Thanks for the reply Scratch...

Great looking setup you have there, and chimney goes above the roof line. I don't know if you are familiar with Polar G2 furnace but, they only have a two foot chimney with them. I contacted Polar and they gave a very short reply but, it seems like they don't suggest that I add any length to the supplied chimney. So, that leaves me a bit confused as to the chimney... if I could add another foot or two it might be okay, but I believe I would have to start playing around with the damper controls, I don't know. The furnace works great right now and I would hate to screw that up...

I did get in touch with the building department and it seems I am allowed to build a firewood enclosure with a maximum of 161 sq ft so I can build a 16x10 without any problem. Why the different specs for a firewood enclosure I don't know but, I am not going to ask !!

The wood shed I will build will be about 8 ft in front(at the loading door) of the furnace. It will be close to 8 ft high when complete, just a sloped roof not peaked, and the stack of the furnace is about the same height. What I am concerned about is the possibility of more of an updraft situation causing the furnace to continue to heat even after the fan has shut off. Don't know if that is even an issue with these down draft gasifiers ?

I have a woodshed covering my woodpile and it is butted up to the front of my Central Boiler 6048.  I haven't heard of any draft issues that I thought I needed to worry about, and I've never had a problem.  The shed is about 22.5' long and 24' wide, and butts right up to the front of my stove, so my wood, and I... stay nice and dry all winter long.  I even have lights and an outlet out there.  It's a kit from Menards and is just like their "cart corrals" they have in their parking lot.  Not permanent, just staked into the ground.



It's enclosed on three sides with steel, but the back just has a tarp on it.  It's actually one of those billboard tarps so it'll last a while.  I use a 27' piece of old well pipe to roll it up and hang it on a couple of bars coming out the back when I'm filling the shed. I also store my trailer back there.



You might be able to tell that the wood shed is split into two sections. I have old garage door panels fashioned up as a "wall" to separate the two sides. I use about half the shed during a season, or one full side.  I stack it tight and go 7' high.  The side the stove is on holds about 12.1 cords of wood, and the other side holds about 14.7 cords of wood. (The door swings inward and there's a 4' cement slab in front of the stove so that takes up some room on that side)

I can't imaging any type of drafting issues that would need to be dealt with, but maybe that's specific to your stove.  I had to have my stove in the front corner of the building because its right on the edge of a slope going downhill, so I had to either move my stove (not a great idea) or move the building over when I was building it.  I chose the latter.  I'm very very happy with this setup right now but If I had to do it over again, I suppose I might have the stove still outside (so it doesn't take up any space inside the woodshed) but in the center- front of the shed, rather than in the corner.  That way I'd have the exact same amount of storage space on both sides and I wouldn't have to walk further to get firewood every other year like I do now.
 
Of course if I put the stove in the center-front of the woodshed, my patio wouldn't be as nice and open as it is so....

If I were you, I'd either build one 10X20 room and have the stove outside of it, but in the center-front,  or because of building permits, build two 10x10 rooms basically touching each other, essentially creating a 10x20 room.  If you have one room at the back of the stove, that's not going to be fun loading the stove on the years that you pull from that room.

It's been a couple of years now with my Polar G2 and I am very happy with it. I am now looking at building a couple of sheds/roofs for my firewood. I want to build two 10x10 sheds for a couple of reasons. First, no permit required, second I will always have one years wood stored ahead. I can just work off one at a time keeping one full of wood that has been split for a year plus...

My question is with regards to location to the furnace. I would like to put one behind the furnace and the other in front but, I am concerned about any potential draft issues that may be caused by the buildings. Has anyone put sheds close to their boilers ? I have seen pictures of them covered or sheds built over them but nothing of sheds built close to the front and back. The manual states that the chimney must be higher than any portion of roof but I assume that relates to being inside a covered area.

Any thoughts ?

The height doesn't matter much. It is the size and length of pipe and what else it has to push water through that would determine what will work.
If you have a fairly short unrestricted run, a Grundfos Alpha might pump as much or more than the 009. If it is longer, it would probably be less but still may work.

A Grundfos 15-58 or Taco 0015 are about the same size as the alpha but use about 85 watts compared to the Alpha at about 40 watts.

There are other brands of ECM pumps that have similar flow ratings as the Alpha. I haven't looked at what Taco has lately but the 007E is probably too small.

After 8 years the Taco 009 circulator died. I am looking to find an energy efficient replacement. The height it has to pump is around 14 feet, boiler to the basement. I use a heat exchanger so I don't need to pump up three stories. Anyone know of a good pump for this?

It seems my water lever float has cracked at the neck like the one before it.  Should have gotten a spare or two.

For reference, I have since talked to CB about the pulse time not being counted as burn time. They said that changed a couple of software versions ago, and the controller now only counts burn time in demand mode. So no issues there.

Yeah I've seen a lot of graphs that look like yours (from before they went to reaction chamber percentages instead of temperature). CB explained that now the secondary combustion occurs in the "fireball" in these newer models, and since the temp sensor is on the other side of the round fireball refractory percentages are more consistent than temperature readings.

I definitely don't have a creosote issue. I have had both air tubes out and verified they are clear, as well as the plate on the inside front of the boiler. There is little to no creosote built up in either the primary or secondary elbows as well.

Yeah there is warranty support. I have been in contact with Central Boiler, and they are fairly convinced I have a software or hardware issue. I'll know by tomorrow if they're going to send me a new controller, primary stepper, or both.

They have me checking my stepper motors in each "demand" cycle, and I caught it a couple days ago stalled out with the reaction chamber at 38% and not climbing. When I checked my steppers, both primary and secondary were basically shut and only open millimeters at best. I'll let you know what CB decides to do with it.

Thanks for the reply!

It may be worth reaching out to Central Boiler support directly for an answer on the "should pulse time be counted as burn time" question. On my 750HD pulse time adds to the total burn time. But the HDX may be programmed differently - I can see that your graph looks different from mine in that mine displays reaction chamber temperatures, not percentages, so this may be an intentional change (see my attachment below).

I'm burning a mix of woods, some oak, birch, ash, cherry, maple, nothing consistent from burn to burn. Your issue with the actuators may be the root cause, I've never had mine get stuck or fail to open in any way. If those aren't opening it would explain what you are seeing. I wonder if you are getting some creosote buildup in the elbows at the cap preventing them from opening or if the linkage is just sticking somehow. Perhaps some kind of lubrication where the cap meets the elbow would keep them from getting stuck.

With how new your install is there should be warranty support available. I had my blower motor die the first year and it was replaced for free after going through CB support to my dealer. You shouldn't have to be messing with this thing in the middle of the night like you are and I think their support crew will get someone hands on to take a look.

Hey thanks for the reply and the tips, much appreciated.

When I say "clean the firebox" I just meant removing excess ash and creosote, not a full shutdown and scrape clean type of thing. I do scrape the loading door almost every day.

What kind of wood are you burning? I think if I went to your settings I'd have a fire go out every few days at least. My target temp is the same but I'm pulsing over twice as often and for much longer minimums.

I do agree it's probably an airflow issue- I'm actually starting to suspect I have a problem with my firestar controller- I woke up to my alarm last night at 3:45 am that the fire was out, so I went and had a look. Pushed the ignition air button, checked my primary and secondary actuators and they didn't seem to be open at all. I powered the furnace off and back on, and did a self-test on the firestar controller, both actuators opened fully. I did a factory reset to the controller, powered it off and back on again for now. I've been keeping an eye on the actuators over the last 20 hours and they don't seem to be opening well at all.

Another issue I have is my controller isn't counting burn time when the fan is running in pulse mode, which makes no sense. Nothing I do seems to fix that issue either.... this is another reason I'm leaning towards this being a controller issue. I also did a software update about a week ago which changed nothing.

I'll attach a screenshot of what the past 24 hours have looked like for me

I've been running a Classic Edge 750 (the year before the HDX) for 3 winters now. The first winter I had a few issues with the fire going out, which I blamed more on myself as operator error than anything else, but here are the things I would try in your situation.

When you say you are cleaning out the firebox once a month, how clean do you mean? I really don't clean out the firebox until the end of the season, running the pole through the coal bed to create air channels pushes enough ash and such down into the reaction chamber that I've found no need to clean (ash out) the firebox during the season. Do scrape the walls, any creosote buildup, and the loading door, but I think these things want more ash and coals in the firebox than I was comfortable leaving in there at first.

I use a 10 degree differential, 40 second idle pulse minimum timeout, 35 minute pulse interval, and a 300F pulse target temperature. Are you seeing temperatures drop well below your pulse target in between pulses?  If it isn't dropping much below your 310F pulse target, it will only pulse for the pulse minimum timeout which may not be enough to get the coals hot again.

Inside the firebox along the air channels at the bottom on the left and right, is there any chance the air holes are plugged? Or, are you loading wood densely enough that it is blocking those air holes? The low reaction chamber temps and fire going out make me think of an airflow issue. I'm not familiar with the fan on the 360HDX but I can sure hear and feel the air output on the 750. The air control box on the front might be worth taking a look at too, if it is not properly mounted to the boiler it could leave an air gap which will cause the fan to blow air out of the box instead of through the pipe elbows and into the system.

When I wasn't leaving enough coals at the bottom I rarely saw reaction chamber temps above 1000F, after leaving more in there and arranging logs with more empty space in the firebox I started to regularly see 1200-1700F temps. I feel like this is an airflow thing.