The wood burns like a conventional boiler BUT the smoke is drawn through the bottom of the fire box through a "nozzle" where it's super heated and air is added. This creates a secondary burn (this is the gasifcation bit). So all that wasted energy that usually just escapes out the chimney as smoke is converted to heat. So, more heat from less wood!
Nice side effects of this are no creosote build up in the chimney since it's all been burned in secondary combustion. So really no chance of chimney fire. Typically my stack temps run under 500 deg F so they're also very good at transferring that heat to the water. They also just leave fly ash, everything that can burn gets burned.
Once the gasification starts you literally don't get smoke out the chimney, no smell either. It's pretty amazing.
The reason for the big tanks is these things don't use dampers, they run at 100% or off, nothing in the middle (well, some do but that's another story). Instead of smothering the fire when you don't need the heat they produce as much heat as possible and then store it for later use in those tanks. This also improves efficiency as you are using all your fuel to produce heat that you can use where as a conventional wood boiler just sits smoldering waiting for a heat call it kick back up. All that waiting is burning wood for no good reason.
While it looks involved it's all pretty simple.
During the winter I start I fire twice a day, once in the morning once and night. I load the box with as much wood as I need for what ever the load is (during the dead of winter that usually full) and walk away. Yeah, I only have to visit the boiler twice a day. Some guy use theirs all year to produce DHW, they load the boiler once a week!
The Europeans are way ahead of us when it comes to burning wood. They just have less of it then we do to play with so they make the most of what they have. Over here people will load up their outdoor boiler with green wood and let it smoke away all day. Just such a waste of wood, then again maybe folks like cutting firewood more then I do...
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Today's Featured Article - Restoration Story: Fordson Major - by Anthony West. George bought his Fordson Major from a an implement sale about 18 years ago for £200.00 (UK). There is no known history regarding its origins or what service it had done, but the following work was undertaken alone to bring it up to show standard. From the engine number, it was found that this Major was produced late 1946. It was almost complete but had various parts that would definitely need replacing.
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