The Tarm is working...the house is warm...at long last!

[MrEd]

Hi all, just had to report that my tarm is finally giving me heat instead of emptying my wallet.

Had an aborted first burn yesterday when some leaks popped up, but after some messy cleanup and blowing out the lines and re-doing, I have got heat in all 5 zones and a happy wife and kids with warm bedrooms (I didn't buy *any* oil this year, and it was getting cold at night).

I have more to do, monitoring and control logic to make things a bit more automatic, and then getting my tank on-line (its about 50% ready), but I am just going to enjoy the heat for a few weeks before I start phase two.

Many, many thanks to everyone on this forum. I really couldn't have done it without the wealth of knowledge on hearth.com

Ye-hah!

 

[Eric Johnson]

That's a great feeling in more ways than one. Congratulations on your success, and thanks for participating here.

 

[jebatty]

How sweet it is!

 

[sweetheat]

way to go! another clean burner. Tomorrow is the day for me. I too will fire up my tarm for the first time. Expensive, but I'm sure it will pay back very soon. I plan to post pictures. Because of my Guinea pig install, my plumber is the new dealer for tarm/bioheatusa in this area. He just sold another tarm for the 2 frames were building now. sweetheat

 

[Nofossil]

That first fire sure is gratifying - congratulations!

I'm going into my fourth season now, and I can say it's still a great feeling. My investment is totally paid off, my house is warm, I have infinite hot water, and I'm saving a couple grand every year on the oil that I'm not buying. Glad I invested at least some money in this rather than putting it all in the stock market. I expect you'll be able to say the same a few years down the road.

 

[chuck172]

Congratulations Ed. I've been wondering about you. I'm glad it went well for you. Next you have to start on storage. Get that propane tank going.

 

[MrEd]

Storage won't be hard for me. Tank is already prepped, tappings all done, and rough plumbing is in. I've also built a frame for it just need to insulated and hook up the pipes....holdup is the 86Gallon expansion tank I ordered a month ago from pexsupply...

 

[chuck172]

Did you decide to go with one 500 gallon tank Ed? I thought in the beginning you were figuring on two.

 

[NHFarmer]

Congrats on the firing,glad to here you got your leaks fixed.It sure is a good feeling having a nice warm house.

 

[MrEd]

Did you decide to go with one 500 gallon tank Ed? I thought in the beginning you were figuring on two.

I am going with just the one for this year. Maybe forever it it goes well. I got my hands on two of them, but one was really old and corroded and was a longer thinner tank with odd fittings - so I passed on it. I have a feeling that one tank will be plenty for this winter.

Snow on the ground this AM...didn't get my boiler hooked up one day too soon.

 

[Birdman]

Congrats Mr. Ed. i have been following your progress. My tarm 40 is going to be installed starting Monday.( promised to me by the plumber) I am nervous. I think I have finally decided to just go with tthe Tarm Direct Install layout. Does anyone want to talk me into the other layouts? Positves or Negatives of each? I am anxious to get it going... I saw that snow out in northern NY and Western MA.... It feels like winter today where I am for the first time. It is 30 or lower at night and 40ish during the days. Sounds like good weather to have my tarm going! I am a bit jealous that everytime I read now someone else is up and running!

 

[NHFarmer]

I used the Tarm layout and have been happy so far.Only problem to date has been some ghost flows when the circ. on the boiler is running.I only used the check valves in the circ.pumps.I will probably end up installing real flow checks at some point