My wife needs me again.

My wife's no stranger to heating with wood. I told her just make sure the bypass damper gets closed all the way, every time.

Yes, women are truly wonderful!

chuck172 said:

I'm trying to explain our new heating system to my wife. I must admit, it's technical. Aquastats, circulator pumps, zone valves, check valves, 3-way mixing valves, manual vents, auto vents, Relay boxes, relays and more relays, temp. gauges, relief valves, water make-up, expansion tanks etc etc etc.
Maybe one day it will be a plug and play system, but for now I feel important. Like I'm the only one with the combination to a safe!
My wife looks at me a little different now. It's that please keep me warm this winter look.

Click to expand...

yes, this cutting edge DIY wood heatin' stuff is like getting to be a mad scientist for a good cause

chuck172 said:

I'm trying to explain our new heating system to my wife. I must admit, it's technical. Aquastats, circulator pumps, zone valves, check valves, 3-way mixing valves, manual vents, auto vents, Relay boxes, relays and more relays, temp. gauges, relief valves, water make-up, expansion tanks etc etc etc.
Maybe one day it will be a plug and play system, but for now I feel important. Like I'm the only one with the combination to a safe!
My wife looks at me a little different now. It's that please keep me warm this winter look.

Click to expand...

When my wife looks at me like that she thinks I'm nuts........

Mike

z

My wife is used to wood stoves but not wood boilers. So I made it really clear...if you treat it like a wood stove and overfill it you will roast to death in the house when the dump zone opens up. I put on a Maverick ET-73 wireless temp probe and that made it much easier. She's learned to understand that water needs to be 140F to 200F. They are trainable, but if you get too technical their eyes glaze over and you're not going to help them understand at all!

Yes, it is for a grill/smoker. It works great. I put the "grill" probe on the feed/hot pipe and the "smoker" probe on the return/cold pipe. Saves a lot of running from the house out into the garage to check the temp & pressure gauge. When the water is circulating the "feed" pipe temp on the display is within 2-3 degrees of the gauge on the front of the boiler. It even has a temperature alert that I programmed. I have an alarm set at 205F, and my aquastat on the dump zone override is set for 210F. This way I get a warning 5 degrees before the first floor gets warm so I can perform an intervention on the draft and damper controls and prevent heating the house up. Like I said, it works great.

All my wife says about anything I talk about is "How much will it cost ?" My answer is usually "this is how much we can save " She believes I should check myself in for a 30 day observation.
Will

the remote thermometer makes it easier for the wife to understand when she needs to feed the " princess " ,yea she named it, but its what gives her blazing hot showers so she deals with it. Works for me.

As my wife puts it there is "Dick" work and "Chick" work. I'm hoping to change that someday, at least with the heating system. Yah, right...that's another thing that will never happen!

My wife named her Connie (Econooburn 150). She loves the free heat though!!

she named it lug wood! thats all I ever do is lug wood. Honest to god, she lugs every stick. she agreed 29 years ago that if I would keep the home fires burning, she bless her heart would lug every stick of wood that I put in the stoves we have. I decided to give her some training today on Tarm operations in case I'm not there she may have to do the loading and start it up. I went through the procedures and started to tell her how it works and she said, tell me in simple terms what am I suppose to do to make it work? I explained, light fire, wait 5 minutes, close bottom door, close bi-pass damper, and turn on the fan. sweetheat

A gave up the explaining a while back. I figured i'd just take care of the heat, she does all the close washing-etc. Then I got ill for a few days. Could barely talk her through how to load the boiler properly. I got up enough strength to look out at the chimney stack and see what looked like a mack truck muffler trying to climb a steep hill.
It pays to ease her into learning the sytem.

I'm laughing my ass off reading these posts. It sounds we're all married to the same woman!

My wife said it was way too complicated and that no normal person (I'm obviously wood boiler-obsessed) could possibly figure out how to operate it. So I wrote her a manual. The first page is called "how to start a fire". It's nice and simple and does not cause the glaze-over effect. Then comes the system diagrams and operational overview that she could read optionally if she really cared to. It was still too complicated. When it came time for me to travel, I found it much easier to show my 15year old son how to run it. I showed him once before I left and then he followed the instructions on his own. No problem. Anyway, the wife never ventured down into the "mole hole" all winter. So everyone was happy!