To turb or not to turb - an EKO observation

[stee6043]

As many other EKO owners have done in the past I too have wondered what, if any, real benefit comes from cycling the turb's up and down on the EKO. I've religiously cycled the turb's after every load ever since I bought my EKO. But today was the first time I actually decided to see if they did anything.

I intentionally did not cycle the turb's after my last burn two weeks ago. Today I did my spring cleaning on the EKO. I removed the refractories and cleaned 100% of the ash out of the lower chamber (with the turbs locked up). I then cycled the turbs 10 or so times, locked them up again and went back around to see what came out, if anything.

Well I was pleased to see that I managed to get roughly 1/2-3/4 of a cup of fly ash back on the floor of the lower chamber after running the turbs.

This is by no means a scientific, controlled test of any kind. But it was enough to convince me that I should maintain my current routine of using the turbs after every load. At the very least it will help keep some of the fly ash in the lower chamber as opposed to heading up your smoke pipe.

 

[timberr]

Stee,

I have made the same observation, if you are running good wood and have storage some fly ash is about all I see in my HX. Seems the folks that have the issues are the ones without storage and have a fair amount of idle time. A buddy of mine installed and EKO 25 the same time I did, fall 2008. He doesn't have storage, burns good dry wood and he just cleaned his HX last month because the turbs were getting hard to cycle. He had to use a spade bit to clear the creosote from the HX tubes.

So I probably will forgo the spring time ritual of removing the turbs when I finish burning..

 

[Fred61]

As many other EKO owners have done in the past I too have wondered what, if any, real benefit comes from cycling the turb's up and down on the EKO. I've religiously cycled the turb's after every load ever since I bought my EKO. But today was the first time I actually decided to see if they did anything.

I intentionally did not cycle the turb's after my last burn two weeks ago. Today I did my spring cleaning on the EKO. I removed the refractories and cleaned 100% of the ash out of the lower chamber (with the turbs locked up). I then cycled the turbs 10 or so times, locked them up again and went back around to see what came out, if anything.

Well I was pleased to see that I managed to get roughly 1/2-3/4 of a cup of fly ash back on the floor of the lower chamber after running the turbs.

This is by no means a scientific, controlled test of any kind. But it was enough to convince me that I should maintain my current routine of using the turbs after every load. At the very least it will help keep some of the fly ash in the lower chamber as opposed to heading up your smoke pipe.

Although clean turbs are also important in heat transfer I must add that probably half that fly ash came off the turbs themselves which means there wasn't much material in there at all.

 

[ihookem]

I don't have storage but I do the turb cleaners all the time. I noticed if ya pull the lever up and down real fast it knocks out ash. I also ramit up till it hits the pipe. I think it shakes the ash off pretty good. My boiler idles quite a bit but I also run it hard every day for a few hours. I think it helps get rid of creosote. I never took the turbs out and have 3 seasons in after this year. My pipe temps are about 500 though. This might also keep the creosote out too. Just a question, what does everyone do for spring cleaning? I always get out all the ash but that's about it.