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[Sprinter]

Turbulators are anything that creates turbulence in a flue in this case. Specifically heat exchange tubes. On high end boilers you will always find some type of device used to disturb smooth even flue gasses. Turbulent flow in the flue slows the gasses down from escaping the chamber while increasing the speed at which they flow in the heat exchange tubes. I know that sounds contradictory, but understand it like this. Rather than flow in a straight line, it swirls and mixes in the tube. The swirl travels a longer distance and give the hot gasses more time to transfer into the tube. Some research will give a lot more detail of what I can explain here.

Now what can you use for turbulators, well just about anything you can fashion to disturb a straight path. Some use water heater flue turbulators cut in half or cut down to fit. Some use chain or chains. Welded links on the horizontal tubes. Simple flat scrap metal cut to fit with notches and or bends. I would recommend everyone monitoring their flue temps, especially on a gasser. The hotter the temps means less efficiency or BTU captured from the burn. Also an early indicator of time to clean. Some see upto a 200 degree decrease in flue temps without increased creosote build up, sometimes reduced creosote and more fly ash instead. Close monitoring is a must to find the sweet spot or design that suits your stove. The infamous scotch marine tube design can really benefit from this. Found in the P&M, Empyre, Garn for example. Not all stoves will react the same, some might not like it at all. But if your seeing 500 plus degree stack temps your loosing a lot of energy and this might be worth a look. Is this for everyone NO!!!! But many have benefitted from turbulators, whether factory supplied or homemade.

[mlappin]

I've looked into turbolators a little bit, unless I'm mistaken you'll see a much more dramatic increase in efficiency using them in vertical tubes compared to horizontal?

[coolidge]

My P and M Optimizer came with them in the horizontal tubes, I had to take them out to get my stack temp up too 270

[Sprinter]

I've looked into turbolators a little bit, unless I'm mistaken you'll see a much more dramatic increase in efficiency using them in vertical tubes compared to horizontal?

Yup that's a good note/detail.  Blower speed or how the stove drafts is pretty critical on how or if horizontal turbs will work. Sometimes it's just a short piece with one deflector. All your trying to do is adjust flow and noting results. All tubes don't have to be done at once. This is really a cool project to test and learn more about your stove. The easiest way to tell if its helping is lower stack temps even by 20-80 degrees is some stoves. Then the ash or build up levels before and after. I've seen both kinds of results, where too much was done, but on any stove over 480-500 degrees some kind of improvement  was obvious. Like more ash than creosote in the tube for example. It just gets you thinking more about tweaking (hahahahah) the unit most of us are so passionate about.

I'd like to hear from other that have messed around with adding firebrick or something else to add mass like sand , cast iron or steel. Increasing the mass or heat sink.