Boiler Room Heat

If you figure that it would take a fair amount of time at below 32 deg temps to get the boiler room to freeze without heat if you are not firing the boiler. More than likely you would be ok for short periods. Its just the one disaster you can't afford. I was thinking that you could make some way of sending hot water back from your inside heat source to circulate through the boiler. I don't really know if people with remote setups consider this. What if you ran out of wood or just couldn't deal with it for an extended period? Perhaps an easy backup plan would be to install an electric heater in the room set to turn on say at 40 deg or so. If the room isn't that large and is well insulated, I'd say it would be good insurance. I guess you could consider antifreeze with an isolation heat exchanger in the house. Nothing is easy.

My two cents.

Mike

Basically the same thing I'm doing. I'm quite sure that I won't need any extra heat in the boiler room, while it's in service. But I'm putting an electric heater for backup.Or maybe a wall mounted propane heater. (Don't know about that one yet, got to think about it a little more) Just so if I go away a few days, I'll have a peace of mind, and so i don't have to bug the neighbors.

flyingcow said:

Basically the same thing I'm doing. I'm quite sure that I won't need any extra heat in the boiler room, while it's in service. But I'm putting an electric heater for backup.Or maybe a wall mounted propane heater. (Don't know about that one yet, got to think about it a little more) Just so if I go away a few days, I'll have a peace of mind, and so i don't have to bug the neighbors.

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Northern Maine feels like the coldest place on the planet-you'll need that heater.

Mike

Rich R. said:

I am in the process of piping up my new EKO 40 in an outdoor boiler room. I am closing off a section of my wood shed to be the boiler room and would like to know if I need to have any baseboard heat or will the boiler itself keep the room warm. The boiler room has a cement floor, is protected from the wind on two sides and will be very well insulated. The size is 6' by 9-1/2'. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rich

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Hi Rich, I have an EKO 40 in my garage and the garage only gets heat from whatever the boiler insulation leaks out. To prevent freezing you can use propylene glycol as an antifreeze to protect your system (I do not have a pressurized storage system or the antifreeze would bankrupt me). I have a secondary circulator pump with a manual aquastat by-pass switch and a ball valve set up that allows me to use my secondary as a primary pump and force circulation in my whole system. My primary and secondary pumps are both Taco 007. There is an air heat exchanger in my oil furnace plenum that is my only source of boiler heat for the home but when the boiler is off and the oil furnace is working, the exchanger acts as a "boiler" water heater to prevent my boiler from freezing when the secondary pump is set to manual. The oil furnace has to run a little longer to heat the home but it is my back-up heat source and mostly for freeze protection. The secondary pump is usually set to manual in the winter as a precautionary measure as moving water doesn't freeze as quickly as still water. Once I have my "open" thermal storage tank up and running I will have an even greater freeze barrier. Cave2k

steam man said:

flyingcow said:

Basically the same thing I'm doing. I'm quite sure that I won't need any extra heat in the boiler room, while it's in service. But I'm putting an electric heater for backup.Or maybe a wall mounted propane heater. (Don't know about that one yet, got to think about it a little more) Just so if I go away a few days, I'll have a peace of mind, and so i don't have to bug the neighbors.

Click to expand...

Northern Maine feels like the coldest place on the planet-you'll need that heater.

Mike

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Lived here all my life, I know the feeling. Coldest I've seen it on the thermometer was -54. That was about 14+/- years ago. But we haven't had a good old fashioned cold snap like that for a long time. I'm located in the southern end of "The County". I'm guessing that you(steam man) are up in the valley end of it?

flyingcow said:

steam man said:

flyingcow said:

Basically the same thing I'm doing. I'm quite sure that I won't need any extra heat in the boiler room, while it's in service. But I'm putting an electric heater for backup.Or maybe a wall mounted propane heater. (Don't know about that one yet, got to think about it a little more) Just so if I go away a few days, I'll have a peace of mind, and so i don't have to bug the neighbors.

Click to expand...

Northern Maine feels like the coldest place on the planet-you'll need that heater.

Mike

Click to expand...

Lived here all my life, I know the feeling. Coldest I've seen it on the thermometer was -54. That was about 14+/- years ago. But we haven't had a good old fashioned cold snap like that for a long time. I'm located in the southern end of "The County". I'm guessing that you(steam man) are up in the valley end of it?

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Actually I am in Millinocket. It doesn't get as cold as Caribou but it can hit some lows.

Mike

I am going to use a small electric raditor hooked in to one of thoose plug type theromstat that are often used for heat tape. The thermostat turns on at 35 degrees and off at 40 degrees.