Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Pages: 1 [2]
16
Natures Comfort / Re: Draft Fan Opening
« on: January 06, 2010, 07:54:04 AM »
thanks, this is seemingly easy... I dont remember reading about that in the manual.
17
Electronics / Re: remote thermometer
« on: January 05, 2010, 09:28:17 PM »
willieG that chick was hot on that link! 
18
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / too much draft?? or not enough??? that is the question.
« on: January 05, 2010, 09:21:23 PM »
For awhile now I have thought that i have too much draft...why.. i dunno. but tonight as the snow falls with my boiler temp... i asked myself do i have enough draft?
How does one know??? I have a natures comfort owb (ncb250) buring coal with a coulple logs mixed in. for the past couple of weeks i thought i was getting too much draft as others with the same setup limit their draft by lowering the opening on the draft fan. i have been restricting my draft by placing something over about 1/3 to 1/2 of the fan opening as i cannot lower the door easily. when I have a good fire going... I open the door to check it out and see hot coals hot wood..very small flames then there is a big flame up of very large blue flames that remain as long as I leave the door open. If I close it for about 2-3 min and reopen it, same thing, small couple of flames..then the eruption. this is not after adding coal recently so i dont think it is the early volatiles burning off...i seems like the extra surge of oxygen allows more of the volatiles to burn off and thus create heat! So i removed my restrictor from the draft looked at the fire about 5 min later and pretty much the same thing..the only way I can keep it roaring is to crack the door open about 1/4 inch... not a good long term plan... How do I solve this age old dilemma, too much draft, or not enough??? more importantly how do i fix it?
How does one know??? I have a natures comfort owb (ncb250) buring coal with a coulple logs mixed in. for the past couple of weeks i thought i was getting too much draft as others with the same setup limit their draft by lowering the opening on the draft fan. i have been restricting my draft by placing something over about 1/3 to 1/2 of the fan opening as i cannot lower the door easily. when I have a good fire going... I open the door to check it out and see hot coals hot wood..very small flames then there is a big flame up of very large blue flames that remain as long as I leave the door open. If I close it for about 2-3 min and reopen it, same thing, small couple of flames..then the eruption. this is not after adding coal recently so i dont think it is the early volatiles burning off...i seems like the extra surge of oxygen allows more of the volatiles to burn off and thus create heat! So i removed my restrictor from the draft looked at the fire about 5 min later and pretty much the same thing..the only way I can keep it roaring is to crack the door open about 1/4 inch... not a good long term plan... How do I solve this age old dilemma, too much draft, or not enough??? more importantly how do i fix it?
19
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 04, 2010, 08:49:20 PM »
today this am I initiated one of my infinite experiments for the day... i threw a 4-5 inch log on top of the coal... it has been in the snow for about a month and was partially burned already... my temp was 150 starting (i ran my oil concurrently with this with the oil set at 140 and the ow/cb at 170...) when i put the log on, i turned off my oil furnace... I came out to check it two to three hours later.. steam is coming out of the vent... fan is off... and temp was 175!!! with most of my experiments I would have expected a temp around 120 or less. i looked at the fire and it was going great (fan must have just shut off) i think what has happened is that the log merely extended the flame to come in more contact with the boiler ceiling... for most of today I have been running temps between 140-170...this is an improvement. I plan on heading out and gathering some wood to put a log or two on a day.
20
Natures Comfort / Re: Draft Fan Opening
« on: January 04, 2010, 08:40:01 PM »
this would be helpful... I pic would be great. I have been putting a firm rubber jar opener over about half of the opening with mixed results. I pic would be lovely. thank you... if u can post it that would be great, if you need me email that is fine to.
21
Natures Comfort / Re: Bottom Insulation again
« on: January 03, 2010, 07:20:34 PM »
I am thankful for this website for this reason alone... i was unaware that the bottom required insulation.... I did this today... it hasnt solved my problems with making heat... but the temp did come up a bit.. i plan in the spring to make the changes more permanent...that is ofcourse I dont kill my self, destroy the unit, or it destroys itself in a china syndrome scenario in an attempt to heat my water!
22
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 02, 2010, 09:03:10 PM »
blocking the output would be tough... the output is deep in the ash pan it is only a square pipe about 2-3 inches in diameter. physically impossible to get to while running... i plan on putting a rheostat on the fan itself to adjust the fan speed...
23
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 02, 2010, 08:40:45 PM »
the plate was installed to raise the overall depth of coal that can be loaded, otherwise the coal literally falls out the front door. This has allowed me to raise the fire up quite a bit....the coal fire is less of an area then the wood, definitely.. I did burn wood for about 4 weeks.... i used between 2-3.5 foot logs... basically as big as I could lift.... the wood did hold better temp... but i went threw a bunch of it.. and there are ordinances around here for wood, not coal though. I probably went through 2 cords of good big wood in 4 weeks. and that was november/begining of dec. not particularly cold...but wood worked better....
i think i have good lines underground... i dont have a temp gauge on my intake...but I am going to borrow one of those infrared temp measuring devices and measure my outtake pipe in the boiler and my intake pipe in the house and see what difference there is...that should be a relatively accurate gauge i hope. i purchased my insulated pex off of my dealer... it was what he recommended... it was basically a 4 in corrugated flex pipe with 2 pex lines wrapped in a silver insulation.......if that is the problem....what the hell do I do now... those lines are under a 14in concrete pad for 20 feet... then ashphalt for another 50 feet... if that is the issue... I wonder is somehow I could get someone to run a line into it and blow some expandable foam insulation into it????that doesnt sound impossible does it?
i think i have good lines underground... i dont have a temp gauge on my intake...but I am going to borrow one of those infrared temp measuring devices and measure my outtake pipe in the boiler and my intake pipe in the house and see what difference there is...that should be a relatively accurate gauge i hope. i purchased my insulated pex off of my dealer... it was what he recommended... it was basically a 4 in corrugated flex pipe with 2 pex lines wrapped in a silver insulation.......if that is the problem....what the hell do I do now... those lines are under a 14in concrete pad for 20 feet... then ashphalt for another 50 feet... if that is the issue... I wonder is somehow I could get someone to run a line into it and blow some expandable foam insulation into it????that doesnt sound impossible does it?
24
Natures Comfort / Re: Draft Fan Opening
« on: January 02, 2010, 08:05:24 PM »
has anyone had any luck adjusting the draft door for the 2009 model.... the door completely lifts off of the fan... it is not hinged like previous models...
25
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 02, 2010, 07:59:08 PM »
willieG- i did turn off the circulator pump today for a bit to the house (the office i left on low) and noticed that the temp came up 10 degrees every 30 min from 110 to 140 then i put it back online with the home and had to leave... the fire was good.... just got home and am at 135...which is not great... but better... and my house is warm...it is particulary cold night tonight anyway.. with wind chill we are down to -11F. on another note, I did try opening the ash pan door and letting in air as a natural draft without the fan for about 2 weeks.. with it being windy lately is was getting alot of mixed results...plus that was when the fire was causing my front plate to turn red... it is now bent!!! i was having similar problem with the fire buring fast up front and slow in the back but i installed "air bafflers" in the ash pan to shunt part of the draft up the middle of the grates which has really helped get the fire better disturbuted....
i think one of the problem with these burning coal is that especially with the 250... the coal grates are only about 1/2 the lengh, if not a bit less) then the length of the boiler... so the effective heat generating area is much less.... if the grate were to go the full length or at least 2/3 back.... there would be a greater area for the fire... the grate that they use of the 175 and 250 are the same!!!!? for the spring I plan on fabricating something to allow the grates to go back further...
j845125- I was wondering if your dealer has manufactured a grate for the 250... or just the 175.. i would be intersted in seeing what he has done and would be interested in purchasing something for the 250 if the grate goes at least 2/3 the boiler length..
i think one of the problem with these burning coal is that especially with the 250... the coal grates are only about 1/2 the lengh, if not a bit less) then the length of the boiler... so the effective heat generating area is much less.... if the grate were to go the full length or at least 2/3 back.... there would be a greater area for the fire... the grate that they use of the 175 and 250 are the same!!!!?
for the spring I plan on fabricating something to allow the grates to go back further...j845125- I was wondering if your dealer has manufactured a grate for the 250... or just the 175.. i would be intersted in seeing what he has done and would be interested in purchasing something for the 250 if the grate goes at least 2/3 the boiler length..
26
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 01, 2010, 07:49:06 PM »
i am planning on cleaning the flue in the am. I was buring wood for the first 3-4 weeks and some of it was wet and poorly seasoned... i had a ton of cresote build up. i scraped/sanded most of it out before converting to coal, but never scrubbed the stack. I have maybe a 3000-3500 sq ft house.. I am also heating an office with forced hot air with a heating coil over the airhandler. the office is heated easily as it doesnt require a very high water temp, usually 120 does it for there, my house becuase of the radiatiors and baseboard fin type hot water requires temps of 150+ to be effective. i nice addition to the newer NCB units is that the circulator pumps have three speed settings. I have set the office at the slowest speed as it is effective and house i have set at the medium speed. I did this to allow the water more time to sit in the boiler to heat up... the house set slower is not effective at all. I do think that there is something to the water level... because I have such wide flucuations in water temp, I think I overexpand and blow off some water then when it cools down the top of the boiler is not filled where it is the hottest... i kicked my oil furnace which is set at about 140 today for a few hours to get heat up in the house.. i turned it off and the temp in the OW/CB rose upto 170.. I have it set at 165... so I was happy.. I came home after about 6 hours to a warm house and a OW/CB at 145... and on.. I will check it again in a few hours to see if it is going in the right direction.
27
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 01, 2010, 12:11:14 PM »
how did you clean your flue??? was that something that could be accomplished while the stove is running???
28
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: January 01, 2010, 08:07:56 AM »
what kind of stove do you have? the door is opening as it is in easy view.... the thing is the fire is soo raging that the front plate i installed is 1/4 in steel and is red hot at night with very nice blue flames long ones licking the top
29
Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort
« on: December 31, 2009, 08:32:00 PM »
currently burning coal in a NCB-250.. anthracite stove coal. cant get the temp up despite raging fire. I installed the shaker/grinder grate prototype from company which makes the process easier. I think that my fan is allowing too much air. but the newer units dont have a chain link that can be adjusted, it is solid bar which doesnt move much. I have talked to one guy in upstate newyork that runs his great with water temps of 185+ I am getting ready to make the 5 hour drive to see how! i have also installed front and back firebox plates. this is too keep the fire stictly above the grates and provide more coal depth. the back plate is about 2/3 up on a 15 degree angle and the front one is 1/2 up. enough to allow me to get the shovel in nice. i have an wonderful fire but not a wonderful temp... i can hold 100 degrees on its own..... that is sad.... there was a zen 3 day period where it ran around 170-180... but i dont know how or why as I cannot reproduce it. At the time, I was not running the forced draft as my thinking for the last 2-3 weeks was that the fan was running to fast and blowing all the heat out the stack. i was using the method similar to an indoor hand fired stove of varying the degree of opening of the ashpan/door. I know it can be done... I am missing the link.. help!!! 
Pages: 1 [2]