Wood Bridging on Eko's?

[rickh1001]

This is not a problem, as much as an observation. If I load up my new EKO 60 to the brim with wood, sometimes I will come back and find the temp at 150F or so, and the fuel load bridged, so that no gasification or burning is going on. Some other times, I find a beautiful bed of hot coals. I have been burning wood with perhaps no more than 4-6" splits, and a few rounds, but nothing very large. I try to load it towards the middle of the chamber, but probably 1 out of 4 times, when I come back after a few hours of loading, I find the boiler at some low temp like 160F or lower, and the no embers over the nozzles. Any suggestions as to how to load the boiler to prevent such things? It looks to me like I must load it more often, with only a few logs at a time.

 

[sfriedri]

This is not a problem, as much as an observation. If I load up my new EKO 60 to the brim with wood, sometimes I will come back and find the temp at 150F or so, and the fuel load bridged, so that no gasification or burning is going on. Some other times, I find a beautiful bed of hot coals. I have been burning wood with perhaps no more than 4-6" splits, and a few rounds, but nothing very large. I try to load it towards the middle of the chamber, but probably 1 out of 4 times, when I come back after a few hours of loading, I find the boiler at some low temp like 160F or lower, and the no embers over the nozzles. Any suggestions as to how to load the boiler to prevent such things? It looks to me like I must load it more often, with only a few logs at a time.

I was having bridging problems in my EKO40, to the same degree as what is sound like you are experiencing. Sometimes I would load at night and come back in the morning to a full bridged load. If your EKO is new it may have some metal pieces mounted to the wall of the boiler above the top of the refractory. If you do have these pieces, have a look inside and see if these metal pieces are what is supporting the bridge. I took these pieces out and I no longer have any severe bridging problems. Have a look at this thread for more info: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/28868/

I also saw an old thread that also mentions the same problem in an econoburn: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/16925/#184090

 

[rickh1001]

SWF,

Thanks. I will try to remove the mentioned steel pieces, and let the list know how it works out.

 

[sfriedri]

Boilerman,

If you do try to remove them, they slide straight up out of supports at the front and back of the chamber. You'll probably have to clean the creosote from around them to get them out.