Owners of new stoves some other things to consider, If you have FHW heating system.. Read on to my f

For most of us the cold has not arrived yet. Most will try to get the most heat out of their stove effectively shutting down your forced hot water zone or zones.
Have you thought about some sort of freeze protection. Many times hotwater pipes are routed in exterior walls and at times threw overhangs.
If the water is not circulating, all it takes is one sliver of cold draft to freeze your pipes. Since you burner cycles far less, water will be sitting in your pipes with
out movement a lot longer. It is possible these freezing condition existed but circulation never allowed the exposure time to freeze your pipes
In comes that wood stove, it is so effecient heating the zone it is set in, that it the thermostat rarily calls for heat.

There are three know ways to adviod freeze ups,
One would be to install a freeze alarm to warn you ahead of time freeze condition have deen detected.
The second way to prevent freezing pipes it to charge the system with antifreeze
Third, find the temp setting of the thermo that allow enough flow to prevent freezing. This will take time and experimentation and is not as fail safe as the other two
Having auto setback thermostats and wood stove really increases your chances of freeze ups.

Knowing the sounds made by normal burner opperation can also alert you. IF you hear loud banging pipes noises, That is from rapid expansion and contraction,
when hot water bumps into cold water and pipes. hopefully not frozen already.

I have to differ a bit with Eric the antifreeze I use it an RV type. Panadol is one brand, it is not all that toxic and made for these situations. The anti check valve is a good idea.
The place I differ is if your boiler is tankless it has a sepatate hotwater coil and should never get mixed into the domestic side. It is completely independant to your heating zones water
There are litmus type test strips, that can tell you the antifreeze concentrations and ph balance of your system. You only need to draw off a few onces to test it.

As for feeding a system, on a previeous post, I detailed how I did it with a submersiable pump resting in a 5 gallon bucket. The final result is I can pump and feed the zone to completely bleed it and just use the shutoffs and be done. I set my system up to be able to completely isolate zones and leave them fully charged. I do not have to drain the entire system to work on any of the plumbing. I am working on a pressurized antifreeze tank, to automatically charge the system in front of the variable feed valve I have a separate feed in for the tanlkless system. And I have no need of the backcheck valve, as the water supply to the variable feed valve is turned off with a ball valve.

About two weeks ago I detailed how I did this in a post answering NYsoapestove reply to colin More info on this can be found in the green room

a circulator bump idea is also a good solution .

People with forced hot air systems: You are not out of the woods here either If you stove shuts down a zone the remote reaches where kitchen sinks have plumbing in the exterior wall in the cabinets also can freeze. Dymanics of heating now has changed isolated remote water pipes are more suceptical to freezing. one might think about leaving vanity and under kitchen sink cabinet doors open.

so how do you know if a freeze situation is about to happen. I would place my hand under the fawcet the most remote from you heater (this is for the nights in a cold snap where it is going to get really cold and wiind also plays into it) and feel thee temps of the water you will sense when it is colder than normal both the hot and cold water. If I suspect it being too cold then I crack the fawcet to create some running water movement. again If I suspect the kitchen sink I will do the same type of hand feeling test. I would rather pay a little more on my water bill than pay thousands in water damage from a frozen pipe. I know some who have aimed a small electric heater at under the sink pipes.


this whole post is to make you aware things have changed and to start checking and monitoring the effects of change. Doing so can adviod thousands $$ in repairs


And I agree with the poster about pipe insulation its a two way street again circulation is the key to make the insulation effective to preventing freezing

Id start thinking of charging that system with anti freeze. There is know way to telling in advanced how exposed your system is to freezing. Especially exposed to periods
of long inactivity, as your stove carries the heating load. Once a day may not be enough. Are you planning to get up at 3:45 Am every day the temps drop below 15 degrees to circulate the system? I cannot tell you the nunber of times it needs to ciruclate to be safe. My home I have 30 years of getting to know what is up. Yours there is no history with the effects of the stove.
mine has frozen 4 prior times. Finally I got sick of chasing down freeze ups and installed antifreeze. My next step was ripping out plaster walls and ceilings, to find and re route pipes
Antifreeze was a cost effective solution

solution #1 install a freeze alarm it will tell you when you need to circulate that system some will allow you to remotely to call in and monitor your system even allow you to triger it
others will actually dial your phone to alert you and detected possible freeze up conditions

Agree common auto antifreeze will ruin you coil and is not to be used in your heating system RV type can

freeze alarms
http://www.freezealert.com/freeze_alarm_products.htm