I
ISeeDeadBTUs
Guest
No call for space heating now, so I continue to wrestle with the best/easiest/least expensive way to provide DHW. I've no storage, so in the past I've tried the one-fire-a-day approach. Since the GW has no fan, this is a slow process when it involves 2 full HX. And I think it wasted wood. Since the GW was down all last summer, I simply burned oil. Much easier and painless - until fall comes and the tank needs refilling.
I've tried keeping a fire going by setting the aquastat back to 100, but sometimes the fires takes a V E R Y L O N G T I M E to restart when using this approach.
Currently I am having good success with a different approach.
I leave the GW aquastat set at 170, put one 8-12" Oak round in, and turn off the inside loop of the HX. This seems to work well. The fire doesn't go out because the damper opens more often. And the damper closes quicker because the indoor boiler is not robbing heat. Add to this the Bennie's of less heat in the boiler and DHW during the day, which minimizes the standby losses into the home.
Summer's far from over, but so far this approach is working the best of any. We shall see . . .
I've tried keeping a fire going by setting the aquastat back to 100, but sometimes the fires takes a V E R Y L O N G T I M E to restart when using this approach.
Currently I am having good success with a different approach.
I leave the GW aquastat set at 170, put one 8-12" Oak round in, and turn off the inside loop of the HX. This seems to work well. The fire doesn't go out because the damper opens more often. And the damper closes quicker because the indoor boiler is not robbing heat. Add to this the Bennie's of less heat in the boiler and DHW during the day, which minimizes the standby losses into the home.
Summer's far from over, but so far this approach is working the best of any. We shall see . . .