Boiler on Vaction

[HydrordyH]

I'm trying to figure out what wood heating system and backup will work best for a new build and have gotten same great advise from you all already. The question has come up on what we would do if/when we go on vacation in the winter. In the scenario that I have a boiler in an out building, with tank storage in the basement, and we leave in the winter for say a week, how do we keep our pipes from freezing around our boiler in the outbuilding? Can you have the pump kick on every few hours to circulate the water to keep it from freezing? Drain it? Antifreeze in the pipes (though costly)?

Also, if you have a system as described, and it's to the point of only needing fire or two a day, do you ever have to worry about freezing pipes in the outbuilding? I know insulation will help but still are there any problems? Thanks

 

[taxidermist]

I'm trying to figure out what wood heating system and backup will work best for a new build and have gotten same great advise from you all already. The question has come up on what we would do if/when we go on vacation in the winter. In the scenario that I have a boiler in an out building, with tank storage in the basement, and we leave in the winter for say a week, how do we keep our pipes from freezing around our boiler in the outbuilding? Can you have the pump kick on every few hours to circulate the water to keep it from freezing? Drain it? Antifreeze in the pipes (though costly)?

Also, if you have a system as described, and it's to the point of only needing fire or two a day, do you ever have to worry about freezing pipes in the outbuilding? I know insulation will help but still are there any problems? Thanks

Well funny you should ask I have a eko 60 in a uninsulated pole barn I have a danfoss bypass set up incase I need to circulate water from storage in basement to boiler and back to keep from freezing. Like if my wife and I both have to go out of town for some odd reason. Monday I burned and charged the tanks to 180* before bed I went out and the fire was out in the boiler so I shut it off to keep the boiler from circulating my storage water back out to the cold boiler in the barn. Got up Tuesday checked the tanks and they were at 170* I told the wife you should be good to not make a fire. She came home from work and told me the tanks were at 158*. I said dont worry about a fire I will build one Wed. morning( I work 24hr shifts) I built a fire and turned on the pump and it made all kinds of noise Crap Ice I watched the fire and let it come up to 150* and kept an eye on it till the warm water melted the ice. It must not have been frozen solid but it was flowing much less water than it should have. Other than that brain fart I had I have not had any problems with my set up. A eko will circulate water at 40* for freeze portection if you leave the power on.

Rob

 

[Medman]

I also have my boiler in an outbuilding. The EKO will circulate water when the temp reaches 40*F or lower, but as taxadermist said, you have to have a bypass on your boiler protection valve or the water will only circulate in the near-boiler piping.

Where the pipe exits my garage and goes down into the ground, and where it comes up into the house, I have heat tape installed around the pipe, but not in direct contact (there is a layer of insulation between heat tape and pipe). This protects these vulnerable zones from freezing - I did have issues with this the first year when I was away from home for a week.

During normal operation the boiler provides enough heat in the shop (which is insulated) to keep everything warm. Last year I had no insulation on the pipes and it was too hot to work in there. Now the pipes are all wrapped and the temp stays between 65* and 70* with one window open a crack. If I know I am going to be away for a while, I shut the window, leave the boiler power on, and turn the switches on to power the heat tape. In the house, I have elec. baseboard backup heat in enough rooms to keep things around 60*, and a propane fireplace with blower that runs if the temp gets down too low. Mostly I just keep the temp high enough that the pipes don't freeze. Also, I turn off the hot water tank power so that it doesn't use elec. heating water while we are gone.

At some point I plan to install a propane backup boiler just to heat the house loop when I am gone for long periods.

 

[rkusek]

How did you guys find out about the EKO circulating water at 40 or less? I have an EKO 40 and wasn't aware of that. I drained everything in the shed as a precaution when we went to Mexico for a week. I believe it stayed just above 32 from what I can tell since the shed is well insulated but it was piece of mind. Next winter I will have the 1000 gal of storage (in shed) plus some internet capable monitoring (probably Arduino home brew) so I should be set. I might even just let the heat pump keep the house at 60 and use the storage for freeze protection if we do another week long winter vacation.

 

[rkusek]

FWIW, I also think one could steal heat from sidearm DHW (electric or gas water heater) or if you have a plenum water to air HX in a forced air setup the same could also be done with a little bit of wiring. You would also need to bypass the Danfoss like mentioned above and maybe even add a small bit of heat tape to where the water wouldn't circulate if the building was uninsulated. I suppose the 40* feature of the EKO is the inside water temp. I would be willing to bet by the time that cooled to 40* inside the pipes around the boiler in an uninsulated building would already be below freezing. If I didn't drain mine I was going to hook the boiler circ up to 120V socket directly.

 

[taxidermist]

FWIW, I also think one could steal heat from sidearm DHW (electric or gas water heater) or if you have a plenum water to air HX in a forced air setup the same could also be done with a little bit of wiring. You would also need to bypass the Danfoss like mentioned above and maybe even add a small bit of heat tape to where the water wouldn't circulate if the building was uninsulated. I suppose the 40* feature of the EKO is the inside water temp. I would be willing to bet by the time that cooled to 40* inside the pipes around the boiler in an uninsulated building would already be below freezing. If I didn't drain mine I was going to hook the boiler circ up to 120V socket directly.

By the time the boiler cools to 40* the insulated 1" pipes are froze some how I know this! As for finding out about the 40* freeze portection,I had it turn on on me last year and did not know why so I called Zennon and he told me about it. I just looked thru the controller manual and eko manual and did not anything on this.

Rob

 

[Medman]

How did you guys find out about the EKO circulating water at 40 or less? I have an EKO 40 and wasn't aware of that. I drained everything in the shed as a precaution when we went to Mexico for a week. I believe it stayed just above 32 from what I can tell since the shed is well insulated but it was piece of mind. Next winter I will have the 1000 gal of storage (in shed) plus some internet capable monitoring (probably Arduino home brew) so I should be set. I might even just let the heat pump keep the house at 60 and use the storage for freeze protection if we do another week long winter vacation.

I had read about it here, but verified it this month when I was away for two weeks in Europe and my wife was away for a week as well. My father was out to check the house and confirmed that when the EKO is at 40* or below it turns the circ on.

 

[Hunderliggur]

Per Mark's recommendation at AHONA, I drilled a 1/8" hole in the plate of the Danfoss. This allows a little water to flow when the freeze protection kicks in at 40F. Before I drilled the hole I had one freeze up - makes life exciting for a little while.

 

[easternbob]

I was just away for a week this winter and my EKO stayed plenty warm actaully much warmer than I wanted. I have a by-pass for my Danfoss, which I opened and then I just set the circ. pump to run contuinous. I have a side arm on our DHW tank, so it was stealing heat from there. I should mention we had a house sitter (who I couldn't convince to fed the boiler), so we were running our backup elec. boiler for the week at normal house temps, so we were getting some heat from that also. Anyways when I got home and turned the boiler on it was 123*. I was hoping to keep it at 50-60* not that warm. I'll have to set up some sort of timer that clicks the pump on and off say on for a hour off for a hour.

 

[Tony H]

I have a bypass on the termovar and wired switch(s) to allow me to
A. feed ac to the pump from the EKO (normal operation)
B. feed ac direct to pump (vacation)

when I leave on vacation I open the bypass and connect direct ac to the pimp allowing it to run constantly and pump water thru the entire system including the hX coil in the gas forced air furnace. The furnace is on set at 50F to keep the house from freezing and also keeps the water temp at about 50F.
I am not convinced the EKO 40F feature would be enough to keep some of the more exposed pipe warm enough.
FYI I also have a UPS to provide power for 2/3 hours if the power dies.

 

[taxidermist]

I have a bypass on the termovar and wired switch(s) to allow me to
A. feed ac to the pump from the EKO (normal operation)
B. feed ac direct to pump (vacation)

when I leave on vacation I open the bypass and connect direct ac to the pimp allowing it to run constantly and pump water thru the entire system including the hX coil in the gas forced air furnace. The furnace is on set at 50F to keep the house from freezing and also keeps the water temp at about 50F.
I am not convinced the EKO 40F feature would be enough to keep some of the more exposed pipe warm enough.
FYI I also have a UPS to provide power for 2/3 hours if the power dies.

Tony,

I too have mine set up this way, What happens with mine is when the 40 gal in the boiler reach 40* the 1" pex lines coming out of the ground are already froze. My problem is I never go on vacation

Rob

 

[Tony H]

I have a bypass on the termovar and wired switch(s) to allow me to
A. feed ac to the pump from the EKO (normal operation)
B. feed ac direct to pump (vacation)

when I leave on vacation I open the bypass and connect direct ac to the pimp allowing it to run constantly and pump water thru the entire system including the hX coil in the gas forced air furnace. The furnace is on set at 50F to keep the house from freezing and also keeps the water temp at about 50F.
I am not convinced the EKO 40F feature would be enough to keep some of the more exposed pipe warm enough.
FYI I also have a UPS to provide power for 2/3 hours if the power dies.

Tony,

I too have mine set up this way, What happens with mine is when the 40 gal in the boiler reach 40* the 1" pex lines coming out of the ground are already froze. My problem is I never go on vacation

Rob

Rob,
I found mine started to freeze last winter when a door hinge bolt broke and I had to shut down for one day to do repairs.
That's when I decided to go ahead and do the pump control switches then later when I had to go out of town for ten days I put it to the test first for just a day to see what heat it would stay at then for the whole vacation and it held about the same temp boiler water as the temp the house was set to.
Now with this setup I can leave for a few days and not have to worry about freezing or put glycol into the system.

Tony

 

[rkusek]

Sound like some great ideas. Glad to hear the plenum HX steals enough heat to do the job and sounds like the DHW could be used if more heat was needed. I will probably wire a DPDT relay or switch to allow either the EKO ("normal") or live 120V ("vacation") modes for the boiler circ. I didn't plumb a bypass in however but could modify that easily enough. I still hope that 1000 gal at 180* would keep the EKO and lines plenty warm for a week if nothing was being used to heat the house. Always good to have a failsafe setup however.