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stayalert

New Member
Nov 18, 2011
13
Norwich, VT
just a few days away from filling and firing my new Solo Innova 50 with storage. Soon be putting the propane boiler on "back-up" duty. Been keeping our house at 50 degrees all Winter for years and are looking forward to bumping up the t-stats. I have learned a lot but have a lot more to learn.

Rob "stayalert" M
Norwich, VT
 
Welcome....there is an enormous amount of information here. Hopefully you are set with nice, dry wood....gassers do like dry wood. Do you have storage? Are you getting your wood ready for next season? Again, welcome.
 
I think (don't really know how much I'll burn yet) I'm set for wood this year and next. I have 2 400 gallon tanks for storage. I've read about the dry wood preference and should be able to accommodate that. I need to build my wood racks...I plan on building 2 rolling carts that are about 7' long x 40 inches wide x 6.5 feet tall....when one is emptied it will roll out a side door in the garage to be refilled and rolled back in the front of the garage - kind of hard to picture without a well....picture....
 
Welcome Aboard!

We, of course, will need a pic of this wife of yours, that allowed you to keep the house at 50 °F . Personally, I've never met one like that. She must be pretty special.

Happy burning :)
 
Brrrrr!

Last year I shut the house down for Christmas since I left state for a couple weeks. Came home late at night after a long 2days of flying and it was 50*. I was dead tired, could barely think and didn't want to mess with lighting a fire. I ended up sleeping in sweat pants/shirt and my arctic weather sleeping bag.
 
50* !!! Thats crazy. I've been keeping mine at 62* at night, and I wake up cursing the oil man! Just this morning I was cursing him again! I cant wait to get my gasser online, I am 1 day away. Just few control wires and I should be good to burn, then I will be keeping the stats as high as I can stand it. I told my family to break out the tank tops and flip flops!!
 
I've been slowly turning tip the heat over the past month to see if anyone noticed.....funny thing is this morning I woke up and it was like 50 again.....At ~6:30 last night I made connections between my new BLT control box and the old propane boiler.....I left the BLT switch off.....I went to the boiler room where the propane boiler was and immediately saw all of the zones in my house calling for heat, but the propane boiler was cold to the touch.....So all the circulators were running but they were circulating room temp water......turned the BLT to back-up only (no H20 in my Tarm yet) and everything is back to "normal" At least I had the foresight to disconnect the control for the new domestic hot water heater so that circulator wasn't spinning dry.....

Is there an FAQ for things NEWBS do things wrong? I probably could add a few......
 
You are going to love the Tarm Innova. I keep the living area temp at 74 during the day and 66 at night, been firing the Innova once per day up here in northern Maine - no oil, just wood. My ladies love the steady heat and lots of hot water. Be sure to insulate your water tanks well, so that they don't lose much heat.
 
I have a foil faced 3" fiberglass insulation "blanket" that came with the tanks I am finishing off for insulating the (2) tanks....Is that likely to be sufficient?
 
Amount of insulation depends in part on where your tanks are located. If in a heated space and you need/want some heat radiated off the tanks, then insulation might be less than otherwise. My 1000 gal tank is in a heated space (shop) with in-floor radiant. The tank is insulated R30+ (2" foam + 6"+ fiberglass) on inside walls and R60+ on outside walls and floor.
 
I let the t-stat drift into the upper 50's back when I was paying for heat. Now she doesn't get below 68 (as warm as I can stand to sleep in).

Welcome to the board and post some pictures of your system!

FWIW I insulated my tanks with 3" +/- of the cheapo pink foam insulation on the outside of my "box" and then I'd say 8-10" of fiberglass on the inside. More on top. I forget the exact number but I believe I lose about 10-15 degrees in 24 hours on the top if I don't touch the tanks for a day.
 
Once I get my system up and running I intend to live with it for bait to determine where I want to tweak it....My tanks are in a non-heated but insulated garage bay. Seems like the insulation of the storage system to a greater degree would pay back pretty quickly but like I said I haven't even had a fire yet so I want to see how she goes first....
 
stayalert said:
Once I get my system up and running I intend to live with it for bait to determine where I want to tweak it....My tanks are in a non-heated but insulated garage bay. Seems like the insulation of the storage system to a greater degree would pay back pretty quickly but like I said I haven't even had a fire yet so I want to see how she goes first....
Click to expand...

As long as the Tarm is not in any danger of being in below freezing levels, the more insulation on the storage tanks the less wood you will need to burn. Do you have an R rating for the 3" insulation? jebatty has good advice.
 
AroostookDave said:
stayalert said:
Once I get my system up and running I intend to live with it for bait to determine where I want to tweak it....My tanks are in a non-heated but insulated garage bay. Seems like the insulation of the storage system to a greater degree would pay back pretty quickly but like I said I haven't even had a fire yet so I want to see how she goes first....
Click to expand...

As long as the Tarm is not in any danger of being in below freezing levels, the more insulation on the storage tanks the less wood you will need to burn. Do you have an R rating for the 3" insulation? jebatty has good advice.
Click to expand...

does R8 sound right? I'll have to post some pictures....Having the Tarm freeze would be a bad scenario....
 
stayalert said:
AroostookDave said:
stayalert said:
Once I get my system up and running I intend to live with it for bait to determine where I want to tweak it....My tanks are in a non-heated but insulated garage bay. Seems like the insulation of the storage system to a greater degree would pay back pretty quickly but like I said I haven't even had a fire yet so I want to see how she goes first....
Click to expand...

As long as the Tarm is not in any danger of being in below freezing levels, the more insulation on the storage tanks the less wood you will need to burn. Do you have an R rating for the 3" insulation? jebatty has good advice.
Click to expand...

does R8 sound right? I'll have to post some pictures....Having the Tarm freeze would be a bad scenario....
Click to expand...

It would be unusual for the Tarm 50 to have the water freeze, since it is well insulated and has 48 gallons of water. Your pipes to and from it should also be insulated. The temp gauge on the front will tell you what that temp is. Good idea to get familiar with Celsius since the gauge has much more info on the dial than it does with Fahrenheit. If you have it in an unheated but insulated area It should be OK unless that area is quite large. My Tarm is in a small insulated room next to the house heated only by the Tarm. I keep an air temp gauge in the room and the lowest temp I have seen so far is 60 degrees Fahr.
R-8 on the storage is better than nothing, I have R-30. The more the water storage and piping is insulated the less wood you will burn. As you said, you can get things started and then add later.
 
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