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[James]

Greetings Folks,

Just found this site after a year of Optimizer 250 ownership.  It's great to find a bunch of other people that have the 250!

I should preface this post - I wanted to love my stove.  The promise of reduced oil consumption, the promise of saving money, the promise of a warmer home, the promise of a **smoke free burn** ... All very enticing!  But entering my second season, all I've had - and continue to have - is problems getting my stove to run right.

Last season, it could be blamed on trying to burn green wood - but I don't have green wood anymore.



I clean the stove religiously every two weeks, I fuss over it, I mess with it, I research it, I call my installer, I call Brian @ P&M.  Both he and my installer seem genuinely interested in helping me sort out my issues.  They've both even made special trips to my house to sort it out, but, this is still what I get:




It's obviously gassifying but then there's still a billow of between 8-15' of white (steam?) smoke out my stack!

The settings for my air box are 3 turns out top and 5 turns out bottom.  I have the retro-fitted clip door on the fan box, so taking it off and cleaning the creosote inside is a part of my regular maintenance.  I regularly burn a few pieces of dry soft wood to burn down my coal bed and then remove a few shovel fulls of ash about once a week.  My nozzle was replaced this summer because mine was trashed after last season, so I'm running a new nozzle as of my September 14 start-up for the 2012-13 heating season.  My reaction chamber bricks are flat instead of upright.  My installer rebuilt all my gaskets at the same time the nozzle was replaced, so they're no longer leaking.

What say all you veterans?  What the heck am I doing wrong???

[martyinmi]

Welcome to this site James!

The way I tell weather it is steam or smoke is by how far it travels. Smoke will travel hundreds of feet and get thinner, but never really go away. Steam will travel anywhere between 20 and 60 feet or so and completely disappear. The relative humidity has everything to do with how much steam is actually formed.

!7.5% mc is very good. I've burned wood that was in the 30% range with little visible smoke. You'll find that your 250 is not as finicky as a lot of other gassers are where mc is concerned. The Empyre line also appears to have similar mc tolerances. The only time I've had an issue with smoke was when I burned some very old dry poplar and boxelder that had been sitting for many years in a shed. The mc was between 9 and 12%. It appears that too dry wood will release too much gas(smoke) too fast and not burn it all. When this happens, the smoke(gas) tries to ignite in the primary burn chamber and causes "poofing" back through the air inlets and into your fan box, which from what I've seen is where the vast majority of the creosote comes from in the fan box. I actually like to try to keep my mc's between 15 and 25%.

I say you are doing nothing wrong.

Feel free to pm me if you think there is anything I can help you with.

What part of what state are you located?

[Scott7m]

That def looks like smoke.  I've seen 250's burn truly smoke free, I know my elite 100 empyre never smokes..   I can't tell if it's on or not

Does your unit do this all the time?

I think you can make your gasser smoke a little if your wood isn't settling down properly or you don't have any coals in the bottom, but that looks like a regular boiler smokin

Hey marty, does your boiler ever smoke like that?

I've burned wood from 17-35% moisture this year and not ever seen any smoke, unless I was starting a new fire

[MattyNH]

The 2 P&M boilers that i saw set up and running at a fair..Absolutely no smoke..And I saw the guy load it with wood.

[martyinmi]

Scott,

 Mine does not "smoke like that. Under the right atmospheric conditions, it will form steam.

If you look at the pictures where the smoke exits, you'll see it is basically clear right out of the stack then it very quickly gets thicker.

Smoke will follow the path of least resistance. In the pictures, that path would be the secondary burn chamber door opening. There isn't even a hint of it in that area. I've opened my secondary burn chamber door prior to gasification, and it will smoke so bad you can barely see.

I wouldn't worry about it a bit.

[Scott7m]

Stick ur face in it, if it burns your eyes it's smoke lol

Marty, I'm not sure.  Each is different but if I'm building a fire and open my bottom door before it gets going full steam, I've watched smoke go out the chimney but not out the door of the secondary chamber, I can watch sparks come out of the burn chamber make the turn and go up a tube.  It's kinda weird they suck up like that with the door open

[karlk]

I agree with marty, looks like steam.

[Scott7m]

Has this guy seen if this burns his eyes or anything to see if its smoke, I've seen them wisp water vapor but nothing like that