What's new, where have we been, 2009-2010 preparation

Since the last post (2008!) our biodesel vendor was kind of flaked-out for the 2008-2009 season, so we burned fossil fuel. Instead of letting the man make money from us, we toted off-road diesel from the local gas station to the house ten gallons at a time. It was kind of the winter hobby. Every few days I would stop at the station on the way home and dump ten gallons in. That was effective but transporting petroleum is not fun. No wonder the oil companies charge for delivery.
Today I cleaned the burner/boiler and tuned it up. The last time I touched this unit was when we stopped buring B100. No shutdowns on fossil fuel for the winter and summer. Cleaning it was a breeze today, only the tinest bits of charred-on hard substance on the inside of the combustion head. The fireside was covered in a soft layer of soot, no hard stuff.
The oil filter is showing some signs of water in the fuel, the inside of the can is a tiny bit rusty. I will buy a replacement can to have on hand.
We are on the fence about what fuel to burn for this winter. B100 is $3.15 per gallon delivered. That is almost a dollar more than the tote-it-yourself pump price for fossil fuel. Adding to the price disparity is the pain of burning it (there likely will be known shutdowns on B100 during the winter).
We'll see in the coming month on what fuel we use.
Here are some pictures of the boiler pre-cleaning today.

Since the last post (2008!) our biodesel vendor was kind of flaked-out for the 2008-2009 season, so we burned fossil fuel. Instead of letting the man make money from us, we toted off-road diesel from the local gas station to the house ten gallons at a time. It was kind of the winter hobby. Every few days I would stop at the station on the way home and dump ten gallons in. That was effective but transporting petroleum is not fun. No wonder the oil companies charge for delivery.

Today I cleaned the burner/boiler and tuned it up. The last time I touched this unit was when we stopped buring B100. No shutdowns on fossil fuel for the winter and summer. Cleaning it was a breeze today, only the tinest bits of charred-on hard substance on the inside of the combustion head. The fireside was covered in a soft layer of soot, no hard stuff.

The oil filter is showing some signs of water in the fuel, the inside of the can is a tiny bit rusty. I will buy a replacement can to have on hand.

We are on the fence about what fuel to burn for this winter. B100 is $3.15 per gallon delivered. That is almost a dollar more than the tote-it-yourself pump price for fossil fuel. Adding to the price disparity is the pain of burning it (there likely will be known shutdowns on B100 during the winter).

We'll see in the coming month on what fuel we use.

Here are some pictures of the boiler pre-cleaning today.

Shutdown, clogged burner, new condition

Yesterday (November 02, 2008) the boiler shutdown. I opened it up and discovered a different clog then I previously enjoyed. Normally the clog has been on the air slots on the combustion head; the clog has historically been a part-pasty, part-crispy mess (I call it coke). This clog was the same consistency as usual but now around the circumference of the burner's secondary air supply holes. There are about 10 or 12 1/4" holes around the combustion head that supply additional air to the fire. A few of these holes were obscured with the coke. It appears the Delevan nozzle I'm using (instead of the Hago nozzles I used last winter) put the coke in a different spot. This coke was easier to remove then the previous mess on the retention head; this is progress.

I have still not put in my Delevan Pro-Tek nozzle valve, I want to see how the non-valved nozzle behaves and if the check is necessary. So far it does not appear to be a needed thing; winter is here so we'll see more soon.

Shutdown, clogged nozzle

One day after setting up the boiler (cleaned fire side, new rayon pre-filter, same old spin on filter, same nozzle from March, 2008) the boiler shutdown. I reset it and observed a very weak flame. I diagnosed the issue as a clogged nozzle. Tomorrow I will buy a new felt pre-filter, a new spin on filter and new nozzle) and install them and reset the boiler. Below is a picture of one day's worth of operation on the combustion head (I cleaned it thoroughly yesterday).



Here is a picture of the back of the combustion head (I did not clean this yesterday, it hasn't been clean since March, 2008).

Annual boiler cleaning

I cleaned the boiler on September 23, 2008

Here is a picture of a new type of brush I picked up this summer; it is much improved over round brushes I used in the past. It is a wire brush and its shape is optimized for the space between the pins. Here is a picture of all the soot knocked down from the upper section of the boiler; I do not know how much is from last winter's B100 and how much is from the previous home owner's lack of maintenance. Next autumn will be telling.

Here is a picture of the combustion head before cleaning; it wasn't too bad with coke, but not perfect either.

Below is a picture of the top of the boiler after cleaning. You can see on the left side the fiber rope is missing, gone. The features where the smoke hood (not seen in this picture) flange down onto the cast iron have rusted away. It looks to me like there was a long-term leak from above down into this area of the boiler and the iron and sheet metal smoke hood rusted away.

Below is a close up of the sections post-cleaning. Nice.

Here is the boiler with the soot vacuum hose and the most front space is already vacuumed and clean.
Here is a picture of the tapered nylon I like to use after the steel brush is done, it knocks of the dust nicely (the steel brush does a great job of knocking the heavy soot off).

Here is a picture of the brush, it is not round, which makes it much easier to use; a real improvement over other brushes I have used.
Part of the cleaning included a new pre-filter upstream of the spin-on filter. As a reminder I was running a 50 micron felt pre-filter (General 1A canister type) and then a 10 micron spin on filter. At the supply house I saw they offered a 50 micron felt unit or a 20 micron rayon unit. I bought the rayon element.

Before I put the element in, I consulted with my excellent B100 dealer. He suggested rayon would not be compatible with B100. I decided to install it as an experiment; we are only using the boiler for hot water right now and our electric unit is still hooked up, just valved out.

After the cleaning I did combustion testing and set the boiler up; 350 gross stack temperature and 11% CO2 (good for 83.2% efficiency, NICE!). At the same time, I finished up the domestic hot water piping and we started using the boiler/water heater for DHW.

Tank acclimation?

So with the newest two week operability information in hand, we discussed the situation with the chemist-entrepreneur-biodiesel provider. Since the last shutdown we cleaned the combustion heat and ran two weeks, then a shutdown (clogged combustion head, see other posts). After that cleaning we ran two more weeks (no shutdown). We opened the boiler up and it was nearly whistle-clean (why are whistles considered clean?).

In discussing this with the chemist, he opined our tank acclimated to B100 and stopped sending gunk into the burner. We like this idea and will keep our eyes on the situation in coming months. Perhaps the B100 puzzle is beginning to unravel:

When switching to B100:

1. Put the better filter in.
2. Install the line heater.
3. Use a smaller nozzle and jack up the pressure.
4. Suffer some pain with shutdowns as the tank's existing junk stop reacting with the B100.

Of course we don't know if this will work, but we are hopeful (less for us, more for others to start using B100).

Process flow diagram

OK, a favorite chemical engineer of ours asked for a process flow diagram. I hope this chemical engineer wants a schematic of our oil supply system. If that engineer wants a PFD of the biodiesel conversion, she will have to contact our biodiesel supplier or perhaps crack a chemical engineering textbook from that engineer's fancy engineering college (Go Bears!).


Here is a hand-done schematic of our oil supply system. Obviously our ability to burn B100 is not related to penmanship.

Another shutdown, clogged flame retention head

Tonight the boiler shutdown. I opened it up and discovered the expected coked up flame retention head. I cleaned it with some acetone, a gasket scraper, a small wire brush and a flattened piece of 10 AWG solid copper wire. After 20 minutes of cleaning, I closed the door, started the boiler up again and had good flame.

We went from March 01, 2008 to today (March 17, 2008) before needing to clean. That is not really improved since the before the nozzle check valve and nozzle heater.

Next I will order a Delevan nozzle check valve and try that with a new Delevan nozzle. The two pictures on top are the "post" cleaning and the four pictures on bottom are the "pre" cleaning.

We will keep trying and monitoring.