fine from waht i can see of it. the supply has a piece if tin around it that is so tight i couldt slide it up to see underneath without ruining it. so i cleaned it up and resealed it. i took a picture without sealing the supply so you could see what i mean. i dont know if the greenwoods are sealed this tight but maybe seton did this for a reason.

 

[Jesse-M]

2beans

Looks good nice pictures, I need to figure out how to do the storage for my system. I'm sure that all the idle time I went through this season hurt a bunch. Is there any where I can find a simple schematic, or cut away drawing of the storage process? do you have any pictures of your storage setup. I remember you saying that your boiler was 200' from the house, is the storage at the house or near the boiler? How much and what kind of tank? ..............Seems kinda dumb to spend so much time and energy heating 12 gallons of water. Sure did work good though.

 

[2.beans]

2beans

Looks good nice pictures, I need to figure out how to do the storage for my system. I'm sure that all the idle time I went through this season hurt a bunch. Is there any where I can find a simple schematic, or cut away drawing of the storage process? do you have any pictures of your storage setup. I remember you saying that your boiler was 200' from the house, is the storage at the house or near the boiler? How much and what kind of tank? ..............Seems kinda dumb to spend so much time and energy heating 12 gallons of water. Sure did work good though.

my tanks are 250 feet from my boiler in my basement, i have two five 500 gallon propane tanks hooked in parallel. real simple cold to the bottom and hot off the top. theres plenty of topics on here about storage just look them up and start reading. if i had the room id stack the tanks, but i didnt.