Print

[american-pacemaker]

Hi guys. I checked my air settings this weekend and found the lower setting was only out two turns. I readjusted that and will check tonight and see if this fixed the or helped the problem.

Coolidge my heat exchanger usually looks just like yours with a heavy coating of the very dry gray ash. Is that just how it
should be ?

Thanks, Larry

[coolidge]

That's pretty dirty, I don't usually go that long between cleanings, brush the tubes weekly and clean everything every two weeks.

[jreimer]

Well it just hit me too.  Last night I opened the back door of my boiler and noticed creosote had been running out of my airbox.  Opened up the airbox cover and it was full of water.  It had been dry as a bone for a month, and I didn't do anything differently yesterday. 

It's one of those mysteries....

I'm suspecting it was from "huffing" as every surface was caked with gooey creosote.  I think it huffs if I stack my splits too loosely and I was in a hurry yesterday morning. 

I'll check again tonight and report back.

[coolidge]

There has got to be some heat coming from the back of that airbox area, now you are introducing cold outside air, condensation. Just like the roof of a house, vented, if you unclip the lower left corner.

No more gooooooo

[Cabo]

I had a similar problem this fall with water in the air box.  I found out that the set screw on the actuator shaft had loosened up.  There was a little bur left on it so it was intermittent.  I would shut the switch off and listen for the flapper to "clang" and it didn't.  I then opened the flap manually and the shaft didn't move.  Tightened the set screw and its been fine since.

[Sloppy_Snood]

Put a drop of blue (low strength) Permatex^TM thread locker on that set screw. 

[jreimer]

Well the airbox was mostly dry by last night.  I took more care in stacking yesterday so I don't think it was huffing as much.  Now I have to clean all that creosote off the mechanisms so it won't stick open. 

With the spruce I'm burning I think it's important to get a tight stack.  Otherwise it seems to burn too quickly and overwhelm the oxygen supply.

[american-pacemaker]

Hi Guys, I cleaned the boiler last night and after adjusting the airbox settings it looks like I got rid of the moistu

jreimer, I tried burning a stack of smaller diameter twisted wood yesterday and ran into problems with it. When I got home
the boiler was down to 179' with about a quarter of a load of wood still. As the load burned it never fell in on itself and was hung up and didn't burn 

[jreimer]

I know, the bridging issue is very frustrating.  Not only can the fire go out, but it makes for a very dirty burn and lots of elbow grease trying to clean the creosote out of the tubes! My splits are causing big issues with this.

I'm tempted to try putting something like a heavy steel plate on top of the wood after filling it to keep forcing the wood down.  I guess one issue would be trying to reload when the wood is not completely exhausted.  How the heck would you get the steel plate out of the way??  Probably wouldn't work.

Any other thoughts??

[jreimer]

So I'm still not exactly sure what causes the moisture problems in the air box, but I do have a solution. 

I connected an insulated pipe from the intake of the fan to the top of the boiler to draw warm air into the air box during burns and to pre-warm the air if there is any air leaking in during idling.  I also insulated the air box with some R20 fiberglass batts I had lying around.  Keeping the air box warm has prevented any moisture from condensing.  Problem solved.  The air box has been dry as a bone, even with some occasional huffing from burning too small wood pieces during the shoulder season.

I'll try to post some pics later.

[jreimer]

This image is of the back of the stove.  I peeled away a covering layer of fiberglass insulation so you can see some of the setup.  I used some flashing to make a funnel from the fan intake plate to the 4" insulated hose.  My goal is to make a more elegant Styrofoam cover for the air box, but I wanted to test this proof of concept first.  So far the results are promising.