eko 25 all hooked up but pump set up to run all the time.

My pump is set up to run all the time. I don't think this is good. My heating guy never hooked up a gassifier soI don't think he knows how. Is there a way to hook it up to the thermostat in the furnace? If so how do you dou this? could save some electricity and I don't like running water if it's not up to temp. Thanks, ihookem.

You can set it up to turn on when forced air turns on. I did this but then my DWH would not stay hot. I just wait till my tanks get about 130 and turn the pump on and let it run all the time.


See next post

Rob

There is actually a hook up for this in the Eko controller, when the temp hits 64 or 65*C it turns on the circ and the green indicator light and it turns it off at 60*C. My controller is the old style, maybe the newer has more options as to start and stop temp. This will protect the boiler from cooling down too much, but a Thermovar or other boiler protection system is also needed.

Henk.

Run the pump power circuit back to the controller on the EKO and it will turn the pump off and on and it will run all the time the boiler is hot.

Are we talking pump from storage to heat exchanger or pump on back of boiler?? If it is the one on the boiler it needs to be hooked up to the controller on the boiler.


see here http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/PDF/RK-2001UA-ENG1.pdf

Rob

mine is hooked to my controller it turns on when the boiler reaches a set temp as others have said it should not be circulating cold water into your poiler as it will slow down getting to working temp dramatically I would think not to mention the cold shock to the boiler which from what i read on the forum is bad for our boilers over the long haul.

I don't think it will hurt the boiler cause it runs the water all the time, cooling and heating fairly slow but exchanges the water every few minutes. Come to think of it if the pump is off and the water heats up in the boiler,then the temp hits 150 f or something then new clod water will enter the hot boiler. I think this is bad too. Come to think of it I might just leave it but any other thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

The first and biggest issue here is the boiler return temperature, or how hot is the water entering the boiler? You should have some sort of boiler return protection such that the water entering the boiler is NEVER less than 140-150°F, other than possibly when first firing the boiler up, and it hasn't started to put out water thats up to that temperature yet...

If you are getting regular return temps below 140°F, then you are on the fast track to boiler failure, in a way that will NOT be covered under the warranty! You must keep the boiler return temperatures above the condensation point at all times.

If you are getting return water at the right minimum temperature, you are best off with the water being close to that temperature, the colder the water entering the boiler (as long as it doesn't cause condensation) the more efficiently the boiler will transfer heat into it.

The ideal thing is for the water to enter the boiler at about 145°F and leave at about 170-180°F for most of the burn. If you are charging your storage tanks, the temps will probably go up as you do so, reaching your maximum storage temps at around the same time you run out of wood...

If you have a pump in the boiler protection circuit, that should come on as soon as the boiler starts to heat up; with the main pump coming on after the boiler starts making surplus heat. If the boiler protection loop doesn't have it's own pump, then the main pump should come on as the boiler warms up. Either way, the pump should then run until the boiler shuts down...

Gooserider

So in other words, you should never put cold water in a hot stove. I can see that, but if the pump is on all the time the water is only as warm as the stove. But it has been so warm there is no sense in keeping wood in all the time just to let it sit idle. The water temp said 78* this morning cause I didn't have a fire in since 6 pm last night. the house was 71* last night, this morning it was still 68*. Not much of a heat load. If I would have loaded it with wood at 10pm it would mostly be wasted so I let the water cool. I think letting the pump run keeps the water close to the same temp because Water temp is 9* cooler in the house than water in the boiler. Isn't this ok no matter what temp the water is.? I don't have storage yet. I forgot to mention this so I only have one pump.

Letting the boiler cool between fires is more or less OK - by the time the fire is going out, the wood has burned to the charcoal state and will have little or no moisture left in it to condense... While you will get a little bit of condensation on initial startup with a cold boiler, if you have a properly functioning protection loop, the boiler interior will warm up rapidly to the point where the metal surfaces are above the condensation point, largely before the fire has really started cooking huge amounts of water vapor and vapor-making fuel gases out of the wood, and before the small amounts that do condense have a chance to soak in and start really attacking the steel.

What you DON'T want is for the boiler return temp to go below the condensation temperature during the main part of the burn - This will cause the condensation of water vapor and other corrosive chemicals, mostly right at the point where the return water enters the firebox. The corrosive mix then attacks the steel and rusts it away from the fire side of the box - which is the readily identifiable failure mode. Since this is considered to be neglect / abuse, as you were TOLD in the manuals to maintain adequate return temps, it isn't covered under warranty.

The way the protection system is supposed to work, is that you should have a very short loop that goes directly from near the boiler's hot water outlet to near it's return, with some type of mixing valve or one of several different styles of "loading valve" that will take the hot water coming out of the boiler and split the flow between mixing just enough with the return water to make sure it's above condensation temps and sending the rest to the heating system (or storage tank) When you first start the boiler, 100% of the output water, or close to it, will get cycled back to the inlet; and none will go to your system. As the boiler warms up it will start sending more and more hot water out to the system, and start warming it up, which eventually starts warming the water returning to the boiler. As the water returning warms up, it needs less hot mixed with it, so the ratio keeps climbing until, once the return water is above the condensation point, the protection loop shuts off, and effectively 100% of the boiler output goes to the system. The idea is very much like the thermostat that controls the coolant flow in your car's engine, though the reasons for doing it are slightly different. The big difference is that while not having a thermostat will probably make your car run worse, it won't destroy your engine, however it WILL damage your boiler....

Gooserider

I don't thimk I have a mixing valve. A heating man hooked it up. I will ask him about it and show him in the manual. I don't think I got a manual. .Can I down load it? Thanks goose.

Yes, definitely sounds like something you need to find out about quickly... As to the manual, the boiler people aren't as good about putting manuals on-line as the stove makers, but I believe you can download them off of one of the supplier sites. Note that there seem to be a couple of versions of the EKO manual - one that looks like a Babblefish or equivalent translation from the original Polish manual, and one that still has some quirks but has been cleaned up considerably - it's worth getting both.

Gooserider

You say your boiler temp was just 9 degrees less than your house thermostat. Your house thermostat reads in farenheit, your boiler is in celcius. 78 degrees on your boiler is like 175 farenheit.

I think you have that backwards Hayrack... Remember water at sea level boils at 100°C and freezes at 0°C. A few other quick comparison points - comfortable room temp is around 22°C (72°F), and normal human body temp is about 37°C. 50°C is 122°F or about the maximum you want coming out of your hot water faucet, and we want our boiler return water temps to be at least 60°C

Gooserider

I think he means he is loosing 9* from boiler to house. Am i correct??

Goose if he had a fire last night and there was not much call for heat there is no way his water temp in boiler could cool to 78 F. It is 78 C. You need to reread the post before you accuse me of being erronius

Hello,
New to the list, I have an idea that worked for me until I get a mixing valve. I have a late 70s boiler, and my only experiance is with pot belly stoves in cabins. I ripped out the old Forced air oil furnace last year and installed this 70's wood boiler, but hooked it up direct, no mixing valve, and it would take 8 hrs to heat up the house and get the water up to temp (195F), with the pump running all the time to all zones of my uninsulated house. It was a long cold winter burning fairly green wood, and I had to clean the boiler tubes and chimney daily to keep the tubes from plugging up solid. The entire yard was filled with thick smoke so bad you could not see across it. I finally near the end of the season, knowing now about how important it was to have a hot boiler, hooked the pump up to the aqua-stat. Previously, the pump ran all the time, and the aqua-stat controlled the draft blower. This aquastat has the option to turn something on or off at the set temperature, so I utilized both sides of the switch, at 195 the blower turns off, and the pump turns on. At 175, the pump turns off, and the blower turns back on. Now I have a warm boiler in less than an hour from cold, a warm house, and very little creosote. I am sure that this is a little harder on the aquastat, but it is a simple wiring job that takes a couple minutes to do. I am sure a mixing valve is the way to go to be closer to steady state, but this is easy and quick to do if you can't take your boiler out of service.
Joe in WI
Humble Boiler
Oil Tanks and furnace about to leave the property
My jungle wife happy to have a warm house

Hayrack, you seem to be making a much bigger deal out of my reply than it deserves... If you'd spent as much effort on figuring out the OP's problem as you have ranting at me about it in the thread and PM's, the OP would probably be ahead of the game... Note what I quoted in the message which you are so upset about (It appears you've gone back and fixed the problem in the original) Bold added...

If the OP's boiler had gotten to 175° CELSIUS, which is what I was responding to, it would have been putting out more steam than a locomotive.... As you corrected the post, yes 78°C is about 175°F (172.4°F to be exact)... Now, can we drop this and get back to the original problem, or do I need to remember those extra buttons on my screen...
--------------------
Back to the original issue...

Ihookem, as has been pointed out, one of the drawbacks of the Euroboilers from our point of view is that they use metric calibrations on their gages. When posting, it is important to specify which system you are using, and ideally convert everything to one system or the other (from this parochial American's POV, preferably °F ) Not doing this can cause unneeded confusion. (And can get expensive, just ask NASA....)

I would say that it sounds like you are either having a unit conversion problem, or you have an awfully high loss rate in your boiler - house loop (which can also be a problem) - A well insulated loop should loose no more than a degree or two between the boiler (or storage) output, and the input to the house heating system, and about the same or a bit less on the return from the house to the boiler. How much the temp drops in the house loop is a question of heating demand and system demand, which needs to be looked at separately. Your house temperature should not really have a lot to do with the boiler temperature, at least not directly.

It sounds like you might do well to give us a brief description of your system. One of the things that I find very helpful is if you put a capsule setup description in your signature file, just to remind us what you are dealing with as that keeps the redundancy down, and helps us give more meaningful responses... (see your user control panel)

Gooserider

Goose rider, I am real new to heating with a boiler. I will try to give you a description . My boiler is 125' from the house, then is piped to the hx coil in the duct of my house above the furnace. It then goes to the hot water tank and back out to the boiler. There is about 60' hot and 60' cold pipe in the house to serve the hx and hot water. I didn't do the work, a local company did and said he did 15 or so owb but never did a gassifier. He is very familiar with hydronics. He is very good but he is new to gassifiers as most everyone is. Does this help explain it better.

OK, sounds like a pretty straightforward loop setup, storage would help, but that's a different issue... Right now it sounds like you have the pump running all the time, which I agree is a waste of electric, plus it probably isn't helping your wood consumption any either...

It sounds to me like you want to end up so that you have three control inputs -

1. Is the boiler hot?
2. Is the house thermostat calling for heat?
3. Is the DHW tank calling for heat?

If #1 is no, then you don't want the pump to run, you want to use your backup systems (or have something tell you to go build a fire...)
If both #2 and #3 are no, then you don't want the pump to run, as you don't need the heat, let the boiler heat up and go into idle mode until needed...
If either #2 or #3 (or both) is yes, then you want the pump to run and deliver heat, etc...

This is quite doable, though the details could be a little tricky. Where in the system is the pump?

Do you have any kind of data line between the boiler and the house? - If not, you will probably need one - what would it take to run a length of Ethernet cable between the locations?

The basic idea I think you'd want to end up with is a set of three relays, one switched by each of the above inputs, with the switch sides controlling power to the pump. Numbering to match the above, run the pump power through relay 1, and then in parallel through relays 2 & 3 so that a call for heat from either the House or DHW loads will turn the pump on if the boiler is hot...

You could use a double throw relay for relay 1, and use the boiler not hot side to turn on your backup systems, which you could also use the signals from 2 and 3 to control, but that is added complication...

(You could also use the boiler-not-hot side to turn on an alarm or signal light to let you know the boiler needs attention...)

Hope this makes sense...

Gooserider

Thanks gooserider. Another potential problem has arisen. I found on the web manual for the Eko it should have a mixing valve close to the furnace too. I think it is on page 10. It talks about a 3 or 4 way. Do you think I need a mixing valve? My installer said he never put one on. I guess it doesn't matter if I keep the boiler going at full. speed. Are they 300 bucks? I need to decide soon because the heat guy is going to but the antifreeze stuff in the boiler next week. If this mixing valve helps I will have him do it but he seems to think it's not important. He has installed about 15 owb but never something like the EKO. I am full of questions because it doesn't seem like it will put out enough heat when it gets real cold. My heat load is 64k btu. @ -10 but don't see how it will manage because water temp drops quite fast when the furnace goes on. I am also wondering if I should have went with the EKO 40 for another 500 bucks. I am penny wise and dollar dumb and thinking I made a mistake. NO storage yet, maybe that will help but it seems I'm getting used to the Eko and that might help. I found out if I turn the secondary screws out 4 turns I get much more blue flame, this seems to heat the water much faster. I also learned Eko like a very hot fire. It is also very fussy about wood moister. It seemed like it didn't even like the frost on the wood this morning.

Some form of boiler return temperature protection is a MUST, not optional at all, as the boiler can rapidly self destruct without it... Even with the boiler running full blast, and reading high temps at the output, you can STILL have a problem w/ return water condensation...

What happens is that if the cold water returning to the boiler is below about 140°F, then it will come into the boiler water jacket, shoot across to the fire box, and spot cool the area where it hits... Hot combustion gases (which contain a lot of water vapor) condense on that spot, and mix with the creosote to form some nasty acids that attack the steel, causing it to rapidly rust out from the firebox side... If the water is above the condensation point when it enters, the water gets carried out the flue as exhaust gas, and is no problem... The OWB folks tend to have great trouble getting their water jackets above 140 to begin with, so they generally don't do return protection, but this is also one of several reasons why OWB's tend to not last very well...

There are several ways of doing boiler protection, including three way valves, pumps, the so called "loading units" and so on, but all of them amount to some way of mixing a certain amount of hot water from the boiler output back into the return water so that it is more than 140°F when it enters the boiler... A search on "Boiler Protection" will turn up lots of discussion of the details of how to do the different methods properly...

It is my opinion that it is a good idea to both do some form of boiler protection, and also at least occasionally monitor the return water temps by putting a thermometer on the return piping.

Gooserider

Should I stop using my boiler? The heating guy is coming in a week. Or do you think a week is ok if I keep the temps up? I don't have storage yet if it matters.

I would try to figure out a way to monitor the return temps, and go from there... As I suggested strapping a cheap digital kitchen thermometer probe on the return pipe and wrapping it w/ pipe insulation will get you a pretty good idea of what you are dealing with...

If the temps look like they are staying pretty high, say over 125°F or so, I'd think you could get away with a week of waiting. If they are way low, say under 100°F I'd probably do a shutdown... It's a judgment call on your end, think about how much heat you really need, how much it might cost to use your backup, and so forth...

Gooserider

I will add my 2.5 cents
I skimmed over this thread and it sounds like you have a simple loop to a fan coil and DHW heater of some sort. Not a lot of water volume so when you
start the boiler it should come up to temp fairly quick and as long as it stays above 130 or so you should be fine to use until you get some sort of return
temp protection.

If you add storage depending on the setup you MUST have some type of return temp protection as it may be possible for the inlet temp to be very low
for a long period of time. This WILL kill the boilers life.....and I suspect any warranty you may have.

As far as the pump I would run it only when the boiler is hot via the aquastat on the boiler. A slightly better approach may be to run it only when the boiler is hot
AND there is a need for heat from the fan coil OR the DHW tank(or both) At the very least I would not run it when the boiler is cooling down as it is a
complete waste of power. Goose has already covered this pretty well.....

Next step... Don't panic about it not keeping up yet. There are a lot of variables, wood, moisture, pri. and sec. air, fan speed bla bla bla... You may have to
tinker a bit to get good solid gassification consistently. From the numbers you through out in your previous post you MAY cut it close on the coldest days as
these boilers(all wood boilers) do not deliver maximum btu's throughout the burn but you should be close and maybe only need some "help" from backup on
the very cold windy days.