wind caused boilover

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mjs97

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Mar 28, 2006
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ia
the strong winds last night made my homemade boiler boil over last night. went out this am and the temp was 214 deg. my stack is about 12 ft. high and i suppose drafted all night because of wind. what could i do to solve this problem. maybe put shield on top to keep wind from backdrafting.

any ideas.
thanks,
matt
 
what's the best way to cool stove down. add water and let it over flow or just let it cool naturally?

matt
 
i don't think it's back draftin' down the stack....i would check your seals around the doors and your air inake and your blower (if you have one) and if you have an inside fill valve just run some cold water in very slow or turn your heat on in the house and open the windows
 
MJS97

so after you called me did you find out what it was?
 
ya, i thinkit was a combination of things. i could slide dollar bill thur the door seal. a little drag but must have been enough to cause problem. i adjusted that and teekied my damper door a little. no problems thus far. we'll see the next time the wind blows hard. i have a cap on top of stack to keep rain from running in stack. right now it's about 3-4 in. gap. thought about lowering that a little. power draft should still work okay. we'll see.

thanks,
matt
 
Hmmm...

Any leaks in the damper or door can cause problems with boil-over. I had a damper mount bend on me last year and the damper closed at an angle. There was a 16th of an inch opening on one side down to no opening on the other. The damper door is about a foot wide by 3 inches. Anyway, that was enough air to boil our OWB over on warm days. Replacing the damper mount and adjusting the mount so that the damper seals tightly resolved the boil-over problem.

I do not know of any pro OWB models that have dampers in the stack. There should me more than enough draft moving up the stack to keep the air from coming in through the top (12 ft should be a good height, unless it is between two two-story houses or something like that).

As for what to do after an OWB boil-over, usually the excess energy is carried off rapidly by the phase change from water to steam. If you shut the draft off to the fire after the boil-over, that will be ebough to keep it from boiling over again. If the fire is out of control or there is no way to shut the draft off, you can squirt a hose in the firebox for a few seconds. That should be enough to cool the fire (the steam will take away the excess heat). You will need to top up the boiler with water to account for the loss of water in the boil-over. You can refill the boiler right away to cool the boiler off more. I have tried all of these methods with pretty much the same results last year after several boil-overs. :pumpkin2:
 
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