Intenso-fire

[PFHII]

We have had and Intenso-fire wood evaporator for 5 years now... and have nothing but problems with it. CDL took it back to canada this summer and replaced the air flow system from the metal bars that adjusted to air to this new digital thermostate and pull lever air system and NO DIRECTION on which way to go. We boiled water the other night and could not get the fire over 890 degrees no matter which way we went we were told the fire should be over 1300 degrees... HELP
the top is Air-Rear
the second Air-grates
the bottom Air-Door

[Eric McLellan]

I have an intensive fire 2 model, not sure if it's the same, but if they installed the cable system make sure that they aren't touching the fire box. They replaced all my cables and just pulled them in and never removed the side the side panals, after they left I took the side panals off and found that they were once again laying up against fire box, so I took and installed blanket between fire box and cables to hopefully solve issue. I wouldn't buy another CDL rig again, I two have had many problems with little help from them. But anyway's what we do is run the door and rear air fully open and the grates about half way open. Seems to boil ok with this set up. Not sure what the temp is.

[PFHII]

I know the feeling we ended up buying this Rig in 2006 finding out it wasn't even the one we ordered. We had asked for 2 doors got 1 the pans never fit right come to find out it was 2 different rigs put together never had air in the door called them over and over again. finally after burning the front pans found out our grates were 1 inch holes instead of 1/2 so they fianlly fixed that they enede up taking it away this summer and brought it back with this new cable system. Well it all fine and dandy but we dont know a god **** thing about it... how do we know which way is opene and which way is closed we played with it the other night when we boiled water and could not get any fire.. Very fustrating when NO ONE will answer our calls or even come out and help.

[802maple]

I don't know what they have changed since, I originally designed and built them. You shouldn't have a problem of getting it to the 1300 degree level, although they don't need to run that high as you are starting to throw more heat up the stack then needed. 1100 to 1200 should be enough. You should be able to regulate that by the air under the grates and burn the gases with the top air. It sounds like you are putting a little to much air to the top of the fire and not quite enough to the bottom. The adjustments will change depending on your firewood and barometric pressure. It is hard for someone to explain, without seeing everything involved, but you will have to play with it to get the right mixture. I know this is the not the same unit I designed. You should be looking for a intense white to almost blue fire if you have a sight glass to watch it.

What size evaporator and what is the blower in it?

[PFHII]

The rig is 16x4 not sure on the blower. The "old" rig had the metal bars that ran down the side of the rig to open and close the dampers which was great easy to use. Now we have the red push /pull cable type and have no idea which way is which.no manual no help from CDL...We had Serge here once and he got the changes done but now no one will help use out. All we need to know is the cables have screw type adjustments but which way is up and down either way we did it the other night didn't seem to work.

[802maple]

I would love to be able to help you out there, but I don't know how they changed things to make the cable system work. Can you get underneath the unit to see how the cables are hooked up and to see if indeed they are hooked up? It should have changed things when you moved the adjustments. I am headed out to to do a vacuum pump installation right now, but if you could check out some of the things such as blower size and cable connections I might be able to help. No guarantees. I won't be home until near dark today.

[PFHII]

No problem just curious if someone else has the same problem.. Thanks 802maple

[Eric McLellan]

On the rig I have, when you start it up you have the top and bottom knobs all the way in and the middle is for the grates. Have it open just a couple of turns then once fire starts to get going, open top and bottom knobs all the way out, these on mine are for the door and rear air,then turn center knob about 4 turns to six turns out for regular running, thats if it's the same as mine. I won't buy another thing from CDL again, I am thinking about returning the evapotor to CDL while it's still under warrenty and get a refund. They promise to make repairs and never do.

[PFHII]

I believe it is the same ours is air-Rear
air-Grates
air-door
It's just the fact we didn't know which way to turn the knobs and if they were supposed to be pull out all the way. I emailed the main warehouse today and now we have someone coming tonight to help us out.
The worst thing is in 2006 after we bought this rig we won 1st in the nation with our fancy syrup well they thought it was great and then we won in 2010for fancy and best in show. Well now they want to do a big write up in some magazine about us winning and thier RIG..... well right now is not a good time for them to be asking us to talk nice about it. If they would have just left it alone with the "old" rig we would be just fine. Thanks for all your info it has been great. Thanks Again.Renee

[Squaredeal]

I too have experienced the same (and more) problems with my intense 0 fire. I bought it five years ago and have experienced way more stress than anyone should with a new and expensive piece of equipment. I have completely given up on CDL and will be quite PO'd if I don't see improvement on boiling this year given the time spent and effort trying to figure out how to run the rig efficiently.
What Serge told me is that you want the temperature at the back of the firebox to be 1500 degrees. To run the back and front air wide open and to make adjustments with the grate air.
He said after adding wood to the fire to add one notch of bottom air until the temp gets to 1500 and then close the bottom damper. When the temp goes down to 1200 open the damper one notch (it should go back to 1500). Continue adding air (notches) until there is no effect (raise in temperature) by adding air. At this point it is time to add wood.
I basically sat on the rig for an hour in St Albans and hours @ St Lazare trying to figure this out. My unit has the bars/notches for air adjustment, but my recolection is that the knobs are turned to the left-counter clockwise to add air.

[Squaredeal]

OK, Had my first boil yesterday and results are that the "new" technique does not work on my rig.
I can get the temp up to 1500, but it take so much underfire air that it doesn't stay there very long. Also, if I cut the underfire down once I get the fire going, the temperature drops like a stone.
I'm glad to have the thermocouple set up installed, as I can finally see what is happening in the firebox and have some indication of the effects of the different settings.
I went back to my old way of firing, and temps quickly shot up to 1250 and then stabilized at around 1150. I let it drop to around 1000 which took around 15 minutes and it was time to put on wood. So much for CDL's assertion that I should be able to go 30-40 minutes without adding wood.
Jerry, I would love to know how you make adjustments based on barometric pressure, etc. I believe you built my arch so Your advice would be like gold.