Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Central Boiler => Topic started by: Roger2561 on February 16, 2012, 05:34:18 AM
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Hi all, When I went outside to take care of the OWB at 5:00am this morning, I noticed that water temp/reaction temp readings were not toggling back and forth like they had been since the unit was installed in Sept. 2011. The LCD display only shows the water temp, not the reaction chamber temp. Any idea where I can look to begin trouble shooting for the problem? Does anyone know how to test a thermocouple to see if it is bad? I can't work on it until this Saturday due to work requirements but I'm open for suggestions. Although it doesn't appear to be affecting the operation of the unit, I like to know what the reaction temps are as it is heating up. BTW - I have an E-classic 1400. Another problem I noticed: The water high set point is 185 but it's not uncommon for the water temp to reach 190, 191, 192 before the air shuts off. Is this something I should be concerned about? Thanks, Roger
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Hi Roger
I would try first by turning on and off to try to reset.
In my book it says
To briefly display the temp being measured in the Reaction Chamber press the UP arrow button
to display and hold the water temp press the down arrow buton four times rapidly
Pressing the down button four more times rapidly or shutting the controller power off and on again will return the LED display to alternate between the water temp and the Reaction chamber
(Thermocouple failure)A-1 It also says in my book The A-1 will display on the LED will flash to indicate the system is no longer operating If it is just damaged or disconnected it will be displayed on your LED
Also your other question is the reaction temps getting up to 192 -195 from 185 set point that means you must be gassifying very well by the time the reaction chamber cools down it pushes the water temp up 5-7 degrees thats what you want Just dont want it to get to 200 then you get a high temp alarm
been there done that already
Hope this helps Jack
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Hi Roger
I would try first by turning on and off to try to reset.
In my book it says
To briefly display the temp being measured in the Reaction Chamber press the UP arrow button
to display and hold the water temp press the down arrow buton four times rapidly
Pressing the down button four more times rapidly or shutting the controller power off and on again will return the LED display to alternate between the water temp and the Reaction chamber
(Thermocouple failure)A-1 It also says in my book The A-1 will display on the LED will flash to indicate the system is no longer operating If it is just damaged or disconnected it will be displayed on your LED
Also your other question is the reaction temps getting up to 192 -195 from 185 set point that means you must be gassifying very well by the time the reaction chamber cools down it pushes the water temp up 5-7 degrees thats what you want Just dont want it to get to 200 then you get a high temp alarm
been there done that already
Hope this helps Jack
Jack,
Thanks for the info. I have already tried toggling the on/off switch to see if it will reset and it did not help. I'll try the up/down button trick to see if it gives me any error codes before I leave for work this morning. I'm always very careful when I clean the reaction chamber not to bump into the probe. I had noticed the reaction temp display had stopped registering yesterday morning when I went out at 5:00am to service it for he day. On Wednesday evening everything was operating as it should. I realize that anything "man made" is susceptible to failure regardless of age so it's conceivable that the thermocouple simply failed. I'll report back when I find the problem or if I have to replace the thermocouple. Roger
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Hi Roger I installed a 2400 last Dec. Four weeks into my break end period, after testing, had to replace my controller. My dealer called cb and they had me perform certain tests that confirmed I needed a new board. They have had some issues with boards, but were quick to figue out my problem and replace the part. A simple install. Good luck
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Before I left home for work this morning, I performed the test per the instructions in the manual. The instruction said (And Jack mentioned too) to press the up/down buttons at the same time for the reaction chamber temp reading. I got the reading from the reaction chamber that way (that tells me that the thermocouple is working just fine) but as soon as I released them it still wouldn't toggle between the water temp and reaction chamber temp. Although the OWB is working just fine otherwise, I like to know what my OWB is doing without having to stand on top of it outdoors in the weather to see what the temp is the reaction chamber is doing. Everything else appears to be working just fine. When I have a few minutes today, I'll call my dealer and see what he has to offer. I'll keep everyone posted.
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I called my CB dealer and he gave a couple of things to try. They are in the owners manual. So, tomorrow morning when I give the 1400 a good cleaning, I'll address this problem again. Tonight I plan on reading a bit more from the manual to see if there are any other things I can try. My CB dealer is leaning toward the thermocouple is on its way out. He also asked if there was any evidence that someone may have tampered with it, perhaps playing with the controls while I was away. He said that in the southern part of NH he's hard reports of customers arriving home from work and one of them found that someone had drained the water from his E-classic 1400 destroying it. He also heard that someone made a bunch of changes to the controls on another persons CB unit but it was okay, the owner had to reset the settings. He thought it would be smart if I bought a couple of padlocks to lock the rear panels where the drain, blower, circulator, ball valves and the damper controls are located. Plus, by pushing a couple of buttons on the LCD display, I can lock the settings into place and no one can play with them. I have a key to lock the fire door when I'm done. I may do that. My CB dealer said that due to the vandalism of the CB units people are installing cameras. I may do the samething. I then can monitor it from home. It's a bit of an inconvenience but I think it's worth it. Roger
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I called my CB dealer and he gave a couple of things to try. They are in the owners manual. So, tomorrow morning when I give the 1400 a good cleaning, I'll address this problem again. Tonight I plan on reading a bit more from the manual to see if there are any other things I can try. My CB dealer is leaning toward the thermocouple is on its way out. He also asked if there was any evidence that someone may have tampered with it, perhaps playing with the controls while I was away. He said that in the southern part of NH he's hard reports of customers arriving home from work and one of them found that someone had drained the water from his E-classic 1400 destroying it. He also heard that someone made a bunch of changes to the controls on another persons CB unit but it was okay, the owner had to reset the settings. He thought it would be smart if I bought a couple of padlocks to lock the rear panels where the drain, blower, circulator, ball valves and the damper controls are located. Plus, by pushing a couple of buttons on the LCD display, I can lock the settings into place and no one can play with them. I have a key to lock the fire door when I'm done. I may do that. My CB dealer said that due to the vandalism of the CB units people are installing cameras. I may do the samething. I then can monitor it from home. It's a bit of an inconvenience but I think it's worth it. Roger
Well Roger Im sorry to hear your having trouble. Thats pretty sad that you have to worry about someone messing with it I hope thats not the case. Although my back door to my reaction chamber has a keyed lock and so does the firebox hopefully I will never have to use that feature .
Jack
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Unfortunately, we have far too many kids and adults alike who love to do nothing more than vandalize other peoples property. They may think it's funny and not hurting anyone but I work hard for my money and the things I have purchased with it and I don't find it funny at all. I'm seriously thinking of installing a wireless camera in my work shop that can easily be aimed at the OWB and also be protected from the elements. But, at the same time I'm not going to discount the possibility that there may be something wrong with the thermocouple or some other system on the OWB. Thus, tomorrow when I perform my weekly cleaning I'll look over everything closely to be sure they are operating correctly. Roger
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Unfortunately, we have far too many kids and adults alike who love to do nothing more than vandalize other peoples property. They may think it's funny and not hurting anyone but I work hard for my money and the things I have purchased with it and I don't find it funny at all. I'm seriously thinking of installing a wireless camera in my work shop that can easily be aimed at the OWB and also be protected from the elements. But, at the same time I'm not going to discount the possibility that there may be something wrong with the thermocouple or some other system on the OWB. Thus, tomorrow when I perform my weekly cleaning I'll look over everything closely to be sure they are operating correctly. Roger
Roger I have a camera on mine its not for security though its so I can turn my tv on at anytime (night or day ) to see the LED readouts If you notice in my pictures from the general site my stove is behind my garage. (not a good signal for wireless Im about 100ft from my stove) Im sure there are alot better ones out there if you want to pay for it but the wireless didnt work to good for me I took back to Menards and ordered mine through amazon that has a wire that runs from my tv to the cam (very clear picture not fuzzy like the wireless)
Also I have a driveway alarm that goes off anytime anyone crosses the path into my drive that my be a option for you to mount by your stove You could put that in your house it has three volume levels you definately can hear it. (that is wireless works really well) If you want more info I can send you my exact model numbers of mine and manufactures so you know> Jack
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Roger here is some pictures for you from my living room so you know how clear the camera is
Jack
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Jack, Unfortunately, the location of my OWB is such it can not be seen from my house, although it's only 25 feet away. The way the house is in relationship to the area where the OWB is located, there absolutely no way for me to see it. Plus, the controls face away from my house. It has to do with the wind direction. I set it up so that when the wind blows from the north (90% of the wind is from the north where I live) I'm not opening the fire box door and exposing the inside of the OWB to the wind. I feel it's safer the direction I have it set. Plus, my nearest neighbor to the south is about 1 mile away through a heavily wooded area so any smoke that blows that way will not effect anyone.
This AM about 7:00 I serviced my furnace. You can tell it's warm. It was 35 degrees at 5:00am this morning. Last evening I serviced the OWB at 5:00pm when I got home from work. Essentially, I put in enough wood to last 14 hours. Man, when I opened the fire box door this morning at 7:00am, about 1/4 of what I placed inside last night had not burned yet. The bed of coals was impressive. So, I took out the unburned wood and placed it on the ground. In a large metal container I placed all of the red hot coals (to be reused when I rekindle the fire after cleaning). Once everything was cleaned to my satisfaction, (using a mirror I looked up the chimney and not a speck of creosote or dust was evident inside, it was as clean as a whistle) I rekindled the fire using the red hot coals I previously removed and put the unburned but very dry fire wood on top of the coals. In no time the water temp went from 175 to 185 and slightly beyond. Once I was convinced I was done with the cleaning and rekindling, I then turned my attention to the LCD display to see if I could find the reason why the reaction chamber/water temp readings were not toggling. I performed one of the procedures mentioned in the manual and WALLA!, it now shows up along with the water temp. I'm a happy camper. Who knows how it got turned off because I do not touch anything when I'm stoking the OWB. I cannot rule out a noisy neighbor.
I like your idea of the camera from a distance. I can mount it under the eves of my work shop and transmit the signal to a receiver which will be connected to a router so I can monitor the OWB regardless if I'm at home or at work. As long as I have access to a computer, I'll be able to see if anyone is bothering my OWB. Plus, if I set it up like yours, i won't have to go outside to see how it's doing, I can simply look at my computer.
Thanks for the ideas and help with trying to straighten this thing out. I appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend. Roger
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Roger
I understand what you mean on the wind direction it gets me sometimes. and the wife lets me know because I usually smell like smoke. I know one thing I take alot more showers than I used too Ha Ha Well thats awesome that you figured it out I just wonder if you lost power real quick or something on why it did that all of sudden???? My cam does not have a IP address but I probably will switch someday to that. Well glad to try to help. Just curious when your stove is gassifying well how hot have you seen it get. Temp on LED Talk at you later Jack
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I know that I for one cannot say enough good about having a camera monitoring my boiler. I run a greenhouse business which is a huge demand on my boiler. I already had an 8 camara DVR system in place and I simply moved a nearby camera to the boiler. It is invaluable to me as greenhouses use a rediculous amount of heat and thus will drop my boiler water temp in the blink of an eye. I have the E-2300 which has had it's problems anyway. I've recently made some extensive changes to my air channel and I'm getting a hotter fire than I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I don't have the option to see my combustion chamber temp. Would be nice if they would come out with an upgrade but probably never happen. My DVR is also connected to the internet so I have that piece of mind to be able to watch it when I am away. There is another option for monitoring water temp, however. CB has in their accessories catalog a remote temp guage. Comes with 75' of wire. You can install it at the boiler, or even easier, install it into your supply line as it enters your house. Simple install. Just add a T with a bushing down to 1/8" and screw it in just like their little dial thermometers. I'm planning to add a couple of those myself to monitor from different locations in my home.
Jeff
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I know that I for one cannot say enough good about having a camera monitoring my boiler. I run a greenhouse business which is a huge demand on my boiler. I already had an 8 camara DVR system in place and I simply moved a nearby camera to the boiler. It is invaluable to me as greenhouses use a rediculous amount of heat and thus will drop my boiler water temp in the blink of an eye. I have the E-2300 which has had it's problems anyway. I've recently made some extensive changes to my air channel and I'm getting a hotter fire than I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I don't have the option to see my combustion chamber temp. Would be nice if they would come out with an upgrade but probably never happen. My DVR is also connected to the internet so I have that piece of mind to be able to watch it when I am away. There is another option for monitoring water temp, however. CB has in their accessories catalog a remote temp guage. Comes with 75' of wire. You can install it at the boiler, or even easier, install it into your supply line as it enters your house. Simple install. Just add a T with a bushing down to 1/8" and screw it in just like their little dial thermometers. I'm planning to add a couple of those myself to monitor from different locations in my home.
Jeff
Thanks for the ideas and what you have been doing to monitor the water temp.
Jeff, I like that idea of an inline temp gauge in the house. On my thermostatic mixing valve on my domestic hot water tank, there is an inline thermometer that tells me the temp of the water going to the domestic systems in my house. Essentially, I'm looking for the same thing for the OWB water coming into my house. It doesn't have to be digital, a simple analog system will be sufficient for me. I need to go to Home Depot to pick up some pieces parts for a project, I'll have a look around to see if they have something that will work for my application. Roger
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Jack72, I think you have mentioned in the past that Central Boiler has made a change to the air channel in the E-classic 1450. I believe you mentioned they made the area where the air holes are located, a removable panel to aid in cleaning. Can you post a picture of it for me? In the off season I'm thinking of making some changes to that area of the E-classic 1400 where they are welded in place. Makes for a pain to clean when creosote gets in the area between air holes where you can't reach it without a bit of cussing. Thanks, Roger
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Jack72, I think you have mentioned in the past that Central Boiler has made a change to the air channel in the E-classic 1450. I believe you mentioned they made the area where the air holes are located, a removable panel to aid in cleaning. Can you post a picture of it for me? In the off season I'm thinking of making some changes to that area of the E-classic 1400 where they are welded in place. Makes for a pain to clean when creosote gets in the area between air holes where you can't reach it without a bit of cussing. Thanks, Roger
Yes no problem next time I give a good cleaning (maybe next Sunday I have something going on today) I will post a pic so you can see it well I think it would be fairly easy to modify yours I would just get nervous about the warranty but your just adding a feature not changing a design. (no different than what they did) Jack
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I've had similar problems with my 2300 air channels. I'm going to copy and paste a post I did on another thread last night. Tells what I've done to get around my problem. I too was a little worried about my warranty but the original design just isn't conducive for cleaning and maintaining good burn. Here's what I wrote and the details of what I did to fix my problem. Also I'll attach a picture.
New plan. It won't let me paste from the other thread. You can find it under "Melting E-Classic" thread. Long story short, I built my own new channel out of pipe up to the roof of the firebox. It is working excellent so far. I may actually have to slow down my air flow. If anybody is interested in more info feel free to ask.
-Jeff
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I've had similar problems with my 2300 air channels. I'm going to copy and paste a post I did on another thread last night. Tells what I've done to get around my problem. I too was a little worried about my warranty but the original design just isn't conducive for cleaning and maintaining good burn. Here's what I wrote and the details of what I did to fix my problem. Also I'll attach a picture.
New plan. It won't let me paste from the other thread. You can find it under "Melting E-Classic" thread. Long story short, I built my own new channel out of pipe up to the roof of the firebox. It is working excellent so far. I may actually have to slow down my air flow. If anybody is interested in more info feel free to ask.
-Jeff
Jeff, Is there any adverse effect on the pulse feature and do the coal reconstitute themselves easily after it closes the air flow?
My plan was to use a cutoff saw or plasma cutter and remove the panels making the channel behind it visible. Once I did that I'd make another panel only larger than the channel, the bottom would be fixed to floor of the fire box via a heavy duty hinge. To close the panel simply flip it up and put a couple of pins through something similar to a hasp used on a padlock unit. When I need to clean the channel of creosote simply the pins and flip down the panel, scrape out the junk. When you're done flip it back up and put the pins back in place. your thoughts. Roger
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Roger-
It's been like having a whole new furnace these last 5 days. I did slightly restrict my primary air flow today to see what happens (lowered my solenoid a touch). Your idea sounds good. I would ask myself this. How do the channels look, overall? In my case, the side channels were really falling apart, separating some from the sidewalls and just full of crud with no way to clean it out. Originally it didn't even have drain holes for the creosote. This furnace was doomed from the start and I feel I started having troubles the first year. Central Boiler has been willing to cover repairs but what good is it when a couple of months later it's filled up again. Last year we cut a chunk out of the back wall and left side and scraped out what we could, but it was still hard to get in there and the creosote litterally has to be chisseled out once it starts to cool. No fun at all. Anyway, I was thrilled that night, it burned great, for a couple of weeks, then it started filling up again. This year, the patch that we cut out last year started to rot away. I have a hole 1" x2 1/2". And on the right side there is 2 vertical cracks top to bottom and the top lip between them is warping and pulling away from the wall. It's a mess, with only 3 1/2 heating seasons on it. I feel I actually have some control over the unit for a change.
It re-fires faster than it ever has, within 20 to 30 seconds there is usually no smoke at all, only heat coming out. I like the idea of my air being up away from the coal and ash bed. I'm still getting a pretty even burn, favors the back a little but I can compensate for most of that. I'm happy with my decision. I may tweak it a little for next year, but at this point I'm very happy with it's performance. Note that my unit does not have the Pulse feature. There is an add-on cycle timer that I am considering. Waiting to hear the price on it. Probably look at that for next year.
One thing to keep in mind with your proposed idea is this. You'll need to make sure it is quite air tight. If too much air is leaking out around your seems, it will alter your fire to the back of the stove. You'll find it burning much hotter and faster at the back making it hard to reload unless it's moslty burned down to coals. Hope this helps in some way. It's just my 2 cents worth but I feel like I've been a slave to this thing for several years now and I finally feel like I have some control and freedom back. I don't know how to explain it, I just never felt like I could count on it to be burning good at any given time. It has always smoked more that I thought it should, esp. since I know somebody else with the same unit and his has never smoked as much. And his son lives next door to me. His wood is delivered there and his son cuts and splits it for him. He's usually burning it as he cuts and splits it totally green and he's always had better luck. His wood comes from the same guy I get mine from. My wood is not all dry, but mostly cut split and stored in a greenhouses with the sun drying on it throughout the fall. I couldn't figure it out. Now I have. Wasn't the wood at all. I think he'll be facing the same decision about his air channels soon though. I was looking at them the other day.
Jeff