Switch to portage and main or keep my central boiler

[hondaracer2oo4]

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

 

[chumscustoms]

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.

 

[chumscustoms]

I know

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

 

[woodsmaster]

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

 

[chumscustoms]

I know

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

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

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

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

Green wood?

 

[chumscustoms]

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.

 

[chumscustoms]

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

 

[chumscustoms]

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

 

[MarylandGuy]

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..

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

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.

 

[maple1]

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.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

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

 

[chumscustoms]

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.

 

[chumscustoms]

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.

 

[chumscustoms]

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.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

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?

 

[chumscustoms]

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

 

[heaterman]

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.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

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

 

[ihookem]

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.

 

[Pat32rf]

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...