raising my boiler temp.

[heaterman]

Euro heating limits: The reason you'll find most if not all European made equipment with an operating limt if around 175* is this. European standards for building and heating system design dictate that your building has to heat with no more than 167* water. This is done in the interest of system energy efficiency. It has been proven that the lower you can run your water temperature, the more efficient your system becomes. If you can't heat your structure with 167* water, your building needs more insulation or you don't have enough heat emitter installed. You can't raise the water temp.
They are a bit more serious about energy conservation than we are over here unfortunately.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Thanks for that excellent information, heaterman.

My system works fine with 70-80 degree water temps, as I found out the other day when it got below zero here. However, I'm more accustomed to temps in the 190-degree range. My impression is that it's more efficient to go with hotter water if you have a storage tank, or at least more practical, since you can stuff more heat in the tank.

In general, what do you recommend? Is it wise to try to outsmart the designers and try to eek a few more degrees out of our boilers, or should we learn to live within the design parameters? And if they use storage tanks in Europe, which I'm assuming they do, aren't they faced with the same practical challenge?

Anyway, I appreciate you straightening that out.

 

[barnartist]

Had to chime in on this old topic. I have my cpu sensor up at the water output pipe, and to get higher water I simply added a small bit of fiberglass insulation between the sensor and the pipe. My sensor probe was factory installed somewhere to the top of the boiler box, it was a terrible spot. You need to be really carful when making this change, because you can overheat if you use too much insulation. I have over heated twice in 3 years, one time I shut off the wrong valve and water could not move, it turned to steam and melted my pex right out of the eko. I have since plumbed with all black 1" pipe, and I overheated agian last month when My pressure was to low to move water. My water gauge showed I was up tp 260! talk about panic.
Anyway, I have run my water at about 190 for 2 years now, it really makes a difference.