Such thing as a timed on/off thermostat (not temperature actuated)

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saskwoodburner

Feeling the Heat
Nov 18, 2014
479
Saskatchewan, Canada
Hey guys, just wondering if there's such a thermostat or device that can be programmed for call to heat for xx minutes, and then off, at set intervals.

One that will kick in and out, not caring what the temperature is? Does such a creature exist?

Here's my situation in a nutshell. Small mobile home, with a small Englander 17 wood stove, and an oil furnace. On a normal day, the stove will run for 15-18 hours, sometimes I get a load going before bed, but more often not. I don't run the furnace at all in the day unless the missus is having a cold spell.

Usually there's plenty of heat in the shack, so even if the fire is on the way out at bedtime, it takes awhile to drop. If I sleep quick (5 hours) sometimes the furnace hasn't kicked, but if it does, it runs and runs to play catch up. I think this is where I burn the most heating oil, on this first cycle.

Now, if I could program the system to kick in 4 hours later, and cycle for 10 minutes, and keep doing this every 90 minutes, I may find some efficiency, rather than one long run in the morning. I realize the temp would keep dropping, but I think it would be more efficient (just a guess)

We've reduced the oil usage anywhere from 60-75% here since we got the wood stove, but I still need to chase my tail I guess.;) Not looking for the bigger stove option, as that's not what I need. If I was a bachelor, I'd just turn the oil furnace off at -20C or above. But that's not a very good option either.

Any thoughts or ideas appreciated.

BTW, this is an old Intertherm or Mac-1265 oil furnace, about as modern as the late 70's, so it's pretty basic.
 
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I have a similar pattern/cycle... when it gets real cold the stove doesn't quite keep up with the heat loss of the house. Stove keeps the house nice all day but dies down overnight and then I'm playing catch up the next day.

I replaced my analog thermostats with some $25 Honeywell programmable thermostats that have I think 4 different time/temp settings... wake, leave, arrive, sleep. Wake is set to 72 I think and starts at 6:00 and ends at 6:30, so effectively the boiler runs for (up to) 30 mins straight in the morning and brings the house back up to temp and it's warm when we get up. The rest are set to 55. I run the stove during the day and it's all good. If it drops off in the middle of the night, who cares heats as we're asleep. I have a tiny boiler with a .60 gph nozzle so 30 mins costs me like $0.60

If you have a cold start oil boiler I think you will lose some efficiency running it for 10 minutes at a time every 90 minutes. It takes some amount of running just to heat the thing up before it start circulating hot water, and all that is pretty much wasted oil. So if you were doing that many times a day that seems less worse than just once a day.
 
Who knows, maybe I'm overthinking it. Just get so used to not hearing the furnace run, that when it does, it feels like $$ going up in smoke even if it cycles for 10 minutes. I think our thermostat is programmable.....time to check the features out.
 
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