9:44 You don't even have to be a boiler expert to solve your problem, but here's the answer in the video. After 1 hour of burning wood, you should have reached the desired temperature, but it didn't, and we understand why. Your wood won't burn! The logs you cut are too big, and they're probably too wet. If your boiler isn't producing enough heat, you MUST: Chop the wood into much smaller pieces. This will help the wood dry faster and reach a higher temperature during combustion. If the wood is wet, this is absolutely necessary. In addition, we can assume that your boiler is full of creosote due to the low combustion temperature and wet wood, which usually go together. You will probably need to clean the boiler more often.
You might be missing some key information in your assumptions. Yes temps got cold but i also got some good hot burns, but they would consume the wood quickly and then burn temps would drop. In terms of btu i have a 150k coil in my furnace, a 50k coil in my garage, and a 40 plate 160k exchanger in my shop. So peak instant demand could reach 360k btu on a boiler thats peak rating is 250k btu. Now the shop is time based so it doen't pull too frequently, but the house/garage were pulling heat very freqeuently for extended times. So at nearly 200k btu constant demand and trying to catch up on temp is just asking too much, cause even the spare 50k btu the boiler could put out, it would take 3.5hrs to raise 340 gallons by 40 degrees with only 50k btu at 80% E.. its just a big ask for that size boiler in those temps. Now at 20 it does perfectly fine with any wood. But better insulating my house/garage will go along ways.
i have an hdx 560 thats under sized. i split my wood in 4 to 5 inch splits at 22inches. gets to temp every time here in central PA i run 170on 180 off. i clean the reaction chamber every 3 to 4 days and the heat exchanger in the back once a month, dont over think it its easy just split smaller. if u have any questions just ask i will try my best to help u out
The couple things I would suggest is clean it more often, any ash and creosote will insulate the water jacket and makes it harder to transfer heat. Also maybe try and re split your chunks of wood, it will give them more surface area to burn and should help with bridging. You could try it for a few days and see if it helps, you should be able to tell right away. The only other thing is try and get ahead of your firewood so it is dry, that makes a huge difference in the performance. Take care
I typically split my wood large, and that does fine for 99% of the season. Its in the 20s now its working great. When i notice creosote in the firebox i usually let it run for 30 minutes or more with the bypass open to burn it all off, and that does work well. Splitting a whole load of small wood may have been a good solution i didn't think of at the time. But the smaller splits burn off so fast when its trying to make up temp i was worried it would bridge worse. If it gets cold like that again i will definitely try it.
Try to split your wood 1/4 Dr m that, 2000 gal tank to heat and 185-200 from boiler to tank, 160 from tank to boiler. Then it stays clean and when there is fire, it goes with max allbthe time. Sone round wood on both sides to roll, usyally helps on bridging.
When burning wood I get a lot of bridging on the higher moisture pieces. The higher the moisture content the smaller it has to be split or you have to unbridge it every couple of hours, I know a pain or burn drier wood.
The best way to prevent bridging is to create smaller splits when burning wet wood. If you have a larger firebox, you can get away with wetter wood. A friend of mine did a video where I explain the gasification process you might find interesting. The video is called The Story of Big Red. His channels name is Ovi Duran. I have manufactured gasification boilers.
If there's any moisture in that wood whatsoever you got to have smaller splits. to get a hotter fire .it never work at -25f . Long as you don't have that big a demand it might work for you. Minnesota a different deal..heating 6600 sqft here with a Heatmor 400.smaller splits more air and clean ash.
I've watched your vid on making the pex , getting ready to do that myself. As cold as it's been here in southern Ohio I'm looking forward to getting this boiler installed, I'm stuffing our wood burners hourly to try and keep up. I lived in Carol Stream Illinois back in the 80's, I spent about 5 years there.
Mix have of that hardwood with that pine like 50/50 mix and load it very 6 hours it should fix the bridging problem. When that bridging happens basically the boiler quits making heat.
Hello. I dont have a outdoor boiler, but I have indoor boiler wiht acumulation tanks. I have a bridgeing issues. Now, after consultaion with boiler specialists I know, that There is a way to avoid bridgeing. Is good to add 1 maby 2 pcs of small not splitted Wood witch helps wood to not stuck while burning. As well is needed to have good dryed wood for Getting as much power as needed
2 ideas You can try putting some coal on top if your boiler supports that. Another idea is to add a second door to your man door, so you have a vestibule and both doors don’t get opened at the same time.
We used a Central Boiler 2400 (same boiler you have) to heat a 6,000 sq ft house and 3 car garage for 6 years in Central Maine with no issues. It always kept up even during -20 degree weather. Filled it 2 times a day on very cold days, once a day was the norm. It started leaking water into the firebox after 7 years of use, Central boiler gave us the runaround and refused to stand behind their 'lifetime warranty'. Never again would we buy one of their products. Should have listened to the wood boiler online forums and done more research when making such a large investment. Central boilers are garbage IMO. Best of luck with yours. Hope you don't have leaks in a few years and need help from Central Boiler.
Appreciate the comments and heads up. I am guessing your house/garage are much better insulated/sealed than mine, and i am just running mine to hard. Improvements will happen over the summer to fix those issues. I have not dealt with central boiler, but have read mixed reviews. I bought this boiler used for $2k due to it having some electrical issues which turned out to be nothing more than loose connectors, and a burnt out air channel that i welded up. This is my version of TipToeing into the boiler world and had thoughts of converting it to a traditional style boiler if i couldn't get it to work properly with my own control system. My first pick was Crown Royal but deals fell thru and i ended up with this E Classic 2400. Let us know which brand you switched to and your thoughts!
My observation may be wrong, but inside the garage video it appears that the 2 garage doors and the man door are not insulated items. Also those track garage doors usually have poor seals. And are they single pane windows. Perhaps an investment in upgrading your insulation package would dramatically lower your heat demands. Poorly built buildings are just an endless money pit with the cost of heating materials unless you have your own wood lot.
Your observation is spot on. The garage doors are also starting to show some rot. They are on the to do list for replacement as well as the man door. I also have ambitions to blow insulation into the walls in the front part of my house this year, as we have other renovations planned that part of the house. My wood is free as i also do tree work, but better insulating the house, garage and shop are still on the list so i don't have to burn as much wood, which also means i don't have to spend as much time cutting/splitting/stacking too!!
@@IndependenceIron Your on the right track with that mind set. I live in Manitoba Canada were we get minus 30 to minus 40 sometimes. We could not survive without decent insulation. There are building upgrades such as using a larsen truss to improve the amount of insulation applied to the exterior of a home. Another thing they have started to utilize is building false roof systems along with the wall system to bring older home up to super insulation standards. As long as the building is structurally sound it's not difficult to do and most people with modest construction skills can accomplish it. Let me know if you need more information. Good Luck.
9:44 You don't even have to be a boiler expert to solve your problem, but here's the answer in the video. After 1 hour of burning wood, you should have reached the desired temperature, but it didn't, and we understand why. Your wood won't burn! The logs you cut are too big, and they're probably too wet.
If your boiler isn't producing enough heat, you MUST: Chop the wood into much smaller pieces. This will help the wood dry faster and reach a higher temperature during combustion. If the wood is wet, this is absolutely necessary.
In addition, we can assume that your boiler is full of creosote due to the low combustion temperature and wet wood, which usually go together. You will probably need to clean the boiler more often.
You might be missing some key information in your assumptions. Yes temps got cold but i also got some good hot burns, but they would consume the wood quickly and then burn temps would drop.
In terms of btu i have a 150k coil in my furnace, a 50k coil in my garage, and a 40 plate 160k exchanger in my shop. So peak instant demand could reach 360k btu on a boiler thats peak rating is 250k btu. Now the shop is time based so it doen't pull too frequently, but the house/garage were pulling heat very freqeuently for extended times. So at nearly 200k btu constant demand and trying to catch up on temp is just asking too much, cause even the spare 50k btu the boiler could put out, it would take 3.5hrs to raise 340 gallons by 40 degrees with only 50k btu at 80% E.. its just a big ask for that size boiler in those temps. Now at 20 it does perfectly fine with any wood. But better insulating my house/garage will go along ways.
hi there a lot of good comments , good luck , best to all ,john
i have an hdx 560 thats under sized. i split my wood in 4 to 5 inch splits at 22inches. gets to temp every time here in central PA i run 170on 180 off. i clean the reaction chamber every 3 to 4 days and the heat exchanger in the back once a month, dont over think it its easy just split smaller. if u have any questions just ask i will try my best to help u out
The couple things I would suggest is clean it more often, any ash and creosote will insulate the water jacket and makes it harder to transfer heat. Also maybe try and re split your chunks of wood, it will give them more surface area to burn and should help with bridging. You could try it for a few days and see if it helps, you should be able to tell right away. The only other thing is try and get ahead of your firewood so it is dry, that makes a huge difference in the performance. Take care
I typically split my wood large, and that does fine for 99% of the season. Its in the 20s now its working great. When i notice creosote in the firebox i usually let it run for 30 minutes or more with the bypass open to burn it all off, and that does work well.
Splitting a whole load of small wood may have been a good solution i didn't think of at the time. But the smaller splits burn off so fast when its trying to make up temp i was worried it would bridge worse. If it gets cold like that again i will definitely try it.
Try to split your wood 1/4 Dr m that, 2000 gal tank to heat and 185-200 from boiler to tank, 160 from tank to boiler. Then it stays clean and when there is fire, it goes with max allbthe time. Sone round wood on both sides to roll, usyally helps on bridging.
When burning wood I get a lot of bridging on the higher moisture pieces. The higher the moisture content the smaller it has to be split or you have to unbridge it every couple of hours, I know a pain or burn drier wood.
The best way to prevent bridging is to create smaller splits when burning wet wood. If you have a larger firebox, you can get away with wetter wood. A friend of mine did a video where I explain the gasification process you might find interesting. The video is called The Story of Big Red. His channels name is Ovi Duran. I have manufactured gasification boilers.
If there's any moisture in that wood whatsoever you got to have smaller splits. to get a hotter fire .it never work at -25f . Long as you don't have that big a demand it might work for you. Minnesota a different deal..heating 6600 sqft here with a Heatmor 400.smaller splits more air and clean ash.
I've watched your vid on making the pex , getting ready to do that myself. As cold as it's been here in southern Ohio I'm looking forward to getting this boiler installed, I'm stuffing our wood burners hourly to try and keep up. I lived in Carol Stream Illinois back in the 80's, I spent about 5 years there.
You will enjoy a boiler. It is nice to only load it twice a day. Now that its back in the 20s my boiler is doing well again.
Mix have of that hardwood with that pine like 50/50 mix and load it very 6 hours it should fix the bridging problem. When that bridging happens basically the boiler quits making heat.
Hello. I dont have a outdoor boiler, but I have indoor boiler wiht acumulation tanks. I have a bridgeing issues. Now, after consultaion with boiler specialists I know, that There is a way to avoid bridgeing. Is good to add 1 maby 2 pcs of small not splitted Wood witch helps wood to not stuck while burning. As well is needed to have good dryed wood for Getting as much power as needed
If your boiler is made for it, use some coal on the bottom during cold spells.
Do ya know brotha a lot of these wood boilers can run coal in them you should check and it's cheaper to buy by the ton coals real good in a bind .
2 ideas
You can try putting some coal on top if your boiler supports that. Another idea is to add a second door to your man door, so you have a vestibule and both doors don’t get opened at the same time.
Not sure my boiler supports coal, but it isn't too common around here either.
Woods wet. You can tell by the way it's burning
We used a Central Boiler 2400 (same boiler you have) to heat a 6,000 sq ft house and 3 car garage for 6 years in Central Maine with no issues. It always kept up even during -20 degree weather. Filled it 2 times a day on very cold days, once a day was the norm. It started leaking water into the firebox after 7 years of use, Central boiler gave us the runaround and refused to stand behind their 'lifetime warranty'. Never again would we buy one of their products. Should have listened to the wood boiler online forums and done more research when making such a large investment. Central boilers are garbage IMO. Best of luck with yours. Hope you don't have leaks in a few years and need help from Central Boiler.
Appreciate the comments and heads up. I am guessing your house/garage are much better insulated/sealed than mine, and i am just running mine to hard. Improvements will happen over the summer to fix those issues. I have not dealt with central boiler, but have read mixed reviews.
I bought this boiler used for $2k due to it having some electrical issues which turned out to be nothing more than loose connectors, and a burnt out air channel that i welded up. This is my version of TipToeing into the boiler world and had thoughts of converting it to a traditional style boiler if i couldn't get it to work properly with my own control system. My first pick was Crown Royal but deals fell thru and i ended up with this E Classic 2400.
Let us know which brand you switched to and your thoughts!
My pre obama wood boiler just keeps burning along. Fill about 1400hrs and go back out next morning still burning. Well dun.
My observation may be wrong, but inside the garage video it appears that the 2 garage doors and the man door are not insulated items. Also those track garage doors usually have poor seals. And are they single pane windows. Perhaps an investment in upgrading your insulation package would dramatically lower your heat demands. Poorly built buildings are just an endless money pit with the cost of heating materials unless you have your own wood lot.
Your observation is spot on. The garage doors are also starting to show some rot. They are on the to do list for replacement as well as the man door. I also have ambitions to blow insulation into the walls in the front part of my house this year, as we have other renovations planned that part of the house.
My wood is free as i also do tree work, but better insulating the house, garage and shop are still on the list so i don't have to burn as much wood, which also means i don't have to spend as much time cutting/splitting/stacking too!!
@@IndependenceIron Your on the right track with that mind set. I live in Manitoba Canada were we get minus 30 to minus 40 sometimes. We could not survive without decent insulation. There are building upgrades such as using a larsen truss to improve the amount of insulation applied to the exterior of a home. Another thing they have started to utilize is building false roof systems along with the wall system to bring older home up to super insulation standards. As long as the building is structurally sound it's not difficult to do and most people with modest construction skills can accomplish it. Let me know if you need more information. Good Luck.