Folks in the midwest and east should watch their water pipes. Cycle the furnace or boiler occasionally if the basement is unheated or there are pipes in exterior walls and the wood stove keeps the thermostat from calling for heat.
Bitter cold coming, watch those water pipes
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Indeed. This is something I have to do. The hot water loop from the boiler to the little great room with the wood stove goes through a section where the old house and new addition connect, and the no-glycol water will freeze. Below 10 and I run it before bed and when I wake up. Below 0F, and I set the thermostat to come on periodically in the night. Progress hybrid will be running 24/7 of course, boiler not so much.
Yup similar situation here. I run the oil boiler when temps are 25F or less. My vulnerable pipes are in a ceiling (no access small attic) above a recently renovated kitchen addition off the back of the house. So don't want any water damage there.
As we only have1 zone it means all the radiators in the house get heat. So it's not ideal at all. But i can usually get away with about 50 Gallons of oil a season. This year looks like maybe more than that though.
Been debating on whether to put glycol in the system.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Any way to get a programmable thermostat to help keep cycles shorter and more frequent?
Not sure, i'll look into that,
Good idea. My old boiler (with becket burner) uses a 2 wire t stat. Not sure if that works or not on a programmable one?
There is a special thermostat (add-on?) that people have mentioned. It cycles the furnace/boiler at set intervals. There is a past thread on this somewhere.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
A battery powered one would work. The memory setting it has available might not allow that flexibility in programming you are after. Basically you want to raise set temp for 10 minutes every couple hours. The functionality you want is more like running the hvac fan x minutes per hour
Yeah, I swapped out the thermostat to one that can be programmed and has an app. Below zero F and it comes on at like 1am and 3am for 15 minutes.
I had glycol in the pipes, but I was getting leaks. You'll hear different things from different HVAC people, but one line of thinking is that glycol is harder on the solder joints an is prone to leak. For me, I had more leaks. Also it's less efficient.
I've got a work room that I keep at 40 if I'm not using it. That does the trick. But one time when it was below zero and the power went out, ran the generator, but for some reason I didn't turn on the oil boiler generator breaker. The pipe in that work room froze. That sure was bad.
I had glycol in the pipes, but I was getting leaks. You'll hear different things from different HVAC people, but one line of thinking is that glycol is harder on the solder joints an is prone to leak. For me, I had more leaks. Also it's less efficient.
I've got a work room that I keep at 40 if I'm not using it. That does the trick. But one time when it was below zero and the power went out, ran the generator, but for some reason I didn't turn on the oil boiler generator breaker. The pipe in that work room froze. That sure was bad.
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