I went to type in what I was going to have as the title to this post. "Busy Weeks" I got as far as B,u,s and the computer popped up and suggested the rest. I guess have I have typed that phrase too many times lately.
Winter has returned to Wisconsin. We got about a foot of snow on Sunday night. Eight inches predicted for tonight. I guess we are getting our winter late. The snow is a pain but I do like it better than cold.
Work has been very busy the last four weeks. I have four more weeks of this schedule to go and then life should either return, or shortly return, to the usual pace.
I have been getting spammed from some aweful company, Silver Fox Plumbing, who has found my blog where I have the post about doing some plumbing work, hooking up my water heater. They have been mailing me three times a day with posts to this blog (which I just delete) trying to advertise their plumbing business. So, let it be said here first: "Don't buy anything from Silver Fox Plumbing" They are "total crooks" YOUR PIPES WILL LEAK. If I am not mistaken, I believe their dog has fleas too.
One cool thing; my work sent me home with the Art Departments brand new, super high speed, dual processor, Mac G5 computer and 23" flat panel monitor. I get to format it all up for them, and do some software burn in for two weeks. Whoo hoo. This baby looks real cool siting beside my desk. If I had the money, I would own one just like it. It is a really great computer and the OS X operating system is fast, well designed and secure enough to trust. Apple now makes the ultimate computer hacker machine. I sure love my 17" powerbook. ....and I am a total wienie computer hacker.
Corn burning has been going good here, though I have only made occasional trips to the basement. The wife has been totally in charge of the corn boiler and she has been doing a great job. Only thing is, it is a Traeger and so it needs regular burn pot changes. She can't lift the burn pots when they are in the stove. So, I have to change the burn pot every night I am home.
Hey, and while we are talking about burn pots. I talked to my neighbor the other night. He was down to help me unload my prize (a ~80 year old fanning mill that used to be my fathers -- I will post pictures later) from the pickup. He also brought a pad and paper to take some measurements of my burn pot. He is thinking about working up a couple of burn pot designs. Maybe one that is close to factory spec, and maybe another one that attempts to be a bottom feeder. It should be interesting. Anyone have any Traeger burn pot suggestions?
Can't think of anything else. Hope you all are having a good winter.
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3 comments:
It is the design of the Traeger boiler to use changeable burn pots. Yeah, right now it seems like a design flaw. There are some boilers (the LDJ for example) that do not require the burn pot to be changed.
The burn pot is not cast, it is stainless steel. Not hear as heavy as cast iron but I really need to arm wrestle the wife a little more often to build up her arm strength a little bit more. I don't have any trouble lifting them out.
The way a traeger works is to own two burn pots. The corn feeds in at the top of the burn pot, burning from the bottom. The trouble with this design is you get clinker and ash build up in the bottom. The clicker sticks to the side walls of the burn pot, eventually blocking the air holes. So, what you do is change the pot out with a fresh one. Dump the ash out of the old one and throw it in the wash basin of water to soak for a couple of days and then it comes out clean and ready to swap back in.
Burn pots seem to last about 1.5 seasons, then they get too melted and warped from the heat.
The pots don't need to be changed out every day. I have been staying in the city a few days at a time lately and so I am changing out every night I am home. The burn pot really needs to be changed every five to seven days when the temps are in upper 30's, and every three days when it is down around zero. I think when I insultate my house better this summer, and the boiler doens't have to work as hard, I won't have to change them as often.
Does the neighbor weld? Maybe the new burn pot could be made of lighter material and wouldn't be as likely to crack. I was wondering if you checked yet to see if the cracks could be welded.
My experience with bottom fed burn pots is that you still have a clinker formation. The other nasty side affect is that at low feed rates the clinker can form on the top of the burn pot and smother the fire. I also find that you do not have full utilization of your fuel as I find unburned corn in the ash tray.
I think Traegers concept of feeding from the top is right on the mark. I have been experimenting with different burn pots as I have not been happy with my current system. I have found that corn is a fuel that is best utilized when burned at a maximum setting and combustion air. Corn has a low ash fusion temp and therefore leaves us with a clinker.
I like you was highly interested in the Year-A-Round furnace but to no avail. They would talk with me but never give me a ship time or confirmation of a sale. They stated that they were refocussing on their sales. I did however get a brochure from them explaining their burn pot method and auto ignition. I have constructed one similar careful of patent infringement. It is a good concept and handles the clinker residue better. The problem is that they incoperate a automatic stirrer. I have not perfected this part. I find that stirring corn seems to upset the burn state. It will dimininsh the size of the fire and lower the box temp.
I would be curious to see your neighbors results on his venture with burnpots.
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