Wood Gun and oil Usage

[rlofty]

New to the wood furnace world. Just bought house with one and I am learning the ropes. I am not an HVAC expert by any means. I have a wood gun e180. There is also an oil furnace used as back up. I have tankless hot water. The wood gun seems to be running well. My problem is I am still burning oil - Would this be due to the oil furnace kicking on for the tankless hot water? The person I bought from said they burned little to no oil. They were just two people though. We are family of 5 - three girls.. Lots of showers, laundry and dishwasher running a lot. So wood furnace does nothing to provide hot water to house?

 

[maple1]

Depends how they are plumbed together & controlled. Pics may help.

 

[rlofty]

Depends how they are plumbed together & controlled. Pics may help.

Basically the wood gun is outside in the garage - piped under ground to the oil furnace. I assume the temp on water coming in from wood gun dictates whether the oil furnace fires. I am assuming it is an internal tankless system because don't see an external tank. If it is internal though I would think hot water from wood gun would be used to heat?

 

[maple1]

I would suspect the WG is just used to keep the oil boiler hot - then the rest of the system operation functions as if it was just the oil supplying the heat. As long as the WG keeps the oil boiler hot, it won't fire.

Could just be a matter of adjusting aquastat setting on the oil boiler. But more info would still help, and pics. Info like boiler & system temps?

 

[TCaldwell]

No to jump the gun but I had a similar head scratcher , the boilers were piped in series, and the wood boiler seemed to keep the oil boiler hot enough. The problem was someone before me had one thermostat wired so as on a heat call the oil boiler would fire, a it wasn't wired into taco zone control box

 

[rlofty]

No to jump the gun but I had a similar head scratcher , the boilers were piped in series, and the wood boiler seemed to keep the oil boiler hot enough. The problem was someone before me had one thermostat wired so as on a heat call the oil boiler would fire, a it wasn't wired into taco zone control box

How would I determine if one zone is wired incorrectly

 

[Green Mt Heat]

Hello rlofty,

My two cents as I am not a HVAC guy at all... My WG and separate oil boiler sounds like it is plumbed together the same way yours is? I have a peerless cast iron oil boiler with a domestic hot water coil built in the oil boiler.All heat zones and dhw are coming off of the peerless oil boiler with hot water fed by a pump from the woodgun. On my peerless oil boiler the aqua stat is very close to the location as the dhw coil (I assume for quick reaction to make-up dhw as it is a huge btu consumer). Even with the aqua stat low limit (when the burner kicks on) on the oil boiler set to the lowest setting {120?} the 40 degree well water is cold enough to kick on the oil burner even though the woodgun is continuously feeding it 200 degree water in a loop with a taco pump running 24/7. My solution was to simply disconnect the power to oil burner itself or just put a switch on the oil burner and have it switched off when you are using the woodgun. You will just need to remember to turn it back on if you are gone on vacation. I have a old WG E140 and it has never had an issue providing enough hot dhw and running 3 zones of heat w/o oil. I disconnect the oil burner in the fall and reconnect it in the spring (for dhw during months when I'm not burning wood) unless I'm away on vacation.

Good luck, hope this helps

 

[Hydronics]

Your 180 should easily provide enough btu's for heating and domestic at the same time without the oil boiler starting. I would start by checking the oil control start/stop settings, you may need to lower them a bit.
I would also verify that the wood boiler supplies the top of the oil boiler, not the bottom. It may be plumbed wrong. This will maintain the hottest water at the top (where the control, tankless coil and heating loads are). Plumbed backwards will negate stratification.

 

[TCaldwell]

Rlofty,
Check that the thermostat wires are all terminated in the same manner, if multiple wires they should all be in a multiple zone box, if only one then should be tied to tt at aqua stat.

 

[maple1]

Hello rlofty,

My two cents as I am not a HVAC guy at all... My WG and separate oil boiler sounds like it is plumbed together the same way yours is? I have a peerless cast iron oil boiler with a domestic hot water coil built in the oil boiler.All heat zones and dhw are coming off of the peerless oil boiler with hot water fed by a pump from the woodgun. On my peerless oil boiler the aqua stat is very close to the location as the dhw coil (I assume for quick reaction to make-up dhw as it is a huge btu consumer). Even with the aqua stat low limit (when the burner kicks on) on the oil boiler set to the lowest setting {120?} the 40 degree well water is cold enough to kick on the oil burner even though the woodgun is continuously feeding it 200 degree water in a loop with a taco pump running 24/7. My solution was to simply disconnect the power to oil burner itself or just put a switch on the oil burner and have it switched off when you are using the woodgun. You will just need to remember to turn it back on if you are gone on vacation. I have a old WG E140 and it has never had an issue providing enough hot dhw and running 3 zones of heat w/o oil. I disconnect the oil burner in the fall and reconnect it in the spring (for dhw during months when I'm not burning wood) unless I'm away on vacation.

Good luck, hope this helps

I did that with my old wood/oil boiler. I just wired in a simple wall switch (in a surface mounted enclosure) between my aquastat & burner. Surface mounted to the boiler skin with sheet metal screws. Turned it off for winter, on for rest of the year. Unless we were going away, turned it on then too.