I,m having trouble with my tarm. Can,t seem to get it quite right. Been doing lots of reading and you guys are great! Learned alot but...... heres the deal. got 500 gallon storage tank right next to tarm MB-55 (140,000 btu) laddomat to fill tank 1 1/4 close pipe from boiler to tank. Using 1" al-pex pumping 250' to house load. running a circ loop from storage tank to mechanical room where zones pull from there if calling then back. Couple problems though. My laddomat doesn,t seem to want to charge tank very fast.. at least i don;t think so (all day to raise temp 100 degrees) (from 60 to 160) Next my loop to house and back seems to drain my storage too fast. I have a b&g pl-36 pump on it. I know thats alot of pump. Because i changed some pipng and thats what i had. Question is can i regulate this thing down a bit or? Thnks for the help in advance. Tom
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How long does it take to charge your storage if you have no load on it?
Can you run the circ that pushes from your tank into the house and back without a load? If you have a thermometer, see what the difference is between the supply and the return temps to figure out what you are losing into the ground. How is your buried piping insulated?
You may very well be able to throttle your pump if its too much of it, but a schematic diagram of your system would go a long way towards everyone here offering assistance.
Can you run the circ that pushes from your tank into the house and back without a load? If you have a thermometer, see what the difference is between the supply and the return temps to figure out what you are losing into the ground. How is your buried piping insulated?
You may very well be able to throttle your pump if its too much of it, but a schematic diagram of your system would go a long way towards everyone here offering assistance.
Tryin to load picture. It is 250' one way to house. The pipe shows no heat loss at all from house and back with no load. Course it is 60 degress out right now, but still no loss in 500' is impressive. Insulated and in 4" drain tile. I think i,m pumping way more water than can be used with PL-36 pump. then when returned of course it goes to bottom of tank. Then there goes my storage rather quickly. I'm trying to heat 3,000 sq. ft. house with 1,800.00 sq. ft basement all radiant. well insulated. (new biuld 3 years ago.) I am a builder so i can tell you for sure the envelope is good. I.e. windows, insul, ect. My heat loss calc says i need approx 36,000 btu rate per hr. and when shop running another 23,000 for a total of 59,000 btus. So i do not see a problem getting those numbers and still have some to put into storage at full load. Prob is its not working that way. it takes all day to replenish tank with no load!
Gasifier
Minister of Fire
I am not sure what your system has, do you have return boiler protection bypass valve? I found that mine was taking to much of the boiler output and not sending enough to the storage tank. And this was not necessary. Have you tried to adjust the feed into the bypass valve? After I cut mine back a little it made all the difference in the world. Tank temp came right up to boiler temp and now I can have them both running at 170 with no problem. Of course it is not to cold right now. It will be very interesting when it is -10 °F and three zones are calling for heat at the same time. We will see. Let us know what you try and what you learn. Good luck.
Yes i have a ladomat loading valve. just don't seem right to have to fire all day to load one 500 gallon tank with no load on it.
Thats a LONG run, but you certainly have a lot of pump to work with. Probably not the ideal choice from an energy efficiency standpoint, but I hear ya, its what you had.
At a 20 degree delta, you are looking at around 6 GPM to satisfy the load you mentioned. Your pump is probably putting out a LOT more than that depending on what else is in your system.
The right way is to get a smaller pump that is better suited to the load, but the easy way would be to install a valve to add some head to the system.
Could be your flow through storage is too high and is ruining your stratification. Or could be like Gasifier said and you are not sending enough water to storage. Time to play with some stuff and see what happens.
At a 20 degree delta, you are looking at around 6 GPM to satisfy the load you mentioned. Your pump is probably putting out a LOT more than that depending on what else is in your system.
The right way is to get a smaller pump that is better suited to the load, but the easy way would be to install a valve to add some head to the system.
Could be your flow through storage is too high and is ruining your stratification. Or could be like Gasifier said and you are not sending enough water to storage. Time to play with some stuff and see what happens.
The long distance from your storage tank to your house (250') should not have anything to do with the fact that it takes a long time to heat up your 500 gallon tank.
What size laddomat do you have? What speed is the pump on the laddomat set to (slow, medium, fast)? Is this a brand new installation? What is the species and moisture content of your firewood?
I have an effecta lambda 35 (122,000) boiler and 1,000 gallons of storage and fired things up a few weeks ago.
I was able to raise my 1,000 gallons from 70 to 160 with 3 loads of the boiler (approx. 15 hours) with no load going to the house.
When you say it takes a long time to charge the 500 gallon tank, exactly how long is it taking?
I live just a little north of you in East Jordan, MI and could come down and look things over if you were interested.
Thanks,
Brian
What size laddomat do you have? What speed is the pump on the laddomat set to (slow, medium, fast)? Is this a brand new installation? What is the species and moisture content of your firewood?
I have an effecta lambda 35 (122,000) boiler and 1,000 gallons of storage and fired things up a few weeks ago.
I was able to raise my 1,000 gallons from 70 to 160 with 3 loads of the boiler (approx. 15 hours) with no load going to the house.
When you say it takes a long time to charge the 500 gallon tank, exactly how long is it taking?
I live just a little north of you in East Jordan, MI and could come down and look things over if you were interested.
Thanks,
Brian
I'm running a lado 21. on fast 3 speed. burning a mixed hardwood fuel thats a little wet. I did run this system last year but i had 2,000 gallons of storage and no way could heat it. so i did piping changes and down to one 500. thats where i,m at. Thanks brian. That would be great if you wanted to take a look sometime. any input would be greatly appreciated. this thing is drivin me crazy. BUT I will win!
Slow down your lado from 3 to 2. See if that helps charge your tanks. Lower flow rate will increase the temp rise of water through the boiler.
Is it a Laddomat 21-60 or 21-100?
Also, I have been invloved in the design and installation of several gasification boiler systems in my Northern Michigan area and have determined that for a 35 or 40 kw boiler, 1,000 gallons of storage works best. The 1,000 gallons is able to accept 90% of the btu's that one boiler load of wood can produce (thus preventing the boiler from going into idle mode-where it is least efficient and produces the greatest emissions) and also allows the user to fill the system once per day on normal, 20-30 F days. Of course when it gets below 0 F the boiler needs to be filled with wood more often.
Brian
Also, I have been invloved in the design and installation of several gasification boiler systems in my Northern Michigan area and have determined that for a 35 or 40 kw boiler, 1,000 gallons of storage works best. The 1,000 gallons is able to accept 90% of the btu's that one boiler load of wood can produce (thus preventing the boiler from going into idle mode-where it is least efficient and produces the greatest emissions) and also allows the user to fill the system once per day on normal, 20-30 F days. Of course when it gets below 0 F the boiler needs to be filled with wood more often.
Brian
tried that. in theory sounds good but.... When i have a load on this it will not keep up let alone have enough left to put into storage
I forgot to ask a basic question. Is your system running as a pressurized system (closed system) with no heat exchanger in system or is it running as an open system with heat exchangers involved?
Thanks,
Brian
Thanks,
Brian
is pressurized. and the lado is lado 21- ? not sure other than 21. it's the older model with grunfos pump.
In response to my 1,000 gallon post and your comments, are you saying that when your Tarm is running and your house is calling for heat you are unable to raise the temp in the storage tank and supply enough heat to meet your demand? If so, there is something really, really wrong hear.
From what you have said originally, your Tarm is rated at 144,000 BTU/hr and your house/shop has a 60,000 btu load consumption. Thus, this tells me that you should be able to raise your tank temperatures at the same time you are supplying BTU's to your house.
Do you have temperature gages on your tank? I have an Azel digital temperature gage (with re-settable memory) that allows me to see exactly how much my tank temperature has risen during the course of a burn with my effecta boiler. (I have temp probes at the top, middle and bottom of the tank). These gages have been very helpful in determining the most efficient settings of my effecta lamnda 35 boiler system.
Thanks,
Brian
From what you have said originally, your Tarm is rated at 144,000 BTU/hr and your house/shop has a 60,000 btu load consumption. Thus, this tells me that you should be able to raise your tank temperatures at the same time you are supplying BTU's to your house.
Do you have temperature gages on your tank? I have an Azel digital temperature gage (with re-settable memory) that allows me to see exactly how much my tank temperature has risen during the course of a burn with my effecta boiler. (I have temp probes at the top, middle and bottom of the tank). These gages have been very helpful in determining the most efficient settings of my effecta lamnda 35 boiler system.
Thanks,
Brian
Yes that is exactly what I;m saying. cannot raise temp or even hold it with load on it. I too have the azel on top and bottom of tank with a thermometer in middle in well. So i can watch all data. that is how I know what is happening here without guessing.
Gasifier
Minister of Fire
Trazer,
Something else to try is something I discovered many years ago while burning in a wood furnace and also in my wood stove I have been using for the last five years. Try a load of smaller splits. (If you don't think it is a system problem.) You said your wood is a little wet.) The more surfaces on your wood, the hotter the fire will get. What size splits are you using? Try not using rounds at all. And try a mix of 60-70 percent smaller splits and 30-40 percent larger ones. That is one thing to try. Keep us up on what you are trying and how it is going. My wood stove and now my boiler heats up a lot faster with smaller splits. Later.
Something else to try is something I discovered many years ago while burning in a wood furnace and also in my wood stove I have been using for the last five years. Try a load of smaller splits. (If you don't think it is a system problem.) You said your wood is a little wet.) The more surfaces on your wood, the hotter the fire will get. What size splits are you using? Try not using rounds at all. And try a mix of 60-70 percent smaller splits and 30-40 percent larger ones. That is one thing to try. Keep us up on what you are trying and how it is going. My wood stove and now my boiler heats up a lot faster with smaller splits. Later.
It sounds like the Tarm maybe isn't being forced to work hard. I have a 21G on a 109,000 btu boiler & I can outrun the Lado pump easily, I'm thinking of installing a second pump with an aquastat. Did you pipe into the top of the tank with your Lado output? What shuts the Tarm down? reduced or stopping of fan, shutter? If you have a cold tank & a hot Tarm with it idling there is a flow problem. If that Tarm is going full out with dry wood & load disconnected the heat has to be going somewhere, Randytrazer said:
I am running the tarm wide open most times with bottom door open,...... to burn it hard as possible. Believe me I;ve had this thing hot! But the problem is it is not meant to run like that....I want to put wood in close door and walk away knowing I will have full tank or at least supply to load and i'm not getting that.
I got no answer. but 250ft run is not a problem. FYI. I started my Tarm up at 9pm at night. The house was offline for at least 2 hours. The outside temp was -10ish at first, got colder during the night, had a good 5 or 10mph breeze.. My 820 gals of storage was about 45/50 degrees. House was down to 55. Fired up wood boiler for the first time. House got back up to temp fairly quickly, and storage was next. Took about 14(of constant fire) hours to bring storage up, and still maintain house. On any given day i can bring storage from 110 to 165 in 3 hours. This is during summer when only heating for DHW. No answer for your problem, but info for you? BTW, my whole system was installed per Tarm's diagram with their parts. It was done this way because I know 'nothing about piping.
Pictures would help. Doesn't sound like you have dry wood running with the bottom door open or there is a chimney problem. Is something blocking your chimney? dead animal, creosote? If you have a good drafting chimney your boiler should go into meltdown with the bottom door open, Randytrazer said:
no block in chimney. Yes this will heat it up. I only do that when I;m right there to watch it. But that is the point. Should not have to do that.
You won't have to do that when you get some dry wood & proper chimney draft. Is that Tarm a natural drafting conventional boiler or a gasser? Randytrazer said:
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