Empyre Elite 100.

[Woodfarmer1]

No optimizer, just the disc in the boiler that regulates the pump when plugged into the back of the boiler. I called empyre told them what I had and they wanted $600 for the optimizer, I told them as a customer service standpoint if they know there is a problem with their early models then they should be supplying this just as an auto manufacturer does recalls....no dice they said if I don't buy it then no warranty. Both dealers in my area are over an hours drive away, I have been waiting for a month for him to show.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I do notice that the circ pump does not come on until the boiler reaches close to 160 degrees and it does seem to shut the pump off when the temp drops below 140.

 

[arbutus]

I have an email from Empyre that states that a Danfoss valve and 140 degree thermostat is an acceptable alternate to their optimizer and will maintain warranty. Get it in writing for yourself. Much less expensive, but it might require your pump to swap locations.

 

[__dan]

I have 4" of ship lap styrofoam sm under 4" of concrete with an IFC foundation, 25' walkout on one end, which is also IFC, the only thing we didn't do was a thermal break under the 9' patio door where the concert floor was poured right out over the frost wall, oops. It will know have to wait until next spring to dig it up and insulate

Nice, nice, nice. I actually wish builds like that were standardized in the codes, built to last and perform over many lifetimes. Put the heat to that slab, 130 F injected into the slab may actually be on the high side.

It's not clear to me without rereading the thread what problem you are having, is it just the learning curve or are you having trouble with something specific.

The slab for storage is a big flywheel. It takes a lot more energy to bring it up to temp compared to just maintaining at temp. I would guesstimate about two to four days of daily firings before the slab is coasting in the operating temp range and is not soaking a lot of extra heat coming up in temp. The system should be substantially more efficient compared to a stove, should be less fuel, more heat.

http://www.amazon.com/Raytek-MT6-Non-contact-MiniTemp-Thermometer/dp/B000O80B5M

 

[willyswagon]

All I can say is that I have done all of the updates, and added all of the systems that Pro Fab has suggested, and I'm getting lots of heat and great burn times.
I would also be looking at insulating all of your piping to ensure that the heat gets to where you need it to be.

 

[maple1]

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I do notice that the circ pump does not come on until the boiler reaches close to 160 degrees and it does seem to shut the pump off when the temp drops below 140.

Yes, but where is that temp measured at? Assuming it's at the top of the boiler, or anywhere except right where the return enters, the return entering will be quite a bit cooler than the 140. Can you measure the return water temp just before it enters the boiler? With cold return water, it will struggle bringing that slab up to temp and make big condensation. I would make sure that return water entering the boiler stays above 140 - you're shortening its life if not. If you don't have an Optimizer or a Danfoss/similar, I'd get on it right away.

Also, it might just be me, but those two mixing valves don't quite look right - if I'm looking right. I think both loops run supply on right (going up), and return on the left (going down), with the circs pulling thru the loops? It looks like the upstairs/right loop has the zone return coming in via the port opposite the green knob, while the floor/left loop has zone supply going out via the same port opposite the green knob. Which makes me think one of them might be plumbed wrong? But like I said, might just be me.

By what Willys has posted and how his is working, you've got a good unit there - just need to get the kinks ironed out.

 

[mustash29]

How much did you pay for a used 4 year old model? I'm just curious.

I still haven't fired my Elite 100. I'm hoping to have it up an running by Jan 1.

I believe mine is a '11 model that was fired for 1 or 2 seasons before it developed a leak, possibly due to not being plumbed with low return temp protection. The previous owner had the hot supply going to a HX and the cold HX return going straight back to the boiler. I am not sure of how the pumps were wired or running. There was a wood pump and an oil "wrap around" pump. Also no idea of the wood quality, moisture content, etc he was burning.

I've done a TON of reading about these boilers, here's a few points to consider that may not have been directly discussed before.

The first generation boilers (serial number below 300) had the hot supply connection on the rear top center and the cold return on the rear bottom center. The 2nd generation boilers (with SS fire box liner) have the hot supply and cold return both mounted up high on the rear of the unit. I don't know the reason for this. Possibly to mix the cooler return with the hotter water at the top of the unit? The only reason I noticed this is the fact that the install drawings for the 2 models differ slightly. The pics of the rear of the unit and how the ports are labeled differ.

1st gen's have a 140 deg snap disc mounted near the fan & main temp probe which is wired to a pump plug pigtail. This was used to shut the pump down when boiler temp goes below 140. The problem I see with this feature is that very cold return water could still be flowing into the bottom of the boiler, significantly cooling the lower portion of the 60 gallon water jacket, while the boiler would be firing and putting out warmer water. Since that 140 deg snap disc is mounted up high next to the main temp probe, it is entirely possible that the boiler could run for long periods of time with moderate supply temps, cold return temps, a lot of thermal shock & a lot of cool water at the lower portion of the boiler, around the horizontal portions of the HX tubes and around the lower portion of the firebox where the vertical walls meet the sloping refractory floor. These are the know areas of corrosion.

Maybe it would have been better if that snap disc was mounted at the bottom of the unit right at the return port?

The cyclic nature of the snap disc and pump on/off cycles seems like it was a cheap way of providing low temp protection. During this time period, you would be in a firing state but have no forced flow through the water jacket with no mixing of the water. Then boiler temp warms up and the pump launches again and sends another slug of cold water into the unit. Repeat.

The 2nd gen boilers do not have the snap disc pump control or the pump pigtail plug in the back. The 2nd gen install directions tell you to run the boiler pump 24/7. I assume this is to keep the water moving and mixing within the boiler.

My factory refurbished 1st gen boiler now has the SS firebox liner. It still has the snap disc, pump plug & corresponding wiring schematic. The new owners manual it was shipped with also has the correct wiring schematic. However, the install instructions tell you to NOT use that pump pigtail and say to wire the pump to another power source to run 24/7 when the boiler is firing and to use the ESO for protection.

The Empyre System Optomizer is essentially a pump, 140 deg Danfoss valve, and a low head loss manifold with closely spaced T's. IMO it is a $300 - 350 assembly that sells for $500 - 600. You can do the same job with a few fittings, pump & Danfoss for half the price.

The ESO or Danfoss setup would keep the boiler pump running 24/7, keep the water in the jacket properly mixed and always above the 140 setpoint of the Danfoss, will allow the boiler water to run at higher temps for improved efficiency, recover faster, and with fewer thermal shock issues or corrosion potential.

 

[willyswagon]

Woodfarmer1

If you don't have something set up to ensure the boiler is receiving return water that is 140*, the boiler will chew through wood as it fights to bring it self up to temperature only to have it slapped back down by a gulp of cold water. Repeat over and over.

The best way to show what is happening is to set your oven to 425*. As it is heating up, time how fast it gets to 350*.
Now slam in a tray of frozen french fries and time how long it takes for the oven to struggle the last 75* to get to 425*.
The addition of the cold(water in your boiler, or fries in your oven), results in the inefficient operation of the heating device.

Mustash

Great info above, I believe version 2 is much later than #300 as I have #447 and mine is a V1.

The optimizer was not part of the original price quote from my dealer, but when he came to install it he put it on at no additional charge, as he said without it there was no warranty.
He said it was a cost of $380 that he would eat to ensure the system works properly.
I have changed the door handle to the upgrade kit.

I have drilled the air passages on both the left side of the boiler, and the lower air passage. These ports get cleaned once a month during the shoulder seasons.

I have also replaced the insulation behind my fire brick and placed my brick in such a way that I was able to caulk the upper brick edge with stove cement.
This stops any future creosote from going behind the bricks.

When I was looking into boilers, I spoke to the factory rep(Ben DeBrun), he walked me through the running of the boiler. Basically he stated run it hot and hard. Place enough wood in the boiler to bring things up to temp, and from there, figure how much wood you are going to need to put in the boiler so when you return there is just a bed of coals 4-6" thick left. Basically match load to demand.

If either of you need part numbers for you machines, I have the parts breakdown available to me.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

My serial # is 150 so it's one of the original, I will have to contact them again about the optimizer....

The good news is I have after 3 days satisfied the slab, I loaded last night at 10pm the slab temp was maintained at 100, the boiler was 166 this morning at 6:30, still burning and a full bed of red hot coals.

However I had to sacrifice heating the main floor turned the thermostat back to 67 last night, today I will only send heat to the slab and turn the main floor back on when I get home tonight to make sure the slab stays hot.

 

[maple1]

Good to hear some progress. Things should improve some now that you have things up to temp. Keep at the return temp thing though, I guess mustash's story about the history of his shows the bad that could come of it.

 

[mustash29]

Cliff notes:

The origonal owner of my unit developed a water leak. He put the house up for sale. The house failed inspection because the wood and oil boilers were sharing the same flue. Owner had the Empyre disconnected & sent out to ProFab to be refurbished under warranty. It came back with a stainless firebox liner, all new refractory brick, gaskets, etc. It is absolutely clean & spotless everywhere I can see (although I have not taken it all appart, removed the skins, etc) and returned the unit to the owner's walkout basement.

The home buyer had no interest in the Empyre & did not want to install another flue pipe. He had the old ailing oil boiler replaced with something new and had a Mega Stor MS40 indirect installed to the tune of 9000. He sold me the Empyre to help offset that "outstanding" plumbing bill.

The way I see it, I essentially got a brand new boiler, 30 plate HX, two 15-58 pumps and roughly 12 feet of "wood to oil" copper & fittings for about 35 cents on the dollar.

I'm still in the process of system planning & modifying my current arrangement (flue, oil system, etc). Funny how fast time passes when you are having fun, LOL.

 

[mustash29]

Woodfarmer1

The optimizer was not part of the original price quote from my dealer, but when he came to install it he put it on at no additional charge, as he said without it there was no warranty.
He said it was a cost of $380 that he would eat to ensure the system works properly.
I have changed the door handle to the upgrade kit.

I have drilled the air passages on both the left side of the boiler, and the lower air passage. These ports get cleaned once a month during the shoulder seasons.

I have also replaced the insulation behind my fire brick and placed my brick in such a way that I was able to caulk the upper brick edge with stove cement.
This stops any future creosote from going behind the bricks.

When I was looking into boilers, I spoke to the factory rep(Ben DeBrun), he walked me through the running of the boiler. Basically he stated run it hot and hard. Place enough wood in the boiler to bring things up to temp, and from there, figure how much wood you are going to need to put in the boiler so when you return there is just a bed of coals 4-6" thick left. Basically match load to demand.

If either of you need part numbers for you machines, I have the parts breakdown available to me.

Dealer eating 380 for customer satisfaction. That is a good man right there

Please explain this drilling of air passages. I have not heard of this. Maybe it is not required with the stainless liner?

I do not believe I have insulation blankets between the firebox wall and brick. I'll have to check into that.

My local dealer origonally sold my unit, and was involved with the warranty refurbishment process. Unfortunately, he is no longer an Empyre dealer and no longer the North East sales rep from what I understand. "Business decision" were the only words he mentioned. He did recommended I purchase the unit at the price range of what the seller was asking. He also said to plumb the boiler properly, keep up with water chemistry, and load it according to heat demand. It likes to run. It can idle, but we all know that avoiding idling is best. I don't think anyone has anything bad to say about storage.

I think I should have a chat with this Mr. Ben DeBrun to find out any particulars of my unit.

 

[willyswagon]

My serial # is 150 so it's one of the original, I will have to contact them again about the optimizer....

.

Also ask about the air gate upgrade, and for the information on the air gate clening procedures.
Also ask them to send you the diagram showing where to drill the air passage to keep it clean and improve air flow.

Ben is a great source of knowledge on these units.

 

[pelletdude]

Dealer eating 380 for customer satisfaction. That is a good man right there

Please explain this drilling of air passages. I have not heard of this. Maybe it is not required with the stainless liner?

I do not believe I have insulation blankets between the firebox wall and brick. I'll have to check into that.

My local dealer origonally sold my unit, and was involved with the warranty refurbishment process. Unfortunately, he is no longer an Empyre dealer and no longer the North East sales rep from what I understand. "Business decision" were the only words he mentioned. He did recommended I purchase the unit at the price range of what the seller was asking. He also said to plumb the boiler properly, keep up with water chemistry, and load it according to heat demand. It likes to run. It can idle, but we all know that avoiding idling is best. I don't think anyone has anything bad to say about storage.

Good Luck with the new boiler - the boiler does have insulation behind the bricks. Put in a Danfoss Valve if you don't have the Optimizer - Don't remember if you got one. Run it hot and it will be good.

 

[pelletdude]

Good Luck with the new boiler - the boiler does have insulation behind the bricks. Put in a Danfoss Valve if you don't have the Optimizer - Don't remember if you got one. Run it hot and it will be good.

 

[willyswagon]

My serial # is 150 so it's one of the original, I will have to contact them again about the optimizer....

The good news is I have after 3 days satisfied the slab, I loaded last night at 10pm the slab temp was maintained at 100, the boiler was 166 this morning at 6:30, still burning and a full bed of red hot coals.

However I had to sacrifice heating the main floor turned the thermostat back to 67 last night, today I will only send heat to the slab and turn the main floor back on when I get home tonight to make sure the slab stays hot.

Now that you have your slab to temp, I find it best to set it and forget it. I run the garage about 12-15* C in this weather( presently -17*C, with light winds WSW 20 - 35kph).
Last night I pulled the car in about 1000, loaded the boiler full, set the garage to 15* to ensure the car was fully dry for today, ensured the main level was set @ 20* and the upper @ 18*( wife and kids like it cool to sleep).
Got up at 600 this morning, bumped up the heat upstairs to 20*, went out to stir the coals in the boiler, only to find that I misjudged the heat demand, as there is about 18" of coals/ charcoal left in the boiler. I won't ad anything until lunch.

Get a hold of Ben at Pro Fab and ask about modifications to the boilers as mentioned above, put on the low temp water protection and enjoy!

 

[Woodfarmer1]

well it was short lived, woke up this mornign to 58 in the cathedral end and 64 in the center of the house. the temp of the interior water was down to 80 and the boiler read 160 but the snap disk had shut the pump off in the night as it was cold. the basement stayed at 79.

this is part of the problem a large cathedral space 25x32 with 20' sidewalls height and 32' floor to peak with lots of windows. it has hickory engineered flooring with the pex in the floor joist and insulated with 4" pink fiberglass.

i now will have to wait for the experts to get here or turn the propane boiler on cause this ain't workin

 

[maple1]

Whoa - that's a big heat load.

Some nice though.

 

[mustash29]

Beautiful room, but that seems like an awfull lot of heat loss hurting you there.

The boiler has an over temp protection snap disc near the temp probe and fan that requires a manual reset if it trips. Is that one staying "on" ok for you?

It sounds like the pump snap disc is shutting off, correct? If it trips the pump off it should also restart the pump when the boiler recovers. Is your pump cycling off & back on or shutting off and staying off?

If it is staying off, there is most likely a problem with the snap disc.

If it is cycling off & on a lot, then it is like we said above, the slugs of cold return water are drowning the boiler in cold water. This will cause a loss of thermal efficiency, possibly a loss of quality gassification and low BTU output similar to if you were burning wet wood.

Also similar to if your car thermostat fails or sticks open, fuel MPG (km's per gal) will drop because the computer will never go into closed loop operation and look at the O2 sensor in the exhaust to fine tune the fuel injection, and the heat won't get hot.

Again, this is where the 24/7 pump and thermostatic valve will help. The boiler water will stay mixed up, the boiler should run more efficiently and gassify better and make good BTU's. Once it is happy the thermostat valve will slowly admitt heat to the building and slowly mix those cold returns back into the boiler. Similar to the radiant concept, it will take a while and several long burns but once everything is up to temp it should maintain better.

How is the boiler firing? Is it running hot and clean? Are your HX tubes plugging up frequently? Is is chewing through wood or leaving you with a nice coal bed after X hours?

Now that your slab is up to temp what about running the propane to get the house up, then see if the wood can maintain everything at the desired temps?

 

[maple1]

Is this the first winter for you in the house? If not, what has your past heating input been? Amount of fuel and/or total cost/unit cost might give a rough idea of heat load. There's gotta be a lot of chill from all that glass.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

snap disc appears to be working as it should . Last night I plugged the pump into the wall and let the boiler circulate all night.
this is a brand new build so i have no information to reference

My heating guy stopped by tonight, part of the problem he says is that I'm getting 175 * water at the manifold that we have to temper down below 130* to protect my floors so this may be affecting my flow rates.

 

[maple1]

Not sure I'm clear - is he saying there's not enough flow through the floors?

If so that kind of speaks poorly of the heating system design and isn't really a function of the boiler. Although I think we've figured your boiler could be improved on. Also not sure I'm understanding how the manifold supply temp impacts flows through the floors - floor flow should be steady, changes in input temps should just impact how much of that input water gets sent through the zone vs how much gets sent back to the boiler via the tempering valves, to maintain constant zone temps.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

Last night we turned all the pumps on high, which increased the flow and everything warmed up. The boiler has been running full out for a week, at night the temp and thermostats are all satisfied and by 6:30 am all the heat is sucked out of the boiler.

Turned on the propane boiler last night, the aqua stat is set at 120, so it never came on.

Profab thinks my heat loss calcalculation of 40 k is about half what it should be.

Heat contractor says no way heat loss is correct and hopefully this week the dealer will be here to make sure the boiler is firing correctly.

 

[henfruit]

How many sg. feet are you heating. With a room like that radiant is going to have a hard time to keep up in a real cold snap. I doubt you have enough sq feet of radiant to satisfy that large of a cube. If you had 8 or 9 foot ceilings it would be a whole different situation. I Have room with the same situation. Seven floor to ceiling windows, plus top bow window and cathedral ceiling. On clod weather done around 10f I can not keep that room warm. I have added insulating shades that have helped.

 

[henfruit]

After rereading the post your house is 3200 sg. feet. That boiler is not big enough for your heat load when trying to get a 10 to 12 hour burn.

 

[maple1]

I think there are mutliple fundamental problems here.

Firstly, I don't think your distribution system is adequate for your heat load. You need more radiation. I would be questioning the designer of your heating system. No matter what you have to generate the heat with, it won't do you any good if the distrubtion won't get it to where it's needed faster than it is being lost to the outdoors.

Secondly, I don't think the Empyre might not be big enough for the heat load.

Have you done any measuring of floor temperatures yet? Have you done your own heat loss calc? There are online programs you can use to do that with. Is that 40 you mention yours, or your heating guys?

EDIT: Henfruit beat me to part of that. I missed the 3200 too. With that much area, and that room configuration pic you posted (very beautiful room though), I'd say both inadequate system design, and maybe too small of a boiler. But the boiler should be able to heat the house if it's kept fed steadily, and if it's working right.