We never turned on our gas hot water heater tank. Unexpected savings!
It has been a year of operating our Solo 40 (no storage). We figured we could get 6 months of our domestic hot water from it. We decided to see how long we could go before we turned on the gas hot water heater this summer. There are just two of us working adults with an occasional visiting child or friend. I got dry wood, kindling and figured out how much to burn every 2 or 3 days. That was easy!
The toughest part was trying to figure out what happen when we started to call for heat this Fall and the system did not wok. Initially thought the tempering value did not work because once the gas boiler got the system up to temp we were fine with the wood boiler until everything got cold again. Then the gas boiler would not turn on and the 3 speed pump that just recirculates the supply and feed through the tempering valve did not work.
Still have not figured out why the gas boiler did not work when I thought it should. However, rediscovered that the pump turns on when the Solo 60 gets over 150 degrees and (blush) it takes forever for the tempering valve to open up to let in the colder water from the 2 zones. Other summer issues could have been air trapped near the furnace or a backflow valve not opening. I remember a year ago calling up BioHeat after the install because the Solo boiler was hot but the zones were barely warm. If I had waited 1 hour more they would have been hot !
Just thought I would share. Got 6 cords of dry wood, 10 cords log length I am starting to cut and split for next heading season. Life it good!
Best to all
It has been a year of operating our Solo 40 (no storage). We figured we could get 6 months of our domestic hot water from it. We decided to see how long we could go before we turned on the gas hot water heater this summer. There are just two of us working adults with an occasional visiting child or friend. I got dry wood, kindling and figured out how much to burn every 2 or 3 days. That was easy!
The toughest part was trying to figure out what happen when we started to call for heat this Fall and the system did not wok. Initially thought the tempering value did not work because once the gas boiler got the system up to temp we were fine with the wood boiler until everything got cold again. Then the gas boiler would not turn on and the 3 speed pump that just recirculates the supply and feed through the tempering valve did not work.
Still have not figured out why the gas boiler did not work when I thought it should. However, rediscovered that the pump turns on when the Solo 60 gets over 150 degrees and (blush) it takes forever for the tempering valve to open up to let in the colder water from the 2 zones. Other summer issues could have been air trapped near the furnace or a backflow valve not opening. I remember a year ago calling up BioHeat after the install because the Solo boiler was hot but the zones were barely warm. If I had waited 1 hour more they would have been hot !
Just thought I would share. Got 6 cords of dry wood, 10 cords log length I am starting to cut and split for next heading season. Life it good!
Best to all
