Buderus boiler and wood stove

[trguitar]

Hi Guys,

We have a Buderus boiler, and I'm wondering how to set it up for the winter for only using it to make hot water. The stove should take care of most of the house. I think it used way too much oil last winter. For the last 6 months we've barely used anything.

From what I understand they are set up to have hot water ready to deliver to the baseboard for certain temperatures. Ours is currently set to 70 degrees.

From what I see there a few ways to do this. I could set the "summer" temperature way down, so that it thinks it is in summer mode, even when it is 20 degrees out.

I could also set it for vacation mode for the whole winter.

I suppose I could also set the heat temperature (currently 70) down lower, to like 50 or so?

For those of you that have Buderus boilers, how do you set it up for the winter?

Thanks!

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

There's a special forum here for boilers and furnaces.

 

[jetsam]

I have two oil burners- a boiler that does hydronic baseboard heat when we're out of town, and a separate hot water heater with its own burner. I keep the boiler on but turned way down until we go out of town, and then I turn it back up to wintertime heat settings. The water heater only has one setpoint control, which stays the same all year.

Supposedly shutting the things down causes corrosion issues, but I may do it anyway... when it rots out I'll get an electric boiler and solar panels.

 

[maple1]

There are controls on the boiler that keep the boiler itself at a certain minimum temperature. Unless it is set up as a cold start boiler. Is it? I think Buderuses are or can be but not sure if they all are? Controls also determine the differential, or difference between minimum & maximum boiler temperature. So there might be things you can do on your boiler controls - I'm not familiar with Buderus controls although my father has one. Most of the things you mention doing with your thermostat won't have much effect for just doing DHW. They would help prevent the boiler from trying to heat your house when your stove lags a bit, if you didn't want it to cut in before you got the fire going again. Most DHW oil consumption related issues are addressed by boiler controls or aquastat settings.

 

[gac17]

I am just learning my buderus in my new house but my understanding is that is you have the logamatic computer system you can set it to summer mode and it will only heat domestic hot water and no matter what the temperature is inside or out it will not heat water to heat the house. I’m not really to sure how it works but at this point it is not heating the house but I always have a hot shower ready.

 

[trguitar]

Yes, I think I will try setting it in permanent summer mode and see how that goes.

 

[maple1]

Keep an eye on the boiler temp guage over a period of time & see how it usually gets & stays. And listen to see if it starts when there is no hot water demand, or keeps running for a while after hot water demand stops. Do you also have the Buderus indirect hot water tank/heater? Stacked with the boiler I think?

I don't really know but suspect this 'summer mode' is a cold start mode? In which case, you likely won't improve on that.

 

[trguitar]

So, I did put it in permanent summer mode, and it appears to be working well. It's making hot water, but it doesn't create heat for the hot-water baseboard. I even tried turning on the thermostat upstairs the other day, and the heat never came on.

I'll keep an eye on it, but so far so good. I just have to remember to change it if I go away!

 

[sportbikerider78]

I have a new oil buderus boiler. It is setup right now in the shoulder season to do cold starts. I don't need it maintaining a warm temperature when it goes days without coming on. When the temps dip down for weeks, I set the min temp at 140 and leave the max at 195. Then, i have on demand heat whenever a zone calls for it.

I have an electric hot water heater.