Thanks for the comments!
Well I couldn't handle it anymore, I was to excited to turn off my water heater. I fired the boiler up Saturday morning. Its been running 4 days. It hasn't been all that cold, just below freezing at night but up to 5-10 C during the day. The boiler has been doing a lot of idling. I'm running at 185 5deg differential. It will overshoot and stop at about 188-189. The longest idle time would be around 8-9 hrs (estimate). So I'm hardly burning any wood. It smokes a little when it starts after a long idle until the firebox warms up (maybe 2 minutes to a roaring fire).
I didn't weigh any wood yet but I did put my thermocouple temporarily in the firebox up by the secondary air tube. When the burn cycle starts the temp at the top of the firebox climbs, the smoke stays until it hits about 8-900 degrees F. After that the temperature by the firebox baffles quickly climbs and hovers around 1250 degrees. It started raining after this pic was taken so I took the camera in but the highest peak temp I recorded was 1375 F. I'm quite pleased with that. That should be doing a fair bit of secondary combustion.
A quick link some may find informative:
http://www.uky.edu/bae/sites/www.uky.edu.bae/files/AEES-36_0.PDFelectrical box with PWM speed control added
new forced air, air intake with filter. I was worried about snow drifting in.
On a side note, I got a new to me toy and I've been using it for pretty much everything.
Removing front door system to install a new tighter one.
I do intend on weighing some wood and calculating efficiency. And will keep everyone posted when it actually gets cold and I convert some wood to btu's!
edit: I forgot, It took the water from 53 degrees up to 189 in an hour and a half. So 1751lbs x 136 deg = 238,136 btu (not counting steel) / 1.5hr = 158,757 btu/hr
It doesn't seem to burn as efficient when warming up initially until the water reaches about 165 degrees. I will time a cycle when I up my differential.
In Liberty
Ben