Total newbie, completely fubar system.

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ColdInMichigan

ColdInMichigan

New Member
Jan 7, 2015
60
Lowell, Mi
Found this site in my attempts to figure out my new to me boiler. It is an Eko-Vimar circa 2005, gasification unit and is 40k btu I believe. This is outside and is used to heat the house that I just bought before winter. The system was crudely installed and in no way works properly. The hot water goes from the top of the boiler into the house and directly into the heat exchanger in the forced air furnace. Then it returns to the boiler via a pump. There are some plastic 55 gallon drums in the basement with pex tubing coiled inside them to be used as a heat storage battery but the water has to be manually diverted there with valves and an auxilary pump. When the temps here were around 40° outside, the system worked well with those barrels were hot to the touch and I had 65°c boiler temps. Now that it is sub zero outside, the system cant keep up and the only way I have any heat at all is if I close off the battery valves and run straight thru the furnace. Even then my boiler temps are rarely above 45°c. I know there are supposed to be thermal valves and other devices in place but I don't know what to do and I have very little money to make this system work better so any help is greatly appreciated!!
Here is a crudely drawn picture of my setup.
Please don't flame me, I didn't install this system!! chitty boiler setup.jpg
 
The first thing you need is return water protection. You need to keep the water going into the boiler above a certain temperature or you get creosote buildup and acid that will eat your boiler. Bad things.

You will probably want a loading valve that has a pump and thermal protection built in, and install it next to your boiler.

There are other ways to do it so it might be cheaper, but they involve some tinkering. What is your comfort level with this sort of stuff?
 
Is a loading valve/pump something I can get at Home Depot or am I going to have to order it online? I live outside of Grand Rapids MI and cannot find anyone that has parts for these systems.
 
I'd try to bypass the hot water storage for the time being--at least until you get the boiler set up so that you can get reliably high temps. I think the rather crude storage system is just an unnecessary complication at this point.

Are you burning very dry wood, i.e., when was it cut and how was it dried and stored?

The EKO 40 is a good boiler and you should be able to make it work well with a minimum of modification, including the return water protection.

If you have Menards in your area, they have a really good, fully-stocked plumbing supply section that should have everything you'll need--once we figure that out.

If you're comfortable and handy with tools, you should have no trouble doing the work yourself. It ain't rocket science--at least not the way I do it.
 
The wood is the other problem. I only have access to wood that's been stored for 6 months. Just stored under a tarp outside. I've also been told by the guys at H2Oasis that my boiler isn't big enough for the space I'm trying to heat which is about 2200 square feet. The problem with running my system without the water storage is that when the furnace fan kicks on, my boiler temp goes down 20°c in 10 minutes. I can't get enough heat out of the little water in the system.
 
There are fancier, more expensive ways to do this boiler protection thing, but this has worked well for me for the past 8 heating seasons, and you can get everything you need at Home Depot or Lowe's or Menards.

Ignore everything but the areas identified. All this does is constantly mix water from the supply (teed off from the main supply in this case--the actual supply goes out through another pipe not visible in this photo) into the return, with the Taco 007 circulator running constantly. The aquastat is set at 160 degrees and won't allow water to circulate into the house system unless it is 160 degrees or warmer. That allows the boiler to maintain a minimum temp. You can use pex or black iron pipe instead of the copper shown here. I just had that big piece of copper and thought this would be a good use for it.

Depending on how well your house is insulated, I think you could heat it with an EKO 40. The wood is an issue, however. These things don't work well with anything but very dry wood. Cutting it in the spring to start burning in the fall is probably not going to cut it. Two years dry is best.

boilerprotection.jpg
 
The primary supply goes into the house heating system. The secondary supply simply tees off at the supply outlet so that hot water can be diverted to the return, as shown in the photo. You can do the same thing with a mixing valve, but this is probably cheaper and arguably easier to set up. This is all about keeping your return temps going into the boiler high enough to avoid thermal shock and the resulting damage to the boiler. It really has nothing to do with the rest of the boiler's operation, other than the aquastat keeps cold water from flowing into the system.
 
This might help. Note that the flow check in the pump keeps everything flowing in the right direction, i.e., into the return.

boilerprotection2.jpg
 
You won't damage your boiler over the short term by not doing this. If I were you, I'd get it working so that it heats your house before doing this. As I said, I think bypassing the "storage" component in your system might be very helpful. It sounds to me like a real inefficient heat sink that you really don't need to operate this boiler efficiently, and is probably sucking a lot of heat that would be better used directly. I have a bigger boiler (EKO 60) and I heat a 2,800 square foot, 1865-vintage farm house in a cold climate with no hot water storage. Heats it well, too. Last night I got up at midnight and loaded it up (cold night) and it was still at 180 degrees at 8:00 a.m.
 
ColdInMichigan said:
The wood is the other problem. I only have access to wood that's been stored for 6 months. Just stored under a tarp outside. I've also been told by the guys at H2Oasis that my boiler isn't big enough for the space I'm trying to heat which is about 2200 square feet. The problem with running my system without the water storage is that when the furnace fan kicks on, my boiler temp goes down 20°c in 10 minutes. I can't get enough heat out of the little water in the system.
Click to expand...

Who is H2Oasis?

The Eko 40 should be more than enough more than enough to heat 2200 square ft. I used a Econoburn 200 for 1 year without storage and it never had any problem heating my 2850 square feet in south central WI.

Dry wood is most likely your biggest problem with lack of heat recovery. Get a day or two worth of dry wood, and I mean dried for 2 or more years and see how it works then. The necessary bypass loop would also help maintain return temp of the boiler by blending boiler water with return.

The plumbing is a whole different issue. Get the EKO performing properly without the cobbled storage and then get it set up right for next year.

Look up Heaterman from this site and see if he is anywhere near you. If so you have one of most respected members on this site near by and you are a very lucky man.

gg
 
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See mine doesnt work like that. I could get 8 hours out of a full load but the wood jambs and if i dont go out every 2 hours to poke it it will stop heating. Might be good to meantion that the control unit on my boiler does nothing but display the temp.
 
ColdInMichigan said:
See mine doesnt work like that. I could get 8 hours out of a full load but the wood jambs and if i dont go out every 2 hours to poke it it will stop heating. Might be good to meantion that the control unit on my boiler does nothing but display the temp.
Click to expand...

That's because you're not burning dry wood. I bet you get blue smoke out of your chimney, too.
 
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Mostly steam when its running hot enough. My control panel does nothing to control the boiler either. All it does is display the temp. None of the knobs do anything except when the low fuel light is on i can turn it off by turning the know left then right. So basically, if i could get the temp up, i have no way of keeping it from boiling over.
 
The boiler control issue sounds like you might want to get that sorted out also.... But you may find that they do work once you can get your temps up.

Have you cleaned your tubes at all?

And having to poke the wood every few hours is due to wet wood. Been there, done that. Some pallet wood might help you out getting things going.

What shape is your boiler nozzle in?
 
Nozzle is rectangular still. I have cleaned the tubes, 3 out of 6 were completely clogged. When it was warmer out, i managed to max out the temp on the boiler, thats how I know the controls dont work. Display only goes to 99° celcius and it was there. The pump I have is wired hot and has a manual speed control on it. High medium and low.
 
Trying to maintain boiler temp. with the pump running steady and no return temp. is like running a car in cold weather with no thermostat in it, very hard to get up to operating temperature.

If you could get the controller the turn the main pump on and off, and had some means to control the fan in the furnace plenum, you might get by until you can get things sorted out.
Do you have the manuAL for the controller?
If not you can find one on New Horizons website.
 
I got one from a website and it doesnt go into detail how to wire up that controler or really gow to use it and it was in poorly translated polish to english.
 
Sounds like im just totally boned here. Need a new pump, a return temp device, and all my wood is worthless. Awesome. Is there anyone from the Grand Rapids MI area that can come out and have a look? I will provide beer!!
 
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