Tweaking EKO efficiency

[verne]

I have the 40 and have re-adjusted to the new manual.It seems to burn well . 10 mm / 3.5 turns and fan ??. Do you guys read the chart as 100% fan opening? . I have not found the best spot yet. Also I can charge my 1000 gal to about 185. after 12 hours of no fire the tank reads aprox 145. that has been over the past week with temps in the teens. lots of variables but does that seem " ok" ?

 

[Duetech]

This is an excellent thread for us EKO owners out there. I set my EKO 60 up close to the factory with good results so far. My wood is really dry (stored in the basement near the boiler), and I have 24ft of 8" metalbestos chimney running through the house. I am using 9 mm on the primary air, 3.25 turns on the secondaries, and the fans at about 50% closure of the "pie". I have the RK-2201UA controller with the knob, so I can adjust the fan speed, as well as many other things. I have been reducing the fan speed during work times to 90%, and will explore reducing it further.

During running, I am getting intense gasification, resembling a blast furnace, which is a good thing. I am not sure if this is the most efficient setting, but it burns cleanly.

That's interesting - you think there is a better burn at 90% - I'll have to try that when I get home from work. I'm wondering if this helps the wood last longer?

I just added wood to my boiler (EKO40) at 8:30 am my last load was 9:30 pm last night. I still had a good bed of coals in the nozzle cradle with a little charcoal on top (up to the metal plates). The outside temp has gone up to 35f with an 8-10 mph wind from last night. The inside temp was set at 68f for last night and went 70f for the day one hour before loading the boiler. The downward adjustment of primary air has netted me one hour+ of extended burn time for my no storage system per load. That's almost one free days burn for every 10 or close to 10% savings of effort time and wood and my creosote production has dropped too. My primary wood right now is black walnut which is about 20M btu per cord (see: http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm) a good third of the way down the list of "best" btu woods. Never would have happened with oil or gas.

 

[markpee]

I just added wood to my boiler (EKO40) at 8:30 am my last load was 9:30 pm last night. I still had a good bed of coals in the nozzle cradle with a little charcoal on top (up to the metal plates). The outside temp has gone up to 35f with an 8-10 mph wind from last night. The inside temp was set at 68f for last night and went 70f for the day one hour before loading the boiler. The downward adjustment of primary air has netted me one hour+ of extended burn time for my no storage system per load. That's almost one free days burn for every 10 or close to 10% savings of effort time and wood and my creosote production has dropped too. My primary wood right now is black walnut which is about 20M btu per cord (see: http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm) a good third of the way down the list of "best" btu woods. Never would have happened with oil or gas.

That's damn good cave - I would be estatic is I could get the same result. As you know, I have no storage either, but the house stays relatively warm even after boiler shutdown. If I went that long between reloads, I would have a cold 90 degree boiler (which I had this morning, because I fell asleep at 9:30 last night.) I noticed a problem today that is probably not helping me, I have a pretty wide leak on the bottom of my uppper chamber door - its at least 8 inches long. I puled off the gasket and tried to clean it, but I didn't have a lot of time and need to revisit it tonight. Hopefully that will help the efficiency a little.

 

[barnartist]

This is a really important post I think.

I wonder if the setting should be different depending on how you run your system. This is my 4th season burning with my Eko-my best no hassle, cleanest, effective season yet, mainly because I have added storage and changed my plumbing to heat my pressurized tanks, then draw heat from these tanks. Other seasons involved heating my zones directly from the Eko, then the return would go into a single 500 gallon tank. New Horizon recommended this setup to me by the way, and it set me back 3 years the way I see it.

So my point is, before I would try everything I could to stretch out a burn, while now I try to heat my storage and live longer off of the stored heat. I'm only guessing that it might take different air settings for each. I know this season is the first season I put the cover back over the fans, while other years I had to constantly adjust the pie holes manually to get the most out of a burn.If I got behind on the fire (other seasons) I had to run wide open for an hour or so, then close them back later. Sure, all of this can happen because I was home. So anytime I left it was a disaster. Probably some of this due to the plumbing setup.

Meanwhile I am going to follow what noffosil, sroberts and some others do because my system is now similar to theirs.

An additional opinion is this. Before adding storage and changing my plumbing, I would not have recommended this kind of system to anyone. With my new setup, well, it's like trying to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. I am guessing also, that my error was an oversized boiler, and not quite enough homework when I started. This battle to keep warm has become quite the hobby.

By the way, I thank the inventor of this forum and all who have helped others once again. Without you I would be-cold

 

[Tony H]

An additional opinion is this. Before adding storage and changing my plumbing, I would not have recommended this kind of system to anyone. With my new setup, well, it's like trying to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. I am guessing also, that my error was an oversized boiler, and not quite enough homework when I started. This battle to keep warm has become quite the hobby.

By the way, I thank the inventor of this forum and all who have helped others once again. Without you I would be-cold

Do you have a drawing of the new setup that you could post ? I am hoping to add storage in the future and it would help me get an idea of what I will need to do.

BTW thanks to the forum for all the help it has provided.

 

[Tony H]

I know that in some eko controllers there is a factory menu. Service mode.
But I think you now abot that

Anyone aware of how to get into the factory menu on the old US controller ? Then we could adjust some of the fan speed and pump activation settings. Maybe even kick the top temp setting up a bit from 81 c

 

[barnartist]

I'll try and get a pic Tony.

 

[markpee]

Barnartist - I too would love to see your setup. How large is the area you're trying to heat? I questioned myself recently thinking I didn't go big enough, though others have told me I'm okay. I'm heating 2300 sf with an EKO 40, plus a 600 sf garage I keep at 40 or so and next year we're going to finish the room above the garage for another 600 sf.

 

[barnartist]

If you count my basement, I heat a 3200sq house with air, and my garage stays between 50-60f on its own(my tanks are there and much of the black pipe plumbing), but I do have a zone for an air exchange in this garage for when I want to work in there. It is 1260 feet+ 12' ceiling. I heat our DHW as well, but I use a simple countdown timer for this zone pump for when we take showers and bath. Each one of my 4 zones only circulates water from the tanks when they are needed. My boiler and tanks are 80' from my house, while the boiler is inside a lean-to and again the twin 500gal tanks are inside the garage. My "Laddomat" pumps water (1 1/4 pipe) to the tanks upper portion, if you can make it out, I put the tank nipples about 1/3 of the way down from the top, and the return to the Eko directly from the bottom.

Now, I put a set of nipples at the tank top for all of the zone loops to draw from. It should be fun to see what some think about this design, but my thinking was to get the most out of stratification. While I dont have as many temp gauges as I would like, I seem to stratisfy very well because the gauge in the middle does not change much, but when it does it does so in a hurry. I top out by pumping in 190-195f heat, and the boiler goes idle when the middle of the tanks are at 184. I think an improvement might be to be able to chage pump speeds like some on this forum do, but for now I am very happy.

You might be able to see I have a countdown timer mounted on the boiler. this timer will shut down CPU power at X hours, so I have been learning what amount of wood I need and how much time it will take to burn, thus set the timer so that I have a some nice coals left for the next fire. Works very well for me.

Half of my house (upper)is about to be heated with radiant, so I am wondering what effect this will have on the sytem. I am thinking it might mess up some of my stratification, but I will report on it later...

 

[barnartist]

still learning how to post pic...

 

[barnartist]

...here are the tanks

 

[markpee]

Wow - so what kind of tanks are those? Propane, pressurized? (since we cant see through the insulation) and what is the white insulation?

 

[Tony H]

Thanks for the pics Barnartist, do you have a diagram that shows you layout ?