1st night with 1150 gals. of heated storage

[huffdawg]

Its nice not having to light a fire in the morning My storage dropped from 172 °F to 154 °F in 6 hrs. hoping to make that less with insulating all the piping . I have about 50' of uninsulated 1-1/4" pex in my crawl space and about 50' of uninsulated 1-1/4" copper in my shop. Still need to automate most of the system. Was hoping to get NoFo control system but have not been able to make contact with him . Still learning how to operate it all correctly. But havng a lot of fun doing it .

:lol:

Huff

 

[Gasifier]

Congrats Huff. How did you make out with the insulation of the second tank? That should be a nice amount of water storage.

 

[stee6043]

Looks like your heat load is right around 23k btu/hr. Get that storage up to 180 degrees and you can get a nice toasty 13 hours out of it before it drops to 150. Welcome to the world of convenient firings...

 

[huffdawg]

Heres some pics.

 

[huffdawg]

Looks like your heat load is right around 23k btu/hr. Get that storage up to 180 degrees and you can get a nice toasty 13 hours out of it before it drops to 150. Welcome to the world of convenient firings...

I guess thats not bad considering I'm heating a 2800 ² ft. house and a 1600 ² ft. shop with suite. must tell that it isn't that cold here. around 4 °C average


Huff

 

[woodsmaster]

Congrats! Do the tanks charge evenly for you ?

 

[huffdawg]

Congrats! Do the tanks charge evenly for you ?

Yes I have been amazed that they are charging exactly the same so far.

 

[ewdudley]

Congrats! Do the tanks charge evenly for you ?

Yes I have been amazed that they are charging exactly the same so far.

Just curious, how can you tell?

 

[huffdawg]

Congrats! Do the tanks charge evenly for you ?

Yes I have been amazed that they are charging exactly the same so far.

Just curious, how can you tell?

I have a raytec infrared gun and a temperature gauge that I insert into temp.wells . Do you think i'm not doing something right Ellliot? I have been known to do things the wrong way. lol.

Huff

 

[ewdudley]

I have a raytec infrared gun and a temperature guage that I insert into temp.wells . Do you think i'm not doing something right?

No, I used to move a mechanical gauge around from tank to tank and it looked OK, was just looking for a better way without adding a bunch of electronic sensors. IR gun sounds like a great idea, thanks.

--ewd

 

[huffdawg]

I am charging right now

 

[huffdawg]

My boiler is Idling now and my storage temp is 176 °F the eko controler display reads 194 °F the system pressure is 22 psi. I wish I could get storage a bit higher

Huff

 

[woodsmaster]

bigger circulater ? Insulation on the copper ?

 

[huffdawg]

There is a discrepancy between the controller readout and the mechanical gauge on the boiler discharge. Its about 6 °F higher. on the readout .I think I remember some post about guys repositioning the thermocouple.

 

[huffdawg]

Looks like your heat load is right around 23k btu/hr. Get that storage up to 180 degrees and you can get a nice toasty 13 hours out of it before it drops to 150. Welcome to the world of convenient firings...

Hey Stee can you show me the formula for your figures . I'd like to learn how .

Huff

 

[flyingcow]

My boiler is Idling now and my storage temp is 176 °F the eko controler display reads 194 °F the system pressure is 22 psi. I wish I could get storage a bit higher

Huff

i don't have pressurized storage, so it's a little different. but for me, to push my tank that last 10 degrees(if i can hit 175ish, i'm happy), isn't worth the wood or idling. Unless it's -20f with a 15mph wind i usually don't push it. Those nights i got to push the boiler/tank. That comes from not having enough insulation and not sizing my storage properly.


But, we're guys.......we're gonna push it. Did i ever tell you about the half a dozen times we drove from Maine to Fla for vaca(with 3 kids)? made better time each year. The minivan can go about 420 miles between fill-ups, and no pee breaks. It was a thing of beauty. sorry to get off topic. %-P

 

[huffdawg]

My boiler is Idling now and my storage temp is 176 °F the eko controler display reads 194 °F the system pressure is 22 psi. I wish I could get storage a bit higher

Huff

i don't have pressurized storage, so it's a little different. but for me, to push my tank that last 10 degrees(if i can hit 175ish, i'm happy), isn't worth the wood or idling. Unless it's -20f with a 15mph wind i usually don't push it. Those nights i got to push the boiler/tank. That comes from not having enough insulation and not sizing my storage properly.


But, we're guys.......we're gonna push it. Did i ever tell you about the half a dozen times we drove from Maine to Fla for vaca(with 3 kids)? made better time each year. The minivan can go about 420 miles between fill-ups, and no pee breaks. It was a thing of beauty. sorry to get off topic. %-P

LOL. With the wife driving and me drinking lite beer and three rugrats in the car 100km is pushing it .

 

[kopeck]

i don't have pressurized storage, so it's a little different. but for me, to push my tank that last 10 degrees(if i can hit 175ish, i'm happy), isn't worth the wood or idling. Unless it's -20f with a 15mph wind i usually don't push it. Those nights i got to push the boiler/tank. That comes from not having enough insulation and not sizing my storage properly.


But, we're guys.......we're gonna push it. Did i ever tell you about the half a dozen times we drove from Maine to Fla for vaca(with 3 kids)? made better time each year. The minivan can go about 420 miles between fill-ups, and no pee breaks. It was a thing of beauty. sorry to get off topic. %-P

It's really interesting to hear you say that. With my rig (same setup as yours) I can get to 177 pretty easily, it seems like the magic number. Getting over that means quite a bit more wood and fan cycling. I usually try to have just a bed of coals in it when I reach about 175 and call it good.

K

 

[goosegunner]

Huff,

Sounds to me like you need to move more water and or reduce wood load near end of burn.

What is your return temp when storage is 176?

I can take my my storage to 185 easily. The trick is to have your burn be winding down as you approach target temp. That way you are not hitting the set point and idling. It takes longer but your boiler output is low.

I have a spread sheet that I calculate amount of wood to target temp. It works pretty well and loads are predictable.


Gg

 

[huffdawg]

Huff,

Sounds to me like you need to move more water and or reduce wood load near end of burn.

What is your return temp when storage is 176?

I can take my my storage to 185 easily. The trick is to have your burn be winding down as you approach target temp. That way you are not hitting the set point and idling. It takes longer but your boiler output is low.

I have a spread sheet that I calculate amount of wood to target temp. It works pretty well and loads are predictable.


Gg

I'll give that a try tommorrow goose, And I think the return temp out of the botom of storage was 160 maybe. Also I had the circ pump for the house loop going so maybe it was mixing up the buffer tank. My copper piping from the buffer tank to storage is not insulated yet and boiler room is still getting quite warm.

Huff

 

[woodsmaster]

There is a discrepancy between the controller readout and the mechanical gauge on the boiler discharge. Its about 6 °F higher. on the readout .I think I remember some post about guys repositioning the thermocouple.

I had to reposition mine to make the temp on the outlet match the temp on the boiler control. It was off about 10 degrees.
It definitly helped to charge storage more without ideling.

 

[RobC]

With out your pipes being insulated is it possible that your return water is keeping you mixing valve partially closed ? I know my set-up charges storage in 2 stages. First when the return temps are below 160. The whole system charges to around 165 - 170. Once I get to that point, the tremovar opens fully, storage will take another 15 or 20F jump. I end up with storage in the high 180's. Almost never a 190 number though.
Rob

 

[goosegunner]

With out your pipes being insulated is it possible that your return water is keeping you mixing valve partially closed ? I know my set-up charges storage in 2 stages. First when the return temps are below 160. The whole system charges to around 165 - 170. Once I get to that point, the tremovar opens fully, storage will take another 15 or 20F jump. I end up with storage in the high 180's. Almost never a 190 number though.
Rob

That is how my system works when running on medium pump speed. I think that is a sign that you are in the sweet spot for gpm. You are moving enough gpm to maintain boiler function without idling. Less gpm and boiler output climbs to setpoint and boiler idles.

I run on low speed when doing small burns. That way I don't mix the whole tank to 165-170. On low I can add to the top of the tank and the bottom temp climbs right at the end. My Econoburn drops to low fan at 5 degrees before setpoint so it never truly idles, it just cycles between high and low fan as I get near end of charge.

gg

 

[huffdawg]

What do you guys have your tremovar bypass valve set at. I have been pulling off my buffer tank on low speed . My boiler circ is a taco 007 ,no speed adjustment.

Huff

 

[RobC]

I leave my Tremovar in the completely open position. However, my boiler is large for my load so I pump mainly to storage. My circulator is a Grundfos 26-99 circulator that I leave on high. This keeps my boiler from cycling at all stages of the burn. Works for me but the Tarm 60 puts out some BTU's.... As soon as I start closing my Tremovar my boiler inlet temp starts to drop pretty quick in the beginning of burn. On the end of burn I don't see much increase of storage temps so I just leave it wide open.
Rob.