Hey everybody.
When i bought my house in May of 2020, there was a Pb105 in the basement disconnected in the basement. It was apparently in good working order, but was vented wrong ( and poorly, from what I'm reading here), so rather than fix it, they just cut power and pulled the pipe. They also didn't clean it very well, the exhaust pipe was loaded with ash up to the ESP. and 2 cleanout rods were stuck. Took a month of cleaning and tinkering to get it firing up and burning like it should. the way they had it set up, I'm surprised they didn't burn the house down.
During this winter, my propane boiler was running non stop. Propane was killing me price wise, so i figured id hook the pellet boiler up and give it a shot.
First thing i noticed is its set up almost like a wood burner in a heating sense, when the unit is switched on, the circulation pump on the inlet runs 24/7. So basically, Id let the house get down to 60-61 (usually when i came home at night) flip the boiler on ( making sure it was clean, that was a learning process of many ignition explosions
) and let it ramp up and burn till the house got to 69-70. shut the unit off, while leaving power on ( circ pump still running) let the house get back down to 60-61 around 12 hours later, repeat.
Id like to fix how this runs, because it worked really well, and was way cheaper than propane, but i didn't like the lack of safety features like no dump zone, or using dryer vent as a chimney, or the fact that I had absolute garbage draft, because he put a 2' vertical section outside after at least 4 ft of horizontal run.
so here's my plans.
Move it 15' down the wall, away from the window, so I can vent straight up, thru the soffit, and above the roof. Here's the current pics of how he's got it vented. the pipe coming off the stove itself is single wall dryer vent. obviously, id like to come straight up from the stove with Class B piping, in between the joists, out the wall with a thimble, and straight up thru the roof. The joists themselves are 14 wide, with 9" vertical between the top of the foundation and the bottom of the floorboard. Is that enough clearance with a wall thimble to vent it safely?
My house is currently baseboard heat, single circuit. id like to wire up a relay to control the circulator pump So if I read the manual right, and understand from what I'm reading on here, the PB105 is designed to run 24/7, maintaining the water in the boiler at whatever temps you set with the min/max. if house calls for heat, circulator pump runs, cooler water enters boiler, boiler ramps up to meet demand, once demand is met, feeder slows, and maintains again. Is this correct?
Also for dump zone / overheat.
My plan for overtemp was to run some simple baseboards in the basement ( its unfinished ) and just have a BPS and a simple circulator pump on it, over temp or power failure will trigger the circuit to open and pump. This sound decent enough?
lastly, what did you guys run for vent pipe? Any tips, Cause Iwant this thing to run well, without the risk of burning my house down.
Thanks!
When i bought my house in May of 2020, there was a Pb105 in the basement disconnected in the basement. It was apparently in good working order, but was vented wrong ( and poorly, from what I'm reading here), so rather than fix it, they just cut power and pulled the pipe. They also didn't clean it very well, the exhaust pipe was loaded with ash up to the ESP. and 2 cleanout rods were stuck. Took a month of cleaning and tinkering to get it firing up and burning like it should. the way they had it set up, I'm surprised they didn't burn the house down.
During this winter, my propane boiler was running non stop. Propane was killing me price wise, so i figured id hook the pellet boiler up and give it a shot.
First thing i noticed is its set up almost like a wood burner in a heating sense, when the unit is switched on, the circulation pump on the inlet runs 24/7. So basically, Id let the house get down to 60-61 (usually when i came home at night) flip the boiler on ( making sure it was clean, that was a learning process of many ignition explosions
) and let it ramp up and burn till the house got to 69-70. shut the unit off, while leaving power on ( circ pump still running) let the house get back down to 60-61 around 12 hours later, repeat.Id like to fix how this runs, because it worked really well, and was way cheaper than propane, but i didn't like the lack of safety features like no dump zone, or using dryer vent as a chimney, or the fact that I had absolute garbage draft, because he put a 2' vertical section outside after at least 4 ft of horizontal run.
so here's my plans.
Move it 15' down the wall, away from the window, so I can vent straight up, thru the soffit, and above the roof. Here's the current pics of how he's got it vented. the pipe coming off the stove itself is single wall dryer vent. obviously, id like to come straight up from the stove with Class B piping, in between the joists, out the wall with a thimble, and straight up thru the roof. The joists themselves are 14 wide, with 9" vertical between the top of the foundation and the bottom of the floorboard. Is that enough clearance with a wall thimble to vent it safely?
My house is currently baseboard heat, single circuit. id like to wire up a relay to control the circulator pump So if I read the manual right, and understand from what I'm reading on here, the PB105 is designed to run 24/7, maintaining the water in the boiler at whatever temps you set with the min/max. if house calls for heat, circulator pump runs, cooler water enters boiler, boiler ramps up to meet demand, once demand is met, feeder slows, and maintains again. Is this correct?
Also for dump zone / overheat.
My plan for overtemp was to run some simple baseboards in the basement ( its unfinished ) and just have a BPS and a simple circulator pump on it, over temp or power failure will trigger the circuit to open and pump. This sound decent enough?
lastly, what did you guys run for vent pipe? Any tips, Cause Iwant this thing to run well, without the risk of burning my house down.
Thanks!
