# Switch to portage and main or keep my central boiler



## chumscustoms (Feb 3, 2016)

I have a cb 6048. 
It works good. It has served me well. 
But,  I use a ton of wood. 
I have a 2000 Sq ft home with mediocre insulation and another home next door that is 600 Sq ft.  I use right at 5 cord a month of good dry hardwood when it is 30 and lower out. 
Last 5 years I've used a average of 22 cord a year. 

I have a read that there are.more efficient furnaces. 
My research has taken me to the portage and main 3444 . 
Yes I'm aware of the epa rules. 
This is not that arguement or discussion.

Will I save on wood consumption switch g to this portage and main. Bl3444. 
Thanks


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## warno (Feb 4, 2016)

If I was going with portage and main and could afford it, I would get the one of their optimizer line boilers. This is my first year with a "conventional style" boiler and I can say I would much prefer a gasifier in my location.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 4, 2016)

I owned a hardy h4 conventional boiler for 5 years heating a 220 year old 2800 sqft house in New Hampshire. Insulation is good at this point, I was going through 12-14 cords per 6 months of heating season. I was able to afford upgrading to a heatmaster g200 this year. WOW what a difference. I am burning just over 1 cord per month at this point. Your house must be really leaky if your going through 5 per month. Also you wood is likely to dry and probably spilt to small. Burning with my conventional for 5 years i found that around 30% moisture was the happy medium. To dry and it burns to fast. To wet it smokes to much and burns to slow. Best size was small splits around 3 inch up to half logs 10-12 inches in diameter. I frequent the owb forums and read about the bl series. I think they are well built boilers with good  features to extract more heat but I don't think you will see any significant wood consumption reduction untill you go to a gasser. If you can afford a gasser I can't say enough good things about my g200. It just plain works. Cleaning is 5 mins every cord burned. Bridged out twice in 4 months f running and that was my fault both times. Tightly stack the wood when you load it and that's it. Good luck with your search.


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## NateB (Feb 4, 2016)

Don't limit yourself to just out door boiler. Look at some indoor ones and consider an out building with storage and room for dried wood and the splitter and the saws and maybe a work bench. Might as well put a fridge in there, and a nice comfy chair and a TV, and a hammock for those nights you need to keep an eye on the boiler, but I digress.

A little building is nice to keep the weather off you while you are loading the boiler.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

Great info. 
If I can't justify it through wood consumption, then I will wait till I can get into a gasser style.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 4, 2016)

I agree with the indoor boiler in an out building but the system will be more complicated and likely more costly. The indoor boiler gassers are cheaper than te owb gassers but when you add in the large concrete pad, building, storage and piping you are looking at more money. But you should save some money on wood and time processing wood. I think that if I was to do it again I would have a keystoker or other coal stoker boiler in an out building. 30 million btus per ton of anthracite coal and you can get 22 ton loose deliveries. 22 tons would probably last you 3 years plus. It doesn't take up much room, never goes bad, doesn't need storage like a gasser, load a hopper for days to weeks at a time without worrying about loading it.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 4, 2016)

On another note get an energy audit done on your home. You will save the most wood for probably the least amount of money there first. Second are you sure that your underground lines don't have ground water touching them? You are awful high on consumption for smaller sqft. Another question is how are you loading the boiler? Only enough wood to get to the next loading or filling it completely full every load?


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

This is how my day with the owb goes. 

7am ish depending on temperature outside I fill furnace to what I assume demand will be for the day. 

4pm ish I get home, check and stir up coals/wood. Add if necessary

11pm check, stir and fill for the nights consumption. 

My biggest hit is I only have 2 inches of cellulose in each homes ceiling. 
That is being fixed as soon as tax return comes. 
Also my basement is drafty. 
I plan on having the top 4 ft of the cinder block walls spray foamed and the sill area. 

All walls have been re sheeted with 1/2 osb. And new siding and tyvek and windows installed. 

Pipe is buried no water contacting. 
It goes through two forced air heat exchangers. 
Half of my 2000 Sq ft home has no duct work to it yet. 
So I am actually heating 1200 Sq ft ish and 650 Sq ft. 

And when I saw 5 cord a month. 
On Dec 14 I dropped two dump trailer off of decent wood. Staked and measured was right at 5 cord. 
By January 13th I was 2 days away from being out. 

That is very normal for me. 

Peices are as large as I can handle or fit in door. 

I know insulation in ceasing should help a ton, I hope. 
I'm just tired of cutting and burning this much wood.


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## JohnDolz (Feb 4, 2016)

chumscustoms said:


> Great info.
> If I can't justify it through wood consumption, then I will wait till I can get into a gasser style.


I know it add a lot to the costs but if you combine a gasser with thermal storage I believe you greatly improve the efficiency of the gasser. I am not familiar with the outdoor gasser's only the indoor and I believe most if not all require that they run with thermal storage (it eliminates all idling time).


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## Heat1285 (Feb 4, 2016)

your not heating that much square footage IMO....that CB 6048 should be more than enough to easily handle the load you are putting on it....what is ur underground pipe like??? have u measured water temps leaving boiler and entering the homes??? sounds to me like you are loosing a lot of heat somehwere....that CB 6048 holds almost 400 gallons of water....2 of my neighbors are running the same stoves and both ehating over 5,0000 sqft and they dont even go through that much wood! i would check your system out before u pull the string on a new boiler.....if your lines are taking on water underground or u have plugged exchangers...ect a new boiler is going to run into the same problems as the one you currently have. 

If your do end up getting a new boiler i would also look into a Heatmor 200 or 400 DCSS. I just upgraded to a 400 DCSS from a natural draft conventional stove like a CB. I have already cut my wood usage down by 30%. P&M Bl 3444 is also a nice stove and a heatmaster MS10,000E would also be nice for what you want....those are all conventional stoves as well.

But i honestly dont think its the boiler.........i would check the rest of your set up...the heat has to be going somewhere


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

Well it just so happens I am a little slow for work today. I will grab the infrared and go take temps and inspect the heat exchangers. 
I will report and maybe include a diagram. 

My pipe is central boilers thermopex.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

Well I drew up a diagram of tge house pretty much to scale. 

And also stated water temps in and out. 

I will list here also. 

Leaving furnace-179
Returning to furnace-136
That was taken on iron fittings outside at boiler

Entering heat exchanger-172
Leaving exchanger when on for 4 min. -126
Temps taken on pex piping

With small rental house not running the blower motor but still circulating. 
To small house-165
From small house-158
Taken on pex fitting. 

All duct work is in the basements

The south half has zero ducting  it just stays anywhere from 60 to 70 depending on outside temps

Almost no insulation (2") cellulose in ceiling of both buildings. 

The pink line is  return and green is supply. 
The dashed lines are duct work in basement


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

House is 
20 x100
Small house is 25x25


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## Fred61 (Feb 4, 2016)

I'm trying to picture two dump trailer loads equaling 5 cords. Must be a lot bigger than my dump trailer was.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

It is rather large. I believe it's 14long. With 4.5 ft sides.


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## laynes69 (Feb 4, 2016)

You should save a ton once insulated, but do it right and airseal before insulation. What's hard for me to understand is putting alot of money up front for a boiler knowing there's almost zero insulation. We did our 1200 sqft attic, ventilation, airsealing, and 14" of cellulose was around $500. A small investment for a huge savings. We went through 8-12 cord a year and it was almost too much to keep up. Now, it's 4 to 5 cord with insulation and a more efficient furnace.  We've been heating 2500 sqft, and we haven't hit the 2 cord mark yet since september. Insulation and airsealing make a world of difference.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 4, 2016)

laynes69 said:


> You should save a ton once insulated, but do it right and airseal before insulation. What's hard for me to understand is putting alot of money up front for a boiler knowing there's almost zero insulation. We did our 1200 sqft attic, ventilation, airsealing, and 14" of cellulose was around $500. A small investment for a huge savings. We went through 8-12 cord a year and it was almost too much to keep up. Now, it's 4 to 5 cord with insulation and a more efficient furnace.  We've been heating 2500 sqft, and we haven't hit the 2 cord mark yet since september. Insulation and airsealing make a world of difference.






I completely understand your point. 
When I bought this place it was for rental property and we rented it for one year and then decided to move to one of homes for our selves. 
I then realized the lack of insulation and how loose the house was. 
I have since sided, re sheeted, tyveked, insulated the walls. 
Went through tons of spray foam. 
Now it is time for the ceiling. 
The furnace was a route I was going anyway and it was a way to heat with out taking care of the remodel. 
I try to pay for things as I go with cash


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 4, 2016)

Am i reading it correct, you said that it leaves the boiler and when it gets to the heat exchanger in the house it has already lost 7 degrees??? That is not right. You should lose 1 degree for every 100 feet of thermopex or rehau pipe. Also how does the water leave the heat exchanger at 126 and return to the boiler at 136? You should not have more than a 30 degree drop, closer to 20 is best across your heat exchanger. You appear to have a 46 degree drop across the exchanger. What size pump do you have from the owb to the house? It appears to be WAYYYYY to small. If you really are losing 7 degrees from the boiler to the house you are sending a ton of heat somewhere. You are also shocking your boiler with 126 degree return temps, im surprised that it isn't sweating in the firebox.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

Like.it stated. I was unable to take a reading on the same surfaces. 
I to think it shocks the boiler. 
I have had my furnace at this location and also had it further away last year before I moved it. 
I thought the drop across the cooler seemed excessive. 
It is a grenfoss pump that was equivalent to the taco I took out that cb sized me for. 
I do think I can turn this pump up another setting.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Am i reading it correct, you said that it leaves the boiler and when it gets to the heat exchanger in the house it has already lost 7 degrees??? That is not right. You should lose 1 degree for every 100 feet of thermopex or rehau pipe. Also how does the water leave the heat exchanger at 126 and return to the boiler at 136? You should not have more than a 30 degree drop, closer to 20 is best across your heat exchanger. You appear to have a 46 degree drop across the exchanger. What size pump do you have from the owb to the house? It appears to be WAYYYYY to small. If you really are losing 7 degrees from the boiler to the house you are sending a ton of heat somewhere. You are also shocking your boiler with 126 degree return temps, im surprised that it isn't sweating in the firebox.




Do to the different surfaces  that I was able to take readings off of. That gave me some different values. 
But the heat exchanger drop was accurate. 

Return to boiler, of you look at diagram it shows my piping to the small house. When it returns into the system at 156 it mixes with the 120 something giving me the 136 return temp. 

I will try running  the pump faster. 
Is there any way to run both systems. 

Would a manifold system work better. Than a tee off the main line?


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 5, 2016)

Any way to measure the return flow to the boiler after flowing through the whole system?  Can you measure th return temp to te boiler without the heat exchanger in your house running?


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Any way to measure the return flow to the boiler after flowing through the whole system?  Can you measure th return temp to te boiler without the heat exchanger in your house running?





This morning when I went out. 
I made sure no furnaces were running inside. 
My furnace was a touch low on temp 151 at digital read out. 

Leaving furnace on the pex, read 146, returning the furnace read 143

So I went in my basement and checked in and out of heat exchanger not running. 
It read 145 and 145

I had my wife kick on the furnace and watched it drop the outgoing temp as it should. 
When the installed some piping he recomend ed leaving the tee'd of exchanger ball valves half.closed. 
Last night I was wondering if I was only filling half the exchanger or causing a cavitation inside that would possibly le assist in excessive cooling across the exchanger. 

I then opened the valves 100% I watched the incoming temp stay the same as it should. 
And the outgoing temp started to rise. 

I don't know if that would cause a lot of wood consumption but regardless I think it needed deldt with. 

I did check my pump. 
It is set on high and before I had a taco 009. 
The. Replaced with a grenfoss equivalent last year when my impeller broke. 

Thanks. 
I will keep checking everything out. 
Insulation people came today for a estimate and hopefully that will.get done in neXT month.


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## Heat1285 (Feb 5, 2016)

definitely not the stove......that stove is plenty biig......u just got fine tining to do....you should have a 12-20° delta loss at full load....no more....if ur temp loss is really 30-45° you need a bigger pump


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## Heat1285 (Feb 5, 2016)

i dont even have thermopex and i barely loose 1° over a 80ft run. My water comes in at 185-190 and under full load (DHW,house and garage) my water leaves at around 170-175 usually. normally i have about a 14-20° Delta at ful heat load. Im using a B&G NRF-36 at the 2nd speed. Shop loop is only 15ft. i loose no heat and under full load it sits at a 12° delta. I am using a B&G NRF-22 for the shop......just play around a bit, you will get it narrowed down.


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## maple1 (Feb 5, 2016)

Do you only have the one pump pumping the whole thing? Size & length of piping?


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 5, 2016)

I just looked up the pump curve on the 009. It is not a pump to be used in moving any sort of water. Maxed out at only 5ft of head the pump moves only 7 gpm. If you post your pipe diameter, Length of pipe, fittings and exchangers in te system we can help you figure out the right pump. Your looking at needing to probably quadruple the gpm that you are currently moving. Further more can you please explain how much wood you are putting in the boiler everytime you load it. L


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

Heat1285 said:


> definitely not the stove......that stove is plenty biig......u just got fine tining to do....you should have a 12-20° delta loss at full load....no more....if ur temp loss is really 30-45° you need a bigger pump


I only have one pump. 
From owb to furnace one is approx 45 ft. 
To second furnace is another 50ft.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

I know


Heat1285 said:


> definitely not the stove......that stove is plenty biig......u just got fine tining to do....you should have a 12-20° delta loss at full load....no more....if ur temp loss is really 30-45° you need a bigger pump


 

I know it's not the stove. I was just looking at a more efficient stove just for in general. 

I will take more readings tonight when I get home. 
I will get the pump size and see where I'm at  
With my delta


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## woodsmaster (Feb 5, 2016)

air sealing is more important than insulation. Be sure it's sealed before adding insulation.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

I know


Heat1285 said:


> definitely not the stove......that stove is plenty biig......u just got fine tining to do....you should have a 12-20° delta loss at full load....no more....if ur temp loss is really 30-45° you need a bigger pump




I know it's not the stove. I was just looking at a more efficient stove just for in general.

I will take more readings tonight when I get home.
I will get the pump size and see where I'm at
With my delta


hondaracer2oo4 said:


> I just looked up the pump curve on the 009. It is not a pump to be used in moving any sort of water. Maxed out at only 5ft of head the pump moves only 7 gpm. If you post your pipe diameter, Length of pipe, fittings and exchangers in te system we can help you figure out the right pump. Your looking at needing to probably quadruple the gpm that you are currently moving. Further more can you please explain how much wood you are putting in the boiler everytime you load it. L




I put in right at 2


hondaracer2oo4 said:


> I just looked up the pump curve on the 009. It is not a pump to be used in moving any sort of water. Maxed out at only 5ft of head the pump moves only 7 gpm. If you post your pipe diameter, Length of pipe, fittings and exchangers in te system we can help you figure out the right pump. Your looking at needing to probably quadruple the gpm that you are currently moving. Further more can you please explain how much wood you are putting in the boiler everytime you load it. L




I just checked piping length and size and stuff. 

Piping is pex 3/4
I have it ran for 115 feet total. 
I have a 8 foot tee.off of it for my exchanger for one house. 

The heat exchanger is a 125000 but from cb. 
The other in the rental house is a 85000 btu. 
Both are right around 18x18. 
One is three row and one is 2 row
Ups 15-58 fc is my grunfoss pump model. It is set on high. 

Since I have moved my furnace to this new location I can reduce almost 50 feet of pex. 
I will when the heat demand goes down. 
I included a pic of the fire box filled for the night. 
That would be at 11pm and last maybe till 7am
I would saw that pile measures 2.5 ft wide and 2 to 2.25 tall. 
That is a common load at night and morning on a 20 and below day. 
Plus when I get home around 3 ish I stir it and put 4 or 5 peices in. 

I'm not trying to use a ton of wood or do I want to. 
But when it's super cold and windy I will fill it to the top and sides full three times a day


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 5, 2016)

Green wood?


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Green wood?





No, primarily all dry. 
This load 5 cord was oak tree tops from a logged timber that was 12 years old. 
Nice cracked ends, and dry. Burns great, with great coals.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

Insulation in ceilings, basement walls are getting closed cell foamed. 
Also. Insulating all the second house. 
I think that I may have been shocking the water with cold water with the exchangers temp drop. 

That seems to be better now that those valves are 100% open. 

I will also be removing g a bunch of pex and making the run shorter now that the furnace has been moved.

I would like to know if the pump is sufficient for what I'm doing. And also curious if I should run a manifold. Or just tee out of the supply and return for addition exchangers, or water heater deals


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## chumscustoms (Feb 5, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Green wood?




 I threw in that wood just now to show filling it. 
My pile I burn from is a little farther away that was cut last weekend from that logged timber and hadn't been split yet


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## MarylandGuy (Feb 5, 2016)

I hope all your wood isn't un-split oak like you are showing in the pic.  Oak is notorious for holding moisture when it's not split.  I hear you on the twelve years, but I would still split a few and check the moisture.

To the guy in an earlier post saying his wood is too dry and he should shoot for 30 percent moisture.  You should really spend a little more time reading the site before posting something like that.  You couldn't be more wrong..


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 6, 2016)

I assume that you are referring to me. Let me help educate you a little on conventional owbs? I assume that you also know that most are notorious for long idle times? I assume that you also understand that they are notorious for being inefficient at moving the heat energy into the water? When you combine long idle times with inefficient conversion of the heat energy you get dry wood burning off and turning into charcoal during those long idle times with little to no conversion of the heat energy into the water. Now as basic as everyone understands the more water content there is(moisture level %) in the wood the more btus are used from that available wood fuel to burn off the water before you extract usable heat, very basic stuff here. There for there is a happy medium with these old inefficient long idle time owb as far as moisture content goes. To much moisture and you lose a lot of your btus to burning off the moisture as well as smoking out your neighborhood. To little moisture and the wood simply turns to charcoal during the long idle times causing you lose all of your heat out of the stack slowly over the idle period. I burned an old Hardy H4 conventional owb for 5 years. The best moisture content for longer burn times and minimal smoke was around 30. To dry and it would just burn up and turn to charcoal over the idle periods. I now have a Heatmaster G200 gasser. It is like any other european style downdraft gasser. The drier the wood the better.


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## maple1 (Feb 6, 2016)

I think you have some shortcomings in your piping setup, but that would not explain you main reason for posting - high wood consumption. Well, it might impact efficiency a bit - the piping can't pull heat away from the boiler as fast as it should, and the boiler spends a lot of time idling. But it shouldn't be going through wood that fast. I'm kind of wondering about the temp reading accuracies - and do you have a pic of the ends of the underground piping showing insulation details? I didn't think Thermopex was made in 3/4". 3/4" is too small, IMO.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 6, 2016)

Did you mean the 1" thermopex with a nominal ID of 3/4"?


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## chumscustoms (Feb 6, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Did you mean the 1" thermopex with a nominal ID of 3/4"?


I thought I had 1 inch. But the ball valves from my cb  dealer say 3/4.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 6, 2016)

maple1 said:


> I think you have some shortcomings in your piping setup, but that would not explain you main reason for posting - high wood consumption. Well, it might impact efficiency a bit - the piping can't pull heat away from the boiler as fast as it should, and the boiler spends a lot of time idling. But it shouldn't be going through wood that fast. I'm kind of wondering about the temp reading accuracies - and do you have a pic of the ends of the underground piping showing insulation details? I didn't think Thermopex was made in 3/4". 3/4" is too small, IMO.


I believe it's 1 inch with my valves and fittings reading 3/4. 

I deal with heat exchangers with work in huge air compressors, so the readings I believe are pretty accurate. 

There are a lot of posts on this thread so I will state again. 
When I opened the ball vales from 1/2 open to fully 100% open. 
I watched the exchanger outgoing temp climb almost 25 to 30 degrees. 

Outgoing from furnace with nothing I side running I have approx 5 to 7 deg drop. 

Last night put the load in that pics show. 
So far I haven't touched that boiler today and have stayed in the 175 to 185 deg range. 
That is possibly the longest it's ever did that. 

It is a warmer day. But last night was mid 20's maybe teens. And under 30 till noon.


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## chumscustoms (Feb 6, 2016)

Is my sufficient hondaracer?
Also hindsight 20/20, I would like to redo my distribution inside the house. 
It is 1 inch coming into house I believe in thermopex.  Should I run a line to the furthest exchanger (there is only 2 of them ,one 40 feet away and one 20 feet away) 
But run a line and tee off of it for the other exchanger. 
Or
Run it into the house. And.distribute it through a manifold.  Supply and return.

Wish I would have ran 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 supply to tge house and then manifold off in 3/4. 

Thank you all for this Input.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 6, 2016)

Your numbers now all seem much better. So how much would you ussually have gone on the load you put in yesterday that is going to now go 24 hours?


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## chumscustoms (Feb 6, 2016)

hondaracer2oo4 said:


> Your numbers now all seem much better. So how much would you ussually have gone on the load you put in yesterday that is going to now go 24 hours?


That would have lasted with today's temps, probably  for approx 10 to 12 hours. 
This week.it will be colder so I will see if it was a fluke or.not


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## heaterman (Feb 6, 2016)

Keep your CB and invest every spare dime you have in insulation and sealing up your house. The payback begins immediately. 
After that, you'll look at burning wood in a new light and may even decide to keep using it for while til you can save up for a good gasification boiler.


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## hondaracer2oo4 (Feb 6, 2016)

I agree with heater man. I will be interested to see how this week goes.


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## ihookem (Feb 7, 2016)

Before anything else you need 20" of cellulose in your attic. It won't cost 800 bucks if you do it yourself. If you do this, you will cut your wood use in half. Then, maybe you will happier with your boiler. Something does seem funny though, but first things first. I wouldn't wait a week to get 20 " in. I have at least that , maybe even 24" in some spots.


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## Pat32rf (Feb 21, 2016)

Spend your money on insulation for now. Get 18-20" of cellulose in that attic. Seal around the top of the basement walls. 
We heat 1800sq feet , half of which was built in 1950, the other half in 2000. Will probably use 4 bush cord this winter...


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