Kiln Board Overheating

[Lucy]

I have an unvented Skutt 1027 KM in an 8x16 shed w/ 3 windows, double door, and 2 large fans and I get errors codes indicating that the board temp is over 160; the kiln shuts off midfiring. Temp inside the shed does get over 100, which the Skutt folks say is too high to fire. I live in South Carolina and it's dang hot for 3 months of the year. I can't afford not to fire for 3 months. I've tried timing the firing to be hottest at night when the ambient temp drops but I need to fire slowly (33 hours) and so that hasn't solved the problem.

 

Any ideas about how to get/keep the shed cooler, short of a window AC...or other ideas?

 

Thanks

[Kristen]

I would call skutt. they're usually really helpful and they probably get asked that a lot.

[Chris Campbell]

My first question is what are you making that takes 33 hours to fire? Wow!

 

My second is ... Did skutt say if a kiln vent might help?

 

My third ... Are the fans aimed at the kiln board? That might keep it cool.

 

Fourth ... Is the problem recent or have you always had it?

 

Not very helpful eh? All questions, no answers but I live in NC and fire vented

Skutt Kilns in my garage on hot hot days with no problems.

[Lucy]

Chris, thanks for the questions and comments. Got a fast reply from Skutt today and they walked my husband through resetting the temp at which the board is triggered to turn off at 180 instead of 160 degrees. They also suggested another fan aimed directly into the board via the louvers so I'll do that, too. Really patient, helpful Skutt rep. Said they've done this (resetting that temp) a good bit with good results. They didn't discuss a vent so I'm still wondering if that might help but he did suggest considering a window AC unit if this doesn't correct the problem.

 

I make sculptures that need extremely slow ramping up and down; usually cool at a rate of 125 an hour. That's for bisque firing. A second firing is about 12 hours.

 

Thanks again,

Lucy

[OOF!]

Hi Lucy,

I have a Envirovented Skutt 1027 which I fire in our 20 X 22' garage. It has been in the low 90's here this summer, and we have had one instance of our board getting too hot, and shutting the kiln down. On these hot days, the garage will often get above 100º F, so we use a box fan to help cool the board.

Apperently the position of the fan can have an effect on the cooling, when we had the overheating problem, I had placed the fan to blow up over the top of the kiln, so as to deflect the heat and hopefully cool. The board overheated, apparently from some type of air circulation pattern that I didn't expect. After restarting the kiln, the board temp again went to 152º F, so I quickly put the box fan on the floor, almost directly underneath the control box. I raised the top of the fan about 6" using a little box, so that the fan was blowing up at a steep angle, perhaps 75º. The fan was sucking the cooler air near the floor, and pushing it through the bottom louvers. Within ten minutes the board temp had dropped from 152º F to 130º F; I left the fan there for the remainder of the firing.

I don't think the Envirovent cools the kiln much at all, it removes fumes. It uses a squirrel cage fan, and I don't think these remove heat as much as other designs. When my kiln is at about 2000º F, I can safely put my hand under the outlet of the vent, and it is only slightly warm.

Why Skutt would state that damage to the board can result at 160 F, and then give you instructions to raise the temp to 180 is a bit puzzling. So what is the REAL story with the board?

I hope this might be of some help.