ThermGuard installed today!

macman said:

Installed the ThermGuard today, and it worked exactly as advertised. I set the unit to cycle the burner on every 3 hours for a 6 minutes. It's nice that it has an on-off switch too. I don't need the burner to come on now, so I turned it off, and when the weather gets a lot colder (near 32), I can just flip the switch and I'm protected...Yippee!

Now I can also set the thermostat for those rooms lower than what I had in the past (55), and save some $$ on that expensive oil I had to buy at $4.19/gal in August.....between the pellet stove and the ThermGuard, I wonder how long I can go before I have to put any oil in the tank? (it's a 550 Gal, filled in middle of August and now just is used to heat a Bock indirect h2o water heater).

Thanks to John from Bear Mtn for the technical advice.

Click to expand...

Glad to help you stick it to the man, lets all save some oil and keep the bucks in the USA!

Cheers,
John Walsh

www.bearmountaindesign.com
"Spend a buck on oil, natural gas or electricity and you feed a corporate giant. Spend a buck on firewood and you feed a neighbor. Save a buck by heating with wood and you can spend that buck in your community. Heating with wood makes you richer in ways beyond counting." John Gulland woodheat.org

Sounds like a great product and easy install... I look forward to getting one as it looks like it's cheap insurance and would pay for itself really quickly.

pictures of the install?

Stupid question, if you have two zones and ran the second zone twice a day for your upstairs bedrooms, you still should look out for freezing pipes because of no use in zone 1?

Thnking about ordering this. Was it easy to install? Do I need a Plumbing/heating guy/person to do it?

If you look at the website they show install instructions on it...Pretty easy...

My plan for multiple zones is ...1st floor is 2 zones...I'm going to connect both valves to one zone...I can do that right at the boiler....Not worried about the 2nd floor...Daughter, her Husband and the grand babbies don't live up there anymore... :cheese:

So my stove is on the main floor, and my basement get's pretty cool during the cold nights. if I turn on the fan for the forced hot air, wouldn't the air it would be blowing out be cool, or is it offset by circulating the heat in the house from the stove.

I would be more interested in only circulating the water, not running the actual burner. That way the moving water wouldn't be able to feeze. Plus it would be moving thru the heated space which would warm it slightly too. Anyone know how to do that? Would need to run the circulating pump without running the furnace.

I would be more interested in only circulating the water, not running the actual burner. That way the moving water wouldn’t be able to feeze. Plus it would be moving thru the heated space which would warm it slightly too. Anyone know how to do that? Would need to run the circulating pump without running the furnace.

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If you are fairly decent with electricity...or control circuts...you could really just put a switch accross the C terminals on the burner control board....

kast said:

Stupid question, if you have two zones and ran the second zone twice a day for your upstairs bedrooms, you still should look out for freezing pipes because of no use in zone 1?

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Hi Kast,

You should worry about freezing in any zone that doesn't run. Especially if the heating pipes run close to an outside wall or unheated basement or attic. My problem in my home was that the main floor pipes froze when I ran my wood stove. The thermostat thought it was 70 degrees in the house so it never called for heat. My lower zone froze where it ran over an unheated garage.

I hope that helped!

Cheers,
John

davevassar said:

So my stove is on the main floor, and my basement get's pretty cool during the cold nights. if I turn on the fan for the forced hot air, wouldn't the air it would be blowing out be cool, or is it offset by circulating the heat in the house from the stove.

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Hi Dave,

If the air intake from the furnace is on the same floor as the stove, you should be OK. Of course, the cold air from the basement would also be displaced throughout the rest of the house, but if your stove can compensate by putting out more heat, your whole house should be heated more evenly.

Here is a quote from gooserider from: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/5077/

"We have found a reasonably satisfactory solution. Our house basically divides into 3rds. On one end is the living room third with the stove, which is totally open to the peak of the cathedral ceiling 24 feet up The other two thirds are two story with nominal 8’ ceilings - The second floor is the master suite, and a small loft area open to the living room. On the first floor is the kitchen / dining area that occupies the center third of the house, then two bedrooms and the main bath in the far third.

Underneath everything is a full basement, with an open area under the living room and kitchen thirds. There is a half bath, the furnace room and a storage room under the bedroom third. It is a beautiful house, but not a very practical one.

There are large passageways between the kitchen and living rooms, and the stairs to the 2nd floor and basement are very open. The first floor bedrooms are in a sort of “T” hallway.

The stove used to do a good job heating the living-room, dining area and master suite, but didn’t do much for the bedrooms. However I’ve gotten a ”Thermguard” from Bear Mountain Design, which is intended for addressing this sort of application. It is a little box that wires in across the fan terminals of your HVAC thermostat, and cycles the fan on a programmable basis. Since we’ve gotten the box, I typically see no more than 1-2*F difference between the living rooms and the bedrooms. As long as I stay on top of keeping the stove loaded, I can keep the house in the low 70’s.

Currently I have the box on its default programming of running the fan five minutes on and 15 off. Haven’t seen any real reason to change it.

(The box also advertises itself as useful in hot water systems for periodically circulating the water to keep if from freezing)

The downside is that I seem to be loosing more heat from the living room than I’m gaining in the bedrooms - It used to be the bedrooms would be in the low - mid 60’s, and the living room would be near 80. Now everything is closer to the 69-72 range.

I’ve been thinking about trying to play games with blocking off different registers and returns to see if I can focus the distribution a bit, but I haven’t decided which way I’m better off doing it - blocking the intakes in the living room and the registers in the rest of the house, or vice versa.

Gooserider"

Cheers,
John

Do you have to install the unit under your thermostat? Can it be installed in the basement? It seems that it needs to be wired in parallel with the thermostat contacts (r and w?). If it is that simple, I would think you could cut it into the thermostat cable anywhere. I don't think my wife would want me to have the box hanging under the thermostat, but if it has to be that way, it is better than having frozen pipes.

orangecrushcj7 said:

I would be more interested in only circulating the water, not running the actual burner. That way the moving water wouldn't be able to feeze. Plus it would be moving thru the heated space which would warm it slightly too. Anyone know how to do that? Would need to run the circulating pump without running the furnace.

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Hi OrangeCrush,

You could use a ThermGuard to do that as well. You would just need to add a relay with 110VAC going to your pump in parallel with the control from the boiler. When ThermGuard switched on the relay, only the pump would run, not the boiler. It is a little more messy to connect than just attaching to your thermostat. If you had your boiler set to come on for 2 minutes every 2 hours your system would only be running 1.67% of the time. That is not very much energy to forget about your pipes freezing. If you are interested, I could draw up a schematic for you. I think all the parts including the ThermGuard would be under $80.

ThermGuard: $63.00
Relay : $7.00 http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=Z184-ND
24VAC transformer: $6.29 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102701&cp;=&kw=transformer&parentPage=search
Wire: ?? whatever you've got.

I am currently on a business trip and won't return until Tuesday 11/04/08. My road computer doesn't have the software to create a schematic and convet to .PDF but let me know if you are interested and I can take care of it when I get back.

Cheers,
John

Mike J said:

Do you have to install the unit under your thermostat? Can it be installed in the basement? It seems that it needs to be wired in parallel with the thermostat contacts (r and w?). If it is that simple, I would think you could cut it into the thermostat cable anywhere. I don't think my wife would want me to have the box hanging under the thermostat, but if it has to be that way, it is better than having frozen pipes.

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Hi Mike,

ThermGuard can be placed anywhere. It doesn't have to go under the thermostat. It just needs access to the R and W wires for a hot water system or the R and G wires for a forced air furnace.

Cheers,
John

Thanks John

bridgerman said:

kast said:

Stupid question, if you have two zones and ran the second zone twice a day for your upstairs bedrooms, you still should look out for freezing pipes because of no use in zone 1?

Click to expand...

Hi Kast,

You should worry about freezing in any zone that doesn't run. Especially if the heating pipes run close to an outside wall or unheated basement or attic. My problem in my home was that the main floor pipes froze when I ran my wood stove. The thermostat thought it was 70 degrees in the house so it never called for heat. My lower zone froze where it ran over an unheated garage.

I hope that helped!

Cheers,
John

Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense, thanks!

ThermGuard: $63.00
Relay : $7.00 http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=Z184-ND
24VAC transformer: $6.29 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102701&cp;=&kw=transformer&parentPage=search
Wire: ?? whatever you've got.
Cheers,
John[/quote]


I have a 4 tap transformer mounted in my furnace for 12,16,18, and 24 vac..I would need a relay to handle the amperage of the blower..It is on a 15 amp circuit...It should be less than 10 amps..

Hiskid said:

ThermGuard: $63.00
Relay : $7.00 http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=Z184-ND
24VAC transformer: $6.29 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102701&cp;=&kw=transformer&parentPage=search
Wire: ?? whatever you've got.
Cheers,
John

Click to expand...

I have a 4 tap transformer mounted in my furnace for 12,16,18, and 24 vac..I would need a relay to handle the amperage of the blower..It is on a 15 amp circuit...It should be less than 10 amps..[/quote]



Hi Hiskid,
Yup...ThermGuard is only rated to drive a relay. The blower is 115 volts, not 24 volts so ThermGuard would use your 24 volts from the transformer and use a relay to switch the 115 volts to the blower. I'm not really clear on the question though. If you have a blower, you can just connect ThermGuard to the fan switch on your thermostat and not have to worry about anything else. The heating system will drive the blower when ThermGuard activates the fan on your thermostat.

Cheers,
John

I'm not really clear on the question though. If you have a blower, you can just connect ThermGuard to the fan switch on your thermostat and not have to worry about anything else. The heating system will drive the blower when ThermGuard activates the fan on your thermostat.

Cheers,
John[/quote]



You had a relay posted, I just need to find one to handle a little more amperage on the 110 side.The stat only has R/W...

God Bless you...Kim

kast said:

The house I just bought in May 08 heating system (oil-to forced hot water) is about 10 years old (house in close to 100) and I noticed it’s just an on/off no fan. what I was wondering is it the system you buy that determines whether it has a fan or is it the person installing not wanting to do extra work to add that. In addition, are all-newer system equipped for that feature, and what does it entail to add something like that? Better yet where does a fan actually hook-up, to the baseboards? Sorry to slam you with all the question

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Hi Kast,

A forced air system uses ducts to move heated air through the house. Your system, uses pumps to move hot water through the house. There are no air ducts and therefore no reason to use a fan to move the air. In a forced air system, there is a central location for the heat to be generated (the furnace) and the fan blows by a heat exchanger. It takes the heat from the furnace burner and transfers the heat to the air being blown by.

In a forced air system, there is an intake for cool air to be sucked into the blower. The cool air from inside the house is blown past the heating element and then blown out the ducts to warm the house.

ThermGuard is connected to the blower fan in this kind of system. It activates the fan without activating the heater. What happens in this case is that the wood stove in the house acts as the heating element. The problem is that the heat gets stuck in the room with the stove and can't get to the rest of the house. What ThermGuard does is to turn on the fan. This in turn sucks the warm air from the central part of the house and blows it by the inactive heater, through the ducts into the back rooms of the house. Thus, the whole house is heated by the wood stove. The back rooms are heated and the room with the stove is cooler.

It sounds like you have a baseboard hot-water heat system. There is no place for a "furnace fan" since the heating is already distributed to each of the baseboards in the rooms. No need for a fan to push air. This explains why there is simply an on/off control. If you want to move warm air around your house, you will need to use regular fans, like pedestal or box fans you would use during the summer. You have the same kind of heat I have in my house. I use a pesestal fan located right behind the stove to move the heat out and ceiling fans to move the heat between my upstairs and downstairs.

I designed ThermGuard to use for my heating pipes. It wasn't until I went to a friend's house and connected it to a furnace fan that I realize that this application was perfect and in fact, more broadly applicable. A run of pipe went through the ceiling of an unheated garage and the pipe would freeze in the winter. It would freeze because the thermostat for that zone was located in the same room as my wood stove. When I ran the stove, the thermostat never called for hot water in that zone so the water just sat in the pipes getting colder and colder until it froze.

With a ThermGuard attached to the thermostat, I have it set to call for 2 minutes of hot water every 3 hours, not matter what the thermostat thinks the temperature is. The water not longer sit long enough to freeze and my problem was solved.

I hope you don't mind, but I would like to put this information into the forum since other people may have the same question and it has taken me a while to type all this in.....whew!

Cheers,
John

John,

Thank you for your response, I see you put a lot of time and detail into it, and I really appreciate it.