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[BIG AL]

So with the holidays and a delay on starting our next house I have been home more than usual. I have noticed a couple of things that I can't explain. First it seems like sometimes there is a lot of smoke coming from the stack , never really saw that before. Second it's relatively warm here and we are using more wood than normal. I cleaned the out the bottom chamber , not much in there. I checked and cleaned the bypass door to make sure it was closed tight. The damper is clean and working properly. All my wood is well seasoned oak , maple and cherry that has been top covered since October , was going to check the moisture content today. Can a leaky door seal cause any of this? Second year with this boiler , and first time I've had issues that I can't say I caused directly.

[slimjim]

It could effect it Al but the first thing that I would check is that the damper is operating correctly, if it sticks in the open position, that would definitely effect the burn quantity.

[BIG AL]

I have looked at the damper several times. I seems to be doing what is supposed to relative to the logo control. I have watched it open and close in a cycle. Anything else I should look into. what is the best way to see if air is getting in where it isn't supposed to?

[slimjim]

Visible smoke around a gasket when it's in the off cycle, how does the coal bed look, is it raked off fairly level?

[BIG AL]

Yeah I keep my coal bed leveled , really burned it down pretty good the other night but its built back up now. So if I don't have visible smoke coming from the doors they are tight enough? or should be? The other day the boiler was running for a long time with lots of smoke , pulled in the driveway and I thought there was a problem smoke was going across the street. went over to the boiler and everything was normal. Fire was burning in the fire box but it wasn't gassing in the lower chamber. I moved the wood around a little and no change so I let it do its thing. that was the case a couple times in the last few days.  This morning I went out there and it was burning and looked like a jet engine under there? scratching my head

[slimjim]

Perhaps some pinky wood made it into the firebox?

[BIG AL]

maybe but I don't really have any of that wood with the punky outsides left. I'll be keeping a close eye on it and see if I spot anything unusual.

[hondaracer2oo4]

Sounds like wet wood to me. Try splitting a couple pieces and taking the mc. If not that it Sounds like you are making wood gas but you don't have either enough heat enough secondary air to light off the gas.

[mlappin]

I’ve had my G400 do that a time or two, mainly burning all rounds and sometimes the center will burn up and after you poke around a bit you’ll find the nozzle is wide open with nothing around it.

[BIG AL]

Been raining for a day or so here. Poked around my wood piles under the covers and all my wood is 20% or less except the maple I just split is 30%. I split some maple a couple weeks ago and I stacked and covered it. It's already at 26%. It will be good and cold when I burn that if I even get into it this year. 55 and raining here most of the day and it ran like a champ. Maybe just an isolated incident.

[hondaracer2oo4]

Really strange. I have never had that happen with seasoned wood that is split. Rounds I can see doing it because rounds can't sit on the coal bed.

[RSI]

Mine was doing it a few days ago. It had burned the coal bed down fairly far and when I reloaded it, a piece of wood got right on top of the nozzle and was sealing it off too much. I just shifted it around a bit and it quit smoking.

[BIG AL]

Mine was doing it a few days ago. It had burned the coal bed down fairly far and when I reloaded it, a piece of wood got right on top of the nozzle and was sealing it off too much. I just shifted it around a bit and it quit smoking.

that was something I considered , I did stack several square splits over the center/nozzle. If the coal bed was low it very well could have been blocking the nozzle. I'm going to pay closer attention to that theroy 

[schoppy]

My G200 will do that if the wood bridges and hangs up not falling down onto the coal bed over the nozzle. Then the coal bed burns down and makes it hard to gas.

I am burning some left over slab wood now (all hardwood), moisture content is around 18% and it has a tendency to hang up easily. I think I will need to split the wider pieces to try to prevent the hang up problems. When mine is gassing you can actually hear it from the outside like a jet engine sound you mentioned Bid Al. 

[slimjim]

Hey schoppy, how about trying an experiment for me with that slab wood if you can and post the results?
I would like for you to rake your coals level and then try stacking your slabs vertically instead of laying them flat, keep it as tight as you reasonably can, start stacking from the rear and work your way forward. Pictures would be wonderful!