# Biasi 3Wood Install



## kshultz (Oct 10, 2008)

We started installing my 3Wood yesterday, will finish up shortly.  Hey I know it isn't a Gasifier but still a good boiler, to be tied into my oil burner.


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## mysticfalcon (Oct 10, 2008)

I finished my install on mine yesterday.  Of course the only reason I wasnt done 6 weeks ago was they forgot the little flue gas baffle for the top chamber and it took them a long time to get it here.  First fire will probably be tonight.


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## mysticfalcon (Oct 11, 2008)

I should get some pics of mine.  First fire is just getting up to temp now.  Congrats on the new boiler.


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## Dredknot (Oct 11, 2008)

Looks good..

I installed mine a little over a month ago, seems to work well, all I had to do is address a couple of ghost flow poblems but nothing major.
I did install a bypass and a couple of tempeture gauges to help protect the wood boiler from thermal shock, plus it helps to keep the circulator on for longer run cycles.


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## kshultz (Oct 11, 2008)

Thanks for the posts guys!  Excellent.  Question, have you found which temperature works the best to run the wood at?  180? 190? etc. The controller for my oil will only go as low as 170 deg.  I was hoping it was lower so I could keep the spread between the 2 a bit more.  My heating guy said I may have to buy a new controller for oil burner so the set point can go lower, ensuring that it will not come on unless I really need it.  I like that this system seems simple enough, not overly complicated compared to some of the other boilers out there.  I will sacrifice some efficiency for the price difference.

Kevin


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## Dredknot (Oct 12, 2008)

I am going to install a second thermostat for the house and set it to 65 deg f. Depending on what you have for an oil burner you can either hook it up to the tt on the primary control or install a single zone relay and use one of the dry contacts to interupt B1 on the aquastat going to the oil burner. I feel this will hold off the oil burner more than setting the aquastat to a lower temp.  Also this will only work for a cold start oil boiler as you need to maintain tempeture if you have a domestic coil.

I have the circulator set at 175 with a 25 deg f. differntial, the over heat thermostat set at 210 and it turns on my main zone which has the largest heat load.  There is a large volume of water in my house due to the cast iron radiators so I had to install a bypass to limit the amount of heat drawn from the wood boiler and to slowly brind everything up to temp with out short cycling the circulator.


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## Dredknot (Oct 12, 2008)

If you have a Becket or a Carlin oil burner look to see if the primary has TT connections.  If so there is usauly a jumper accross them.  Remove the jumper and run a thermostat wire to it then find a place for the thermostat.  Set the thermostat to the minimum tempeture you would desire if the wood boiler was out and set it to that temp.  
Your original thermostat will heat the house normaly as long as there is a wood fire and the second one will only heat it to say 60 or 65 if the wood boiler goes out.
In my opinion this will hold off the oil boiler for as long as possable.  That way if there is large heat load it would give the wood boiler first priority to fullful that call for heat and stop the oil boiler from short cycling to try and compensate.


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## bigbobs (Oct 13, 2008)

Kevin, have you fired the boiler yet? I nstalled a honeywell aquastat close to the wood boiler set at 120 which will cut power to the oil boiler when the wood boiler is above this set point. I have a Crown Freeport cold start oil boiler so it does not maintain a set temp, just cools down to room temperature.
 I would be interested to know if you have to reload your boiler at 2 AM to keep it going, or will it hold a fire through out the night as it gets colder.


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## kshultz (Oct 13, 2008)

I have not fired it up yet.  The hardware is in, the wiring will be done this week, then fired up.  Thanks for the feedback; I will be sure to share it with my heating guy...Kevin


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 22, 2008)

So how do you like teh 3wood now that we are part way through the season?  I'm amazed at how well mine heats but I'm also amazed by the amount of Creosote mine will make.  Especially right around the door.


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## Dredknot (Dec 22, 2008)

So far I have burnt 1 1/2 cords of wood and 1/8 of a tank of oil.  I havent broken it down yet but my oil consumption used to be just over 800 gals a year.  I vacuumed out the uppper chamber of the boiler, cleaned my smoke pipe and checked the chimney.   I have some build up of creosolt but I am pretty sure some of my wood wasnt as seasoned as well as it should of been.  
Nothing gets me off of the couch faster than hearing the oil boiler light off,  (time to fill the wood boiler)..

The only problem I have had with the boiler is the knob for the Samson draft regulator,  the plastic threads stripped out, but I called Biasi and they had a new one in my mail box in less the 24hrs.


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 23, 2008)

QHT is very good about supporting their products.  Im at about the same consumption.  I had been closing the damper when burning and that really helped suck the heat out of the wood but it helped creosote buildup a little too much too.  Now that I just leave it open it burns a lot cleaner.  Only been leaving it open for about 2 weeks but it definitely seems to help.


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

Not happy with my new 3wood7.  

My house is moderate sized (I have a 107K oil boiler) which also heats the domestic hot water.  The 3wood5 was sufficient size but I bought the 7 for growth.

I didn't have another flue in my basement so I installed the boiler in my attached garage.  The 3wood is plumbed about 55' with 1 1/4" black iron and copper.

The first month I actually had creosote dripping out of my chimney.  After it clogged so bad I upgraded the flue to 8" to my chimney which is 8X12 block.  I also removed the metal divider in the smoke chamber.  This helped the burn tremendous. Keep in mind I have burned wood my whole life for heat, so a wood fire is nothing new.

Here is my disappointment:

I burn 1/2 cord of wood a week and can only get a max six hour heating burn time, after six hours it never heats up enough to push the water to the basement. So unless you do the fire late and then in the middle of the night with out question the oil boiler is running by 6 AM.  That is the big problem, I have gone through 3/4 of a tank of oil already since October.  On the cold nights we've had recently, no matter how the fires burning in the boiler if I don't start my wood stove inside the 3wood can't keep up. I would have used less oil and wood this season if I was burning my wood stove only.  I am so disappointed I am ready to pull it out, but have so much money tied up in it I fell stuck.

In my quest to stretch my shrinking wood pile I started trying coal.  After about three weeks trying the coal I am still unable to keep a consistent fire.  In order to burn the coal I had to open the bottom door and put a blower tube in the fire, this kept a decent fire but if you don't clean the FULL ash pan Daily it is nearly impossible to keep the fire up to temperature.  Basically all the coal did was stretch the wood since I had to keep wood on top to keep the coal burning under neath.  To top this off the ice storm two weeks ago took the power out, by the time I got home and hooked up the generator the 3wood vapor locked which in turn smoked my circulator and made an impressive mess in the garage.

So here I am Thousands of dollars out, 5 cords of wood 175 gallons of oil and 750 pounds of coal later with the door open trying to get a good fire going listening to my oil boiler kick on every time my wife turns on the hot water. 

I feel better already getting that off my chest, my wife is ready to kill me over the money we have into this and I don't know what to do next.  Any ideas? Suggestions? 
I will post pics of the install soon.


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 26, 2008)

First thing I would do is get an indirect water heater.  I have been doing 2 fires a day an am and a Pm fire.  heat the house to 78 then let it fall to 70 and start over.  the indirect control is wired to only call for heat if the wood is hot so it keep water hot without using the water in the indirect to heat the house and I have the oil switched right off.  Creosote on mine is much improved now that I dont really ever let it idle.  wood consumption is way down too.  I go through 2 fireboexs full even on monday when it was cold and the wind was blowing like theres no tomorrow.  To get the longer burn you really need to be way oversized.  Then youre creosote production will be through the roof.  sounds like that was what was going on when it was warmer out.  when its colder you dont get as much creosote but you get even less burn time.


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

My big problem is I can heat my house the same with a small woodstove and 550 gallons of oil a year.  I bought the boiler because I have my own source of wood and wanted to eliminate the oil or mostly eliminate minus the small amount in the summer for hot water.   At the rate I'm going I will burn the same oil more wood and more coal.  The 3wood just doesn't seem to keep up.


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

I have also installed a aquastat on my oil burner that turns down to 140.  I have just turned off the oil but once the 3wood is behind it never catches up.  A picture is worth a thousand words so I will get a couple pics up as soon as I can.  I am still confident there is a solution but running out of time and money to find it!!


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

I was originally looking at the Alternative Fuel Boiler (http://www.alternativefuelboilers.com/products.htm) but the Biasi was 1/2 the money.


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 26, 2008)

Id be tempted to just set up a 6006 aquastat for the boiler instead of what they give with the biasi.  that way it will turn off the oil when the wood is hot rather than just reducing the oil.  its bad for the oil burner to run down at 140.  the 6006 switches from 1 source to the other so you can only have 1 running at a time.  A boiler cold water protection setup might help too.  with the water cooled grates sending cold water at the biasi is very very counter productive to a good fire.  

Where are you in VT?


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

Near Killington.  I am not familiar with cold water protection?  Who makes the 6006?


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 26, 2008)

Honeywell L6006 aquastat relay.  you can set up to switch power from the wood circ to the oil burner.  cold water protection is mostly done on the gassifiers.  Tarm requires one.  Basically you put in a valve that prevents water under a certain temperature from getting to the boiler.  With the biasi I've had times when I built a small fire and when the boiler gets up to temp and all the cold water gets sent right at the coals of the fire the fire dropped way down and almost went out.  same thing happens when a zone kicks in and the boiler gets hit with cold water from the pipes in the zone that turned on.  do this too often and it kills your combustion efficiency.  Also causes the firebox to condense and can cause premature failure of the boiler block.  
Unfortunately Killington is quite a hike for me or Id drive down and take a peak at things to see if there was anything I could do to help straighten things out for you.


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## bwfvt (Dec 26, 2008)

Here are some snap shots of the 3Wood and the Smith in my basement.


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 29, 2008)

Is there any way you could do up a rough piping diagram?  Its hard to follow in the pictures.


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## josh (Dec 29, 2008)

You are not the only ones with these problems.  I have a New Yorker WC90 hooked up just like you guys are talking about and I am having all of the same problems, short burn times, low water temps, having to fill the boiler all hours of the day and night and spending lots of money. I feel your pain!


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## ManiacPD (Dec 29, 2008)

All you guys with problems...do you have radiant or HWBB?  My good friend put in a 5 section Biasi tied into his System2000.  After several days of frustration the installers (he hired it) called in the Biasi rep.  He said the 5 section was the issue so they put in a 7 section for no additional charge.  

For 2 more weeks after installation they still couldn't get it running right.  Water for heat wasn't hot enough, luke warm domestic hot water, and the oil and wood systems seemed to be fighting each other.  They ended up taking out the 7 section, gave him all his money back, and he put his woodstove back in that was there in the first place.  Through all this neither the installer or Biasi folks could explain why it wouldn't work.  

My house is as big as his and I'm using a 25 year old Memco through HWBB with no issues.  We run around in our underwear and take extra long showers to get rid of the heat.  My friend has radiant in his garage slab and the rest of the house (1 story big ranch) is radiant.  I think the Biasi holds around 17 gallons of water and when the circulator kicks on it gets all that cold water from the radiant and it just can't get ahead of the demand.  I think the Biasi is a great boiler but there are just some installations they don't work well with.  Fortunately the installer and Biasi/QHT do stand behind their product which isn't the case with many companies these days.

As far as your 6 hour burn time I think that's about all you're gonna get.  I am barely getting that with mine and that's after messing with it for 3 months tweaking my techniques.  It's like having a baby that needs to be fed at night, but at least is goes back to sleep easier than either of our boys did!

One last thing...I tried to talk my friend into some storage.  I think that would have helped but he was at the end of his rope and had shelled out several grand at that point.  It's easy to throw good money after bad but I think if you're running any wood boiler storage is the way to go, especially if you've got radiant.

Good luck to all of you...


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## josh (Dec 29, 2008)

I here what you are saying about the cold water and not being able to catch up, but I have HWBB with my WC90 and I'm having a hard time as well and I would take a 6 hour burn time any day of the week over my 3 hour.  I'm eating up wood like crazy!


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## ManiacPD (Dec 29, 2008)

The New Yorkers and their forced drafts are funky.  So you have a lot of fire as you're burning wood like crazy but not getting much heat?


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## josh (Dec 29, 2008)

I get heat as long as I'm there shoveling the wood to it.  Around 6 1/2 cords since mid October.


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## bwfvt (Dec 30, 2008)

I have H/WBB, 5 zones; one for indirect H/W.  I made a ruff sketch of the install and am going to scan and upload it tonight.  One thing I thought would help but I'm not sure how to do it outside of installing strap on aquastats on every zone.  If I turn of my oil burner and a zone calls regardless of the heat being there or not the circulators start, which basically starts pumping warm/cold water through my house until of course the domestic h/w zone calls and then for a little while it acts as storage.  So by morning I have three zones pumping cold water through the house.


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## bwfvt (Dec 30, 2008)

It's ruff but hopefully helpful


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## mysticfalcon (Dec 30, 2008)

I basically did the aquastat on the DHW to prevent it from being storage so that I can have a hot shower in the AM.  That smith is a pretty good sized chunk of cast iron to heat up so it will have a hard time catching up if it has to heat that and all the water in the zones at the same time.  I've been thinking of doing that aquastat for each zone idea because then you can prioritize zones so that they will kick on a different temperatures.  That way you wont have everything to heat up at once it will be more gradual from a cold start.  Its also kind of expensive though.  You could just put on an aquastat on that will power up your switching relay for the circs when hot.  That would work too.  Probably put it right above the smith.   Otherwise looks like the same setup ive got except for the distance between boilers.


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## godsowndrunk (Dec 31, 2008)

howdy i had similar problems with a trianco coal boiler twinned in with my peerless oil boiler on a long run of pipe about 70 feet . insulation helped alot . all in all it was a test before i built my 3 flue chimney to locate my 3 boilers in the same area. the coal boiler took a long time to heat up all that extra water  and another problem is a boiler turns into a radiater if its connected in series. i was hoping for some positive feedback on the biasi i like the b-10 oil boilers i installed mine last year and noticed a nice drop in oil consumption. maybe they have dropped the ball on the 3wood. maybe i have to get some plate and fire up the welder to replace my itaska wb410 cause that thing burns a ton of wood too


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## bwfvt (Dec 31, 2008)

I was talking with a guy today and he suggested moving my H/W to the priority zone.  If he was accurate it will cut out the other zones until my hot water is satisfied, ending my hot water tank being storage.  Of course the best part of the idea is it won't cost me any more money to try it  I am going to change over the next couple of days, I'll post my results.  Happy New Year!


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