Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Portage & Main => Topic started by: jrider on January 11, 2013, 11:57:23 AM
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Last year was the first year I had an OWB. I cleaned it out well every Sunday and many days it didn't look that dirty to me. This year, things were busy when I first fired it up so I wasn't as particular about cleaning it. I have taken the motto, if its gassifying and not blowing much/any smoke I will just leave it be. I will be cleaning it this afternoon when I get home and it this will make only the 3rd time this burning season.
So what I would like to know, is how often folks clean theirs and is it ok to go till when it tells me to clean it (basically when it starts puffing smoke)?
Oh and I have been burning mostly nice and dry yellow pine with a little dry oak oak and gum mixed in.
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I clean mine every 2 weeks. It doesnt need it, I do it out of habit and if I get busy and skip a week I know its ok,
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I clean mine out every week. I find that if I go a lot longer the ash buildup is so high it plugs up the nozzle and the bottom chamber is full and blowing ash into the tubes.
I'm burning a full load of elm every 12 hours so the quantity of wood going through the stove is pretty high.
Of course I live only an hours drive from the actual "Portage and Main" that the boilers were named after, so it's not exactly balmy weather right now. :)
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I try to clean mine every weekend. If I don't have time to do a thorough cleaning, I'll at least pull the ashes out of the secondary burn chamber.
I had a horizontal tube plug up on me once after waiting two weeks between cleanings. It took me about 10 minutes to get the dumb thing poked through. Pulling ashes out of the lower chamber takes less than a minute.
One of the guys up here only cleans his every third weekend. He's had 3 of the six tubes plug on him in the past, but he claims it's easy to clean them out. He's heating a 2500 sq. ft. home and a 32' x 40' barn, so he goes through a lot of wood too.
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It seems like i spend more time cleaning this thing than i do sleeping. if i had some TNT today i would have used it, one stick in each boiler tube would have done it. Indoor gasser with storage next year? looking good.
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It seems like i spend more time cleaning this thing than i do sleeping. if i had some TNT today i would have used it, one stick in each boiler tube would have done it. Indoor gasser with storage next year? looking good.
Wow... That's not good...
Indoor boilers are nice, I plan on putting one in my garage if I ever get around to building a house
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Wow, it looks like some P&M gasser owners are finally owning up to the high frequency cleaning that is required on the 20 horizontal exchanger tubes of their 150 year old proven technology. It's inevitable that they will require regular cleaning with that design. It's a natural "catch area". Horses are also 150 year old proven technology, they require a lot of maintenance and clean up to. Much more that todays modern motor vehicle technology. This is why I preferred the horizontal design CB uses. I clean my exchange tubes in my E2400 once a season with very little build up. I think their 2300's required more frequent cleaning, but they changed the design. They have even added removalble side air channel panels for easier cleanup access. Bottom line, if you are going to burn wood outdoors or indoors, these units and fireboxes require regular cleaning and maintenance. If you don't do it, you will have problems. Corrosion, plugged air passages, etc. Some will require more work than others. If you are unwilling to do the maintenance, you may be better off just "paying the man" and this way of heating may not be for those individuals.
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All true boiler man, but I know lots of folks who have pro series empyre boilers, same style heat exchangers and they don't have that issue. My buddy has a pro 400 on over 8,000 sq ft, he's cleaned the, twice since october and said he's gonna look at them again in a few weeks lol.
Whatever reason there havin this issue, is bigger than simply the style of exchanger
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Cleaning the P&M only takes about 15 min, every 2 weeks.
I dont think thats bad .I had a indoor boiler with storage before the P&M and it had its own issues, any wood boiler will have its own faults. ,
When you think how hard you would have to work to pay for oil, cleaning a boiler every 2 weeks doesnt seem to bad !
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I do agree its not bad if your on a weekly schedule, was really pi***d yesterday to find after only 5 days burning the airbox was stuffed with creosote and the horizontal tubes were HALF plugged. My wood is not unreasonable either ranging from 22 to 27 percent. They run ALOT better when its cold and overnite lows arent 35.
Today is another day
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After opening it up, I realized it wasn't that dirty. There was ash buildup at each end of the horizontal tubes but the tubes themselves were pretty darn clean. There was more work to be done with the shopvac than there was with the wire brush. The wood I am using this year is considerably drier than the wood I used last year and I believe this to be the major factor in less frequent cleanings - for me at least.
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Like I said earlier, I clean mine once a week but that is just dry ashes. Takes 15 minutes to brush out the tubes, scoop out the bottom chamber and the burn chamber. I did have more of a creosote issue building up in the tubes earlier in the year, but I believe this was due to lots of idling because of warmer weather. I was worried about how I was going to keep the tubes clean, but once winter hit, the creosote dried up and flaked out of the tubes.
I think if any of these units idles a lot due to warm weather they are going to have buildup issues. I see this whenever we have a few days of warmer weather. When the overnight temperatures start dropping to -20 and colder, the unit really comes into its own. I don't think that oversizing is a good idea with these gassers. I'm starting to really believe that right-sizing or storage is the way to go to get good clean burns and minimize creosote buildup. I think a 12 hour load is about right.
If you are getting tubes plugged up I would suspect that you are having far too much idle time and not enough burn time to run cleanly, regardless of how dry your wood is.
My wood is not the driest it could be, but it still burns fairly cleanly if the heat load is high enough. I have also found that if the wood is too dry and split too small, it will burn dirty as well as it chokes itself and doesn't gassify correctly. It can't get enough air to burn all of the gasses coming off of the wood.
It's taken me a few months, but I think I'm starting to figure it out. :thumbup:
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I think the secrete to any gasser is the amount of wood you put in.I burn mine in the summer for domestic hot water and dont have an issue.
I only load enough wood for a 12 hr cycle ,for me thats between 6 and 10 small splits depending on the weather.
I had an indoor gasser with storage before the P&M and that was similar, you only started a fire big enough to top off the storage.
The indoor gasser had turbulators and tubes that also needed cleaning, go on hearth.com and see what them boys go thru with their boilers.
As far as Im concerned the P&M is the simplest boiler out there once you get the hang of it. I have never filled my boiler with wood or tried to go 24 hours on one load. Even with storage you have a limit to the temp that you run off of, I ran mine from 195 down to 140 before I would build a fire, putting in only enough wood to bring the temp back to 195
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Kinda ironic you mentioned only putting in what it needs, that was what our training focused on at empyre this year. However, the xt series don't like to be run cleaned, kinda backwards to most, and I finally discovered that the more jacked up I ran it, the better it did
But your right most gassers don't like over filling,
There is far more adjustments on portage and main though compared to some.
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Wow, it looks like some P&M gasser owners are finally owning up to the high frequency cleaning that is required on the 20 horizontal exchanger tubes of their 150 year old proven technology. It's inevitable that they will require regular cleaning with that design. It's a natural "catch area". Horses are also 150 year old proven technology, they require a lot of maintenance and clean up to. Much more that todays modern motor vehicle technology. This is why I preferred the horizontal design CB uses.
"It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt".
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Wow, it looks like some P&M gasser owners are finally owning up to the high frequency cleaning that is required on the 20 horizontal exchanger tubes of their 150 year old proven technology. It's inevitable that they will require regular cleaning with that design. It's a natural "catch area". Horses are also 150 year old proven technology, they require a lot of maintenance and clean up to. Much more that todays modern motor vehicle technology. This is why I preferred the horizontal design CB uses.
"It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt".
Hmmm, I was gonna throw in my $0.02 worth. I think I'll forgo it tonight. ;)
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OK guys, so my mind thinks one thing and my fingers type another. Seems to get worse with age !:bash:
As you know, I meant to say the CB "vertical" exchanger design allow the ash to naturally drop down into the reaction chamber for easy shovel removal.
I can usually go a month between reaction chamber cleanouts.
Glad I caused some of you some amusement though. :P
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Simple solution to your question about when to clean heat exchanger tubes and this will also silence the retoric from those dealers that promote their single pass (easy to clean) heat exchangers. open the back doors on the 250 and right above the cleanout door there is a flat area in the exhaust just before it transitions to insulated smokepipe, you can install a simple candy thermometer right there by drilling a hole and iserting it into the stack. on a clean boiler with water temps of 185 degrees the stack temp should be between 260 and 280 with the blower running, if the stack temp goes over 320 clean the tubes, lets see your easy to clean single pass heat exchanger do that. I would much prefer to clean the tubes than cut more wood and watch it go up the chimney
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slimjim,
Very good replies! :thumbup:
Glad we have a P&M problem solver on this site now.
You will surely be a lot of help, especially for the newer boiler operators here.
Welcome!
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I do agree its not bad if your on a weekly schedule, was really pi***d yesterday to find after only 5 days burning the airbox was stuffed with creosote and the horizontal tubes were HALF plugged. My wood is not unreasonable either ranging from 22 to 27 percent. They run ALOT better when its cold and overnite lows arent 35.
Today is another day
When burning overly moist wood, or when water return temps are too low; THERE WILL BE CREOSOTE IN THE FIREBOX.....
In my experience with gasification boilers: It is critical to have water return temps at 140 degrees minimum and wood moisture content below 20%. If not, the wood fired boiler becomes a high maintenance appliance.
My experience is with an insulated shed as the boiler room and includes 1,000 gallons of storage. With a lower than 20% moisture content (I recommend 16 to 20 percent) and return water temps at the minimum of 140 degrees, cleaning is a minor issue and easily accomplished.
These two critical elements can be met by planning two years in advance with your firewood chores and by installing a thermic valve for boiler return temperature control.
There is a forum at hearth dot com called the boiler room where there are members with years of experience in these matters. Gasification wood boilers are different than a typical OWB and require different burn methods. Getting to know the appliance you have is instrumental in achieving maximum efficiency. Using a gasifier can cut your wood consumption by as much as 45% depending on system variables and proper seasoning of the fuel.