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[Mike l]

Hi I'm new to the site.  I have an Aspen 175 and have been burning in my second year. I seem to be getting a lot of creosote build up in the fire box and the flu holes. Is this just from wood moisture?  I also had to install a new blower after one season.  The guys I bought the unit from sold me a blower with a damper system versus the solenoid set up I got when I purchased the unit. It seems to be not kicking on as good as the solenoid set up. I am heating about 3500 sq ft plus a two car garage. I wanted to buy the larger unit but the salesman said it would be over kill. I have radiant and baseboard in the house, also use it for hot water.  My burn times are all over the place sometimes 10 hrs (which would be good) to 8 or less some times.   Anyone have answers  would appreciate e feed back. Thanks

[pbrooks]

Mike,
I have an Aspen 175 on its second year as well.  Mine has a good amount of creosote buildup, but it doesn't seem to affect the heat output.  I replaced the blower fan with a new one two times last year due to catastrophic failure.  The new blower and the fapper/damper kit that Empyre sells is much better according to anyone that I have talked to that has one.  The new unit utilizes the same soenoid, so I think you might want to re-think that aftermarket unit that you have.  I haven't bought the damper yet but plan to in the near future.  Simply using the new styleblower fixed my problem.  The retrofit kit anges the blower to keep condensation out of it.  The new fan has a sealed otor to keep it from shorting out . 

My only advice is to keep the fue passages and the vents going into the secondary burn chamber as clean as possible to ensure that enough air is moving through the unit at al times.

good luck with your furnace.  I will pass along anything I learn about mine.  I haven't seen a lot of information about these units on the boards.

What kind of wood are you burning?  Are you seasoning it first.  I have a load of poplar that I am not having the best of luck with this year.

[Mike l]

The new blower and damper I got is the one from empyre. It seems to work good but the recovery time is not the same. They did away withe the solenoid all together. I think it just works on your draw versus trying to maintain a temperature, which I think that's how the solenoid set up worked.  It's heating the house fine, just gets me a little concerned when the temp is in the low 160s and the fan is not kicking on. All the wood I'm burning is seasoned but i'm still getting the creosote.  I have taken much more care in my wood preparation now for the up coming years.  Thanks for the info

[maine owb]

This is my third year with the aspen 175 (now the empyre) made by pro fab. I heat 2500 sq feet plus my basement plus a 600 square foot garage and use 1/3 of a cord a week of dry 24" split wood. I load the boiler every 12 hours in the cold weather. I also replaced the blower last winter and was talking to a dealer today about it. I think everyone has replaced the original blower. We have concluded that when the blower is not in use there is a creosote smoke that is going back through the blower which plugs it up. Although the blower dos not turn it probably still runs. I sprayed brake cleaner on it for a few days and I have it spinning freely again and i plugged it in in my garage and it works fine, now I have a backup. Pro fab has a flapper kit and an extension kit to solve this problem, the one I know of still works the same way as the original. Also when taking the blower off it tends to strip the holes the self tapping screws screw into.They could be drilled and tapped and use a regular thread screw for a more secure fit. I live in Maine and run my boiler from December through May. Love to help people with questions.

[maine owb]

Has anyone had a problem with getting a good seal on their front door on the emyre or aspen? One thing that happened to me this week was we had a very windy night and it blew fine snow around the digital control and fried it. I replaced it but i also used thin weather stripping and silicone to make a water tight seal.

[teburman]

This is my third year with the Aspen 175. For the first two years I ran without incident. So far this year I have replaced the blower 4 times and the door gasket once. Right now the unit is down because the solenoid has failed. I have searched the web for information on the new blower and damper mentioned in this thread but can’t find it. Would you please post a link to it?

Is it just a different damper solution or did they also angle the blower motor to help eliminate the creosote from running into the motor and gumming up the bearings?

I don’t understand why I am having problems all of a sudden. I am using less wood that is better quality and seasoned longer now than when I first started heating with wood. I burned 11 full cords the first year, 8 full cords the second year and looks like I will use 7 full cords this year. The first year wood quality was very poor a lot of punky wood cut in June for use in October the same year.

[teburman]

I did some more monkeying around with the boiler today after I discovered the solenoid is not working. Since I had the motor off I decided to see if I could clean out the creosote that had accumulated in the chamber wher the blower motor mounts. I was able to remove about 3 POUNDS of creosote. The boiler was warm so the creosote was flexible and easy to remove. It appears two years of operation is enough to fill the chamber so that it will overflow into the blower motor. I will add cleaning this out to my annual maintenance task list. Maybe I would have saved myself some headaches and fuel oil if it was cleaned each season. Regardless this won’t solve the creosote build up on the loading door.

[oldchenowth]

I do not have an Aspen but I do have creosote build up.  I found turning up the high end temp seemed to eliminate a lot of my problem.  Mine built up bad enough to stall the exhaust fan.  It has built up in the door and walls inside but is doing better at melting it off.  I attribute mine to damp wood, this next season will be much better wood, hopefully I can get mine below 4 cords next year, pulled just over 5 this year.

[teburman]

I had the high temp set higher, 180, for the first season, it seemed to work fine. Then I did some steps to reduce the heat requirements for the house and which caused over heating of the boiler and boiling off. I reduced the high temp to 175 and haven't had the over heating problem since. Now I have excessive creosote condensation on the door.

I was able to purchase the new flapper, blower mount extension and deflector plate today. It looks to have some promise for preventing creosote from ruining the motor. I do believe the flapper will be gummed up by creosote if you don’t keep the air chamber where it mounts clean. As I mentioned in an earlier post this should be part of the annual cleaning ritual.

The flapper is a weighted unit hinged at the top that mounts directly to the air intake port. The solenoid is no longer required. The blower mount extension mounts on top of the flapper sandwiching it between the heater and the extension. The extension is drilled on opposite sides to mount the blower. This requires that you rotate the blower 90 degrees so now the motor is not the lowest piece in the assembly – it is now mounted with the shaft horizontal and the intake on the left. The restrictor cover over the blower intake is also removed. Any creosote that makes it past the flapper shouldn’t infiltrate the motor bearings etc. The deflector mounts over the motor to prevent ash or other particulate from falling into the motor. This would be a problem during cleaning if the deflector was not present.

Unfortunately the dealer did not have a blower so I am waiting for the arrival of a new blower before I can run with the new configuration.

One more thing – the flapper I received was set at 9/16 opening which is the recommendation for an empire 100, The instructions recommended an opening of 7/8 – 1 inch for an empire 200 so I set the opening to 15/16 for my aspen. I will let you know how it works once I get it back in operation.

[teburman]

I've been running with the new blower configuration for two weeks with no problem. During this time we experienced temperatures that would normally cause excessive condensation - cold nights < 20 degrees, warm days > 30 degrees. It looks like this problem is solved. 

Note the install instructions for the flapper, blower mount extension and deflector do not explilcitly say to remove the circuit interupter with the solenoid. You need to remove the circuit interupter other wise it will trip - the motor is rated at 1.5 amps the circuit interupter is rated at 1 amp.