How are you other Froling 30/50 owners placing your boilers? Directly on the floor or raised up on some sort of concrete blocking ?
Froling 30/50 install height
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Home Depot flat concrete paving type blocks. Generally any and all equipment installations are up on blocks or housekeeping pads. I don't know why the industry does this, what reason. Maybe a moisture break between the slab and the equipment.
My heating equipment was up on 'termite blocks' as well when I moved in. I put the new stuff on the same blocks too, except for the tank. I got the termite blocks from a brick supply place. I thought they might protect against 'casual' water.
hiker88
Burning Hunk
Beagle Dad
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I made a pad using patio slabs on a bed of mortar to level and secure them to the floor, two 24x24 slabs worked for my smaller boiler. You could look at using 24x30" slabs, the 30" wide would work for the width but there would be a gap of 2" between them along the length which could be filled with mortar to give a continuous surface. The house keeping pad keeps makes sweeping the floor easier and prevents hitting the bottom of the boiler with boots, step ladders etc.
![[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/175/175421-2bc3fea21dbd64baf9a49c56c1d929f3.jpg?hash=qBCkMKZ7aB "[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height")
![[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/175/175423-19d971273c48f9ae1c98bb8764b37fa3.jpg?hash=AeI6udBkXT "[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height")
![[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/175/175422-c2ddb61ef08fb7114017e69a1ef9e5e9.jpg?hash=7mBljF43KK "[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height")
Thats a nice clean look, also should make it a more comfortable height for the lighting door.
The height thing, especially since I plan to keep my boiler for a log tie (i.e. as I get older) was the reason I put mine on some 8" blocks. This raised my lower chamber making it easier to clean out. I forget your thoughts on using an ODR to control flow temps but as you are redoing your system I will again wave my low flow temp banner - this is my 1st year with that kind of set up and I could not be more pleased.
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Small precast concrete housekeeping pads of various sizes and precast concrete lintels, if you want to run both sides, are commonly available if you look around. I've used both. Local precast concrete has a much higher probability of being commercial grade, better concrete, than HD paving concrete blocks.
With the boilers being raised how easy are the fire tubes to get at for cleaning? Looks like a short ladder would have to be used.
Looks like you are getting some smoke escaping from your primary door.
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I do use a 2/3 step ladder for the cleaning. Like you I have an "automatic" tube cleaner so I really only clean the tubes 3 or 4 times per year. On my Effecta 35KWb I had the "automatic cleaner" that I would lift handle about 5 times per fire and it worked fine. The 60KW cleaner is tied into the door the door. Originally I was having issues with rising flue temps, now I open/close the door about 5 times before each fire and I am back in good shape.
Beagle Dad
Member
The tubes are under a cover on the top of the boiler, a step ladder is needed to lift the turbulators straight up. then brush the tubes and reassemble. this process takes less than 15 minutes for my boiler, only 4 tubes. i clean the tubes after every cord. i have the maximun flue temp set to 350F so that if the tubes get dirty I will see the boiler reduce output to keep the flue temp down which is a cue to clean them as well.
The boiler burns clean, there is only light ash past the circular secondary burn chamber. Brushing the tubes is only to remove a layout of dust that has deposited. the cleaning will drop the flue temps down to 320F or about 20F due to the cleaning.
That is an operator issue not a machine issue
. I run my tanks down close to 100F so it takes more than 1 load of wood to fully charge the batteries. I will open the door and throw more wood on whenever I remeber to go back down to the basement (I try to minimize the # of burns). Of course I don't bring the wood next to the boiler so as I go back and forth getting wood, flames and smoke can start billowing. To make sure it is a complete mess I burn pine mixed in which ignites immediately in that environment. Once I close the door I get a spare piece of cardboard and fan the fire alarm until it goes off. Then too lazy to clean up the boiler. If you need help duplicating this technique when you are set up just let me know, otherwise you boiler should stay pretty shiny.
I put my shop vac hose up near the top of the tubes so that when I extract the brush the vac much of the ash gets sucked up.
..yes..same here...the ash-vac goes on top of the boiler and it stays on while I brush the tubes...
Thanx Skfire.. Do you have any pics of your 30/50 near boiler piping and how do you find the height for boiler loading and lighting with it on the floor?
Just rereading your post and thinking about "make sure you have adequate headroom". There are more than 1 or 2 things that didn't get much thought prior/during the install. Somehow I got lucky on all of them, must be some good karma from a past life but yes some thought in advance is a good thing - just hard to know all of the things one should consider. I don't want to think about what would have been required if headroom didn't allow for the turbulators to be removed. Like I said I got lucky, reading hear and taking a lot of notes is definitely recommended as I look in the rear view mirror.....
you may see some here:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/bolier-room-re-pipe-froling-install-pix-plbg-only-post-1.70105/
Loading. lighting no issues with boiler height...if you need anything else, please feel free to ask.
Ya I rememeber that install now, the copper makes it look #1.. I wish I could zoom in on some of those pics.
Did you use a Grundfos UP 15-42 F in 230V for your boiler circ?
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Ya I guess the loading valve should have tipped me off..lol.
You must have the premade box with the stepdown transformer to run 115v?
Be nice to have a larger view of this pic.
![[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/176/176869-9dd4a74b3c559321c0fb281b13993f64.jpg?hash=T-FUNwEOsx "[Hearth.com] Froling 30/50 install height")
I got the last FHG 30/50 they had in stock.. so it requires 240v. The new ones went up in price by about $2000 I think.
I used the 15-42 240V for my FHG 20-30 install. It pumps 10gpm's wide open through my primary loop. I throttle it down to 4 gpm's with a Caleffi 132 balancing valve. For my 20-30 I would have preferred something with a bit less flow, but it may be about right for your 40-50. My primary loop is piped with 1", and I used a 1" caleffi 132 balancing valve. I wish I had used a 3/4" balancing valve as it would be more accurate to read in the 3-5 gpm's zone.
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