It Works!

[Roger Long]

I should be the one least surprised, right?

I ran the heating system all day today while working on the bottom and other projects.

Started with gravity circulation to the bulkhead tank. The top portion was noticeably warmer than the bottom within 15 minutes of getting the Newport started. The gravity feed hot water to the head was comfortably warm in an hour, normal washing temperature in two, and almost too hot in three.

I then switched over to the circulating pumped loop to the main hot water tank. Four hours got the pressurized hot water to what felt like about half the temperature you would want for a shower but it's definitely working. The estimate of 8-10 hours at the outset for heating up the main hot water tank looks like it will be pretty close. I could have taken a shower at the temperature it reached but it would have been barely tolerable running full hot.

A pleasant surprise was still being able to get hot water in the head with the main tank circulation loop going. The flue throws off enough heat that is soaked up by the bulkhead tank that the temperature didn't seem to go down a bit.

There was some boiling and burping with the circulating loop running but some tweaking of the flow rate should minimize that. The gravity loop to the bulkhead is absolutely quiet as the thermally driven circulation is self regulating.

The only thing that didn't warm up as much as I expected was the head. The aluminum panel behind the stove doesn't get very hot, at least with the boat's skylights wide open to dissipate the heat. I needed the hole and the removable screen for piping access anyway. When the heater has been running for a couple days, I think it will still take the chill off the head.

Details here if you are new to this topic.

http://www.rogerlongboats.com/10Winter.htm

 

[DeniseO30]

Congrats! Roger! The sterno Idea sounded like the way to get the thing started how's that going?

oil burners (diesel) need high temps to work right. The old oil or kero heaters that were used in places like hunting club cabins worked on the same principal as the boat heater does.


You would loose some privacy, but air exchange grilles in the bulkhead (one high and one low ) of the head would allow air to move by gravity in the head area.

hope you have a TP valve on there somewhere!

 

[Douglast]

that flame seems a bit high and it should be bluer if the fire ring is up to temp shouldn;t it..???...isn,t there a low fire/high fire adjustment..??..i know that they can be a bit sooty just at first light up but if the damper is set right the flame should be like a hundred short perfect blue short fingers all around the fire ring and the fire ring should be red hot..and a very clean burn and clean glass...unless im misreading the type of heater you have..??...glad to see your getting some natural convection circulation etc on your system..your sure inspirational to us..

 

[sailingdog]

good to hear.

 

[Roger Long]

hope you have a TP valve on there somewhere!

All the water system associated with the heater is unpressurized and vented to atmosphere. It wasn't practical to make the bulkhead tank take boat system pressure due to cost and weight. Water supply to the head is a fairly slow gravity feed into the sink for washing up only. It won't run a shower.

There is a TP valve on the main hot water tank but I should live long enough to see this system get it hot enough to trip it. That tank is heated by a heat exchanger loop.

 

[Roger Long]

..unless im misreading the type of heater you have..??...

It's a diesel Dickenson Newport.

This is after six hours of burning so everything was hot. I fiddled all day and just got bigger and smaller flames that looked like this. Smoke usually nearly invisible but lots of soot build up. I tired every combination of damper, fan, fuel supply, etc. all very slowly with the manual in my hand. Window steadily soots up. I had just cleaned it to take this picture.

 

[Quoddy]

Heat

We have used kerosene stoves in the past. One a cook stove and one a parlor stove. They were called pot burners .The fuel was feed into a ring with a wick and perforated metal rings. The object was always to have a steady blue flame otherwise soot and low heat output. Too much fuel or too little air would burn yellow. I’m not familiar with your model stove but though there might be some relationship in principle.
I’m not sure if this would have application in fine tuning your setup, but if you want to throw heat or absorb heat black works best. Having heat will be good.

 

[DeniseO30]

Hope you get the thing burning right Roger.

 

[arghhh]

Impressive install, you do good work!

It sounds like you might be burning a bit too rich if you are seeing the glass soot up so quickly.

The book says "Soot on the window, in the chimney or on the deck
The burner is getting too much fuel and needs a lower fuel setting, turn on the fan or
increase the fan speed, close the barometric flap a little."

Looks like this stove should show some brighter yellow flames, dark yellow or orange can cause the soot you are seeing. With such a low fuel rate a change can take a while to show up, maybe adjust slowly and wait 15 minutes to see if it changes any.

Keep us updated.

 

[Roger Long]

Clean up in the lamp black factory and mystery solved.

Keep us updated.

OMG, OMG, OMG

There WAS a problem yesterday. First I took off the smoke head and there was 1/8" of soot inside. Then, I looked inside the heater:

I don't see an appropriate smilie for that.

Although I was careful to be sure the top burner ring was properly seated before lighting, I noticed after the fire started that the superheater frame was crooked. I lifted it with the little poker they provide and evidently dislodged the ring so that half of the holes were covered.

Some things I have learned about cleaning up soot:

1) A speck the size of the head of a pin makes about a 6 inch diameter splotch on fiberglass.

2) It's lighter than air and wafts across a cabin line a flock of birds startled into the air.

3) The stainless steel pan Dickenson provides to go under the heater isn't to catch fuel drips. It's to catch soot falling down through the heater.

4) Tattoo artists don't need needles and ink. They could just make the designs with Dickenson soot.

5) I'll need to hire a 60 foot power boat as cruising tender to carry the paper towel supply if I have this problem often.

6) Windex is magic, except on skin.

Thank God I didn't have the cushions on the boat or I would be adding the cost of a whole new set to the bill for this enterprise.

The heater worked a lot better today with flames like the manual describes, lemon yellow with the barest hint of blue at the base. I learned to make adjustments much more slowly, fuel first, then fine tune the air a few minutes later. Much more fan is needed in the first 1 - 2 hours. After that, the fuel can be turned up to about 3/4 of max with no fan.

I also learned that, when the window soots up a little bit, the flames will look dirty orange and you'll just screw things up more and make more soot experimenting trying to get back to lemon yellow. After cleaning the window once, I was able to keep it under control. The greatest danger of soot productions is when reducing heat.

I never did get an even burn. After shutting the heater down, I was investigating the stiff operation of the thumb screw that holds the door closed and discovered a possible problem with the heater. The hinges appear to have been installed so that the door can not fully close and there is a 1/8" gap on the left side.

This would explain the persistent sooty tipped flames that swirl towards the door on that side at higher heat settings. I've emailed this picture to Dickenson and am waiting to see what they have to say.

Water heating times are about 50% greater with the proper controlled burn.

 

[Bad Obsession]

That is really neat and the install looks great. Someone has just extended the cruising season!

 

[DeniseO30]

simple green may work for the clean up of soot roger.. it works on the sooty transom my boat gets on a trip. I was wondering about the "superheater" ring.. geeze.. let us know what the company says

 

[Douglast]

glad your getting a handle on it..and yes some good advice from the fella that says let time elapses with each tiny adjustment as an adjusment may take 15 minutes to have an effect..that door gap is definately a bad deal..it disrupts the air flow that is supposed to channel through your ring and allow you to control your fuel air mix...you get that fixed and you won;t believe the differance it will make as a person thinks more air will be leaner burn but when the air is feeding the fire through the door leak i am sure you are burning rich because the air is not going through the ring with any velocity because your not sealed in the chamber and it screws up the air differential..

 

[Douglast]

and soot is a real robber of btu heat..in boilers an 1/8 of an inch of soot robs 10 percent of heat transfer...!!!

 

[Roger Long]

that door gap is definately a bad deal..

I got it fixed. I turned the closing screw nearly to the point of stripping the threads and it either bend the "Z" shaped hinge bracket or slid it in the adjustment slots. The closer works but the threads are damaged so Dickenson is sending me a new screw.

With the door gap fixed, the stove burns beautifully.

 

[Douglast]

awesome..