Indoor Wood Boiler Operation Help Needed!

[Jeebes]

I recently purchased a new to me indoor wood boiler. The door is labeled FoxFire By Stoutco Inc. I cannot find any info on it anywhere on the web. I am using it to heat my house with a water coil above the furnace. My issue is it is burning a lot of wood and I have a very hard time keeping the water temperature up. It is forced draft. I am not using a external storage tank. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[stee6043]

Welcome. What kind of wood are you burning? And how long was it seasoned?

 

[Jeebes]

Ash that has been down for atleast a year.

 

[stee6043]

Ash is usually good to go with a year. That's a plus. So what kind of load do you have hooked up to this boiler? Do you have some kind of mixing valve on the boiler to keep it's internal water temp at acceptable levels? Where are you measuring temps and what are you trying to achieve (vs what you are measuring)??

 

[stee6043]

Any pictures too?

 

[Jeebes]

No mixing valves, was heating my house with a 70 kbtu furnace and put a water coil above it. I just have a a pump circulating water through the water coil and the boiler. I can get a picture in a little bit

 

[Fred61]

Ash that has been down for atleast a year.

Does that mean laying on the ground in log form or cut, split, stacked and covered?

 

[Jeebes]

Does that mean laying on the ground in log form or cut, split, stacked and covered?

Some of both.

 

[Jeebes]

Here are a few pics of the set up. I can hardly ever get the temp on the front of the boiler above 100-110. And I know for how I'm trying to use it Id like to see the water around 160-180.

 

[Clarkbug]

You will want a return water protection valve in there to make sure the water coming back stays above a minimum setpoint.

Check out the "Biomass hydronics training" sticky at the top of the boiler forum for good info. Look at page 105 and beyond.

Also, if you do an internet search for "Idronics 10" there is some great information.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Is there some kind of a baffle in the firebox to keep the heat from leaving the stove too soon? It looks like you have a standard mechanical damper installed. Do you use it to control the burn? If you have too much draft, most of your heat will go right up the stack unless you have some way of slowing it down--especially in cold weather.

 

[Jeebes]

Is there some kind of a baffle in the firebox to keep the heat from leaving the stove too soon? It looks like you have a standard mechanical damper installed. Do you use it to control the burn? If you have too much draft, most of your heat will go right up the stack unless you have some way of slowing it down--especially in cold weather.

There's one baffle in the firebox it's fixed though. I usually shut the manual damper down to try and hold more heat in.

 

[maple1]

Flue temps?

I would also question the moisture of the wood - and the accuracy of the thermometer. Also, if the thermometer is correct, you might get an over-pressure situation if it does get fully up to temp.

And echo the return temp concern noted above - you will build creosote like crazy with temps that cool. If the temps are accurate.

 

[stee6043]

Are your pumps on low? Try slowing your pumps down if you can. You may be pushing the water through the boiler too fast to get the heat exchange you need.

As noted above you will want to take care of the return temp protection sooner rather than later. You will damage this boiler without keeping the water above the required temps. You're possibly getting condensation inside the boiler right now with these low temps...

 

[Eric Johnson]

I think I owned a Foxfire hot air furnace once, but I can't recall for sure because at one point early in its life, the pot metal label on the front door melted off when I overheated it.

How many btus/hour is that thing rated for? What's the load? You may simply be exceeding its ability to heat your whole house. Have you tried shutting down a zone to see if that makes it any more responsive?

 

[Fred61]

Try separating out a wheelbarrow or two of wood that has had a chance to dry, ie: split and stacked for more than 6 months. If you bucked up log length wood this fall, your wood is not dry enough. Too much combustion air must be supplied to burn wet wood allowing most of the heat to go out the stack. I'm not saying this is the only problem but the symptoms you describe have been cured with dryer wood on countless occasions on this forum.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I wouldn't worry about blowing the pressure relief valve when you get it nice and hot, since you seem to have an adequate expansion tank piped into that system. But I would pipe that valve down to the floor because if it does blow, somebody might get badly burned.

 

[maple1]

Not sure about that - if he's at 18psi cold (or I guess 100f or so), he could be approaching 30 if he gets up to 180-190. Might be the pic, but the expansion doesn't look all that big from here? But maybe it is.

Hey OP - how big is your expansion tank? And what was your pressure before you started burning?

 

[Jeebes]

Not sure about that - if he's at 18psi cold (or I guess 100f or so), he could be approaching 30 if he gets up to 180-190. Might be the pic, but the expansion doesn't look all that big from here? But maybe it is.

Hey OP - how big is your expansion tank? And what was your pressure before you started burning?

It's at 12 psi cold I have an auto fill valve.

 

[Eric Johnson]

That's not a very big boiler by the looks of it. I'd estimate 75K btu or smaller. It's impossible to say whether the expansion tank is adequate without knowing the capacity of the system, but I'm guessing not that big--not like having a big boiler and a bunch of cast iron radiators connected to it. I've got an Extrol 60 on a system with a 205K btu boiler and hundreds of gallons of water in it, and I don't get more than 10 psi increase when it's really hot. The other day it hit 200 and my pressure, which is 15 psi at rest, was 25 psi.

That said, I'd still pipe that valve outlet down to within 6 inches of the floor. They can let go without warning.

 

[Jeebes]

I wouldn't worry about blowing the pressure relief valve when you get it nice and hot, since you seem to have an adequate expansion tank piped into that system. But I would pipe that valve down to the floor because if it does blow, somebody might get badly burned.

I've been meaning to pipe it down just haven't had a chance yet.

 

[Jeebes]

That's not a very big boiler by the looks of it. I'd estimate 75K btu or smaller. It's impossible to say whether the expansion tank is adequate without knowing the capacity of the system, but I'm guessing not that big--not like having a big boiler and a bunch of cast iron radiators connected to it. I've got an Extrol 60 on a system with a 205K btu boiler and hundreds of gallons of water in it, and I don't get more than 10 psi increase when it's really hot. The other day it hit 200 and my pressure, which is 15 psi at rest, was 25 psi.

That said, I'd still pipe that valve outlet down to within 6 inches of the floor. They can let go without warning.

There is Zero tags on the boiler anywhere. When I bought it the guy said it heated his 2500sq ft house mine is 1700. Granted you can't judge heat loads by sq ft, but my furnace is 80 kbtu and 80% efficient so 60 kbtu output and it heated my house fine.

 

[Eric Johnson]

The efficiency on that boiler is way less than 80%, so if it's rated at 75K btu, you're probably only getting 30-40, and probably less.

I did heat a 100-year old house with little to no wall insulation in northern New York with a similar boiler rated at 75K, so I'm not saying it's impossible or unlikely.

 

[maple1]

The efficiency on that boiler is way less than 80%, so if it's rated at 75K btu, you're probably only getting 30-40, and probably less.

I did heat a 100-year old house with little to no wall insulation in northern New York with a similar boiler rated at 75K, so I'm not saying it's impossible or unlikely.

Think he meant his oil furnace - but I agree on your estimate of his boiler. My old one also had no rating on the wood side, but I'm sure it was less than 50k.

Is this just a water jacket boiler? Or does it have tubes inside?

 

[Eric Johnson]

Here's some interesting links:

Manual for the FoxFire forced air furnace, including the company address in Ohio

http://www.ncsg.org/wcmedia/documents/InstallationManuals/FoxFire_GENERAL_WARNINGS.pdf

Here's a guy selling one like yours on Craigs List

http://stlouis.craigslist.org/for/4833886509.html