Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: TimM on November 30, 2011, 06:11:31 AM

Title: Spitting water out the vent
Post by: TimM on November 30, 2011, 06:11:31 AM
I have a homemade owb thats spitting water out the vent but the water isn't at boiling temp.I'm losing enough water to go below my temp.guage so it doesn't work When the fan isn't running it doesn't spit, but the fire wants to go out without the fan kicking on and off.I've turned my aquastat down to 140 so the fan won't run as much but still doesn't help.
Anyone have any suggestions? Any help would be appreciated!
Title: Re: Spitting water out the vent
Post by: JBG on November 30, 2011, 09:49:27 AM
Is your vent coming out the side?  I had a buddy with a similiar problem but we found out his
owb was not level side to side.  Just a thought.
Title: Re: Spitting water out the vent
Post by: RSI on November 30, 2011, 04:34:35 PM
Do you have any pictures of it? Is there an air space above water in the tank or are you trying to keep it all the way full? Is the overflow near the water return?
Title: Re: Spitting water out the vent
Post by: Scott7m on November 30, 2011, 04:37:52 PM
It's possible for part of your stove to be boiling hard and the other side or whatever be cooler.  If Its spitting water and your losing it, I feel it's def way hotter than you think
Title: Re: Spitting water out the vent
Post by: willieG on November 30, 2011, 06:44:18 PM
tim..i have a home built and my "vent" is an 8 inch pipe about 12 inches high with a lid on it that dows not seal..if water pressure were to build up it would push the lid up a bit and let the pressure off (if was building more than could leak out of the unsealed lid)

waht i am trying to say here is perhaps you need an "expansion tank/vent" even though your water may not be boiling if you are heating it from (say for example) 140/fire on..to 160/fire off the expansion of yiour water may be enough to spit out your vent

i run my stove 150 to 160 and it will rise in my vent pipe about 3 inches in that ten degrees.

water expand differently at diferent temps ..if i were to say use 170 on and 180 off it may move more or less than the 3 inches, but the difference is small.

now if you were heating your water say from 160 to 180 it would move a lot more because of the difference in the spread from cold to hot

i hope this is making sense to you

also as mentioned before this post perhaps you are boiling water in your stove even though you have the temps set lower..when your fire is raging it could cause the water to boil if you dont have enough covering the top of your stove and be bubbling like a tea kettle when it boils. even though your settings are lower the fire is still raging hot enough during the burn cycle to boil water if there is not enough coverage or if it is not moving fast enough