Greenwood 200 - Not enough heat in the house

[thuffy]

Just recently installed a Greenwood 200 Hydronic Furnace in outdoor detached garage 150' from house, closed system hooked into an existing burner. After burning for a week indoor thermostat set at 75 degrees but not able to reach higher 70. The output temperature is set at 195 and returns at 175 degrees. The system seems to operate OK but burns more wood than was told at time of sale.

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you.

Tom

 

[SteveJ]

Can you provide a plumbing schematic?

How often are you loading?

Are you tied into the existing boiler through a flat plate heat exchanger?

What pump are you using on the Greenwood?

Is all of the air out of the system?

How tall is the chimney?

Do you have any creosote build up?

Whe you check on the Grenwood, is the damper open or closed? Trying to get an idea of how much idling is going on...

 

[thuffy]

Answers follow your questions. Thanks!

Can you provide a plumbing schematic? Can't right now but will do tomorrow.
How often are you loading? roughly 7-8 hours

Are you tied into the existing boiler through a flat plate heat exchanger? Yes

What pump are you using on the Greenwood? Taco 1/8th hp

Is all of the air out of the system? yes but today I bumped up the temperature from 185 to 195 and there seems to be a little air in the system.

How tall is the chimney? 20'

Do you have any creosote build up? some not a lot

Whe you check on the Grenwood, is the damper open or closed? Open...................Trying to get an idea of how much idling is going on…

Thank you.

 

[SteveJ]

thuffy,

Sorry I did not welcome you to the forum sooner...Welcome aboard - you will find a wealth of knowledge and extremely helpful people here!!

Hard to diagnose your problem without a schematic - please post as soon as you can.

Great that your not idling alot and do not have creosote build up.

In the meantime, more questions:

Do you have automatic air purgers in the Greenwood loop?

What was you original burner that you hooked into? BTU rating? Oil? Gas?

Does the flat plate hx connect to the existing burner in the supply or return loop?

Is the pump in the existing system running when the Greenwood is running?

Is the flat plate hx set up so that the flow from the Greenwood is in the opposite direction of the flow from the existing system?

Is your existing system a primary/secondary setup?

 

[91220da]

Hi Thuffy,
I recently installed a gw 100 about sixty feet from my house. Have a total loop of 170' going through a 30 flat plate hx in the house near my boiler. I did not have enough heat in the beginning using a Taco 007 pump. This Warm house in Mansfield reccomended I change the pump to a 0011. I did and saw a big improvement. I also discovered that my temp gauges on my oil furnace were way off. I bought a thermometer with a metal probe and clamped it to my copper supply lines of the house furnace and found I was getting higher temps. My oil furnace temp gauge was showing 140-150 but the digital thermometer was reading 172-180 similiar to the output of the gw-100. Getting temps in the house of 68-69-70 with the average oil furnace temp of 160-165. Good Luck. It will take you 2-3 weeks to get it all balanced out.
Rich

 

[thuffy]

Do you have automatic air purgers in the Greenwood loop? They are purged per say....they are auto air vents, there are 2 of them. one is on top of the heater for the garage and the other is piped into another port that I hope to use to heat the pool (that is not hooked into an exchanger yet).

What was you original burner that you hooked into? BTU rating? Oil? Gas? Weil/McClane, Oil Base board hot water. BTU 100,000.

Does the flat plate hx connect to the existing burner in the supply or return loop? Both lines hook into the return.

Is the pump in the existing system running when the Greenwood is running? The oil furnace burner is turned off, but the pumps for the circulating zones have individual pumps.

Is the flat plate hx set up so that the flow from the Greenwood is in the opposite direction of the flow from the existing system? Yes

Is your existing system a primary/secondary setup? We are trying to make the Greenwood the primary set up.

I am also thinking of piping from the heat exchanger directly to the pipes connected to the zones.

I am having a problem attaching the pictures - can you send me your email address and I will forward them to you. Thanks for your help.

tom

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Why did you purchase a 200 when your fossil unit is only 100?

You said the damper was open on the GW . .is it ever getting to temp and closing?

 

[SE Iowa]

Not an expert by any means, but... what is your heatload? Did you ever get the temp up to 75F with your oil burner? Baseboard heat?

 

[thuffy]

Hi Thuffy,
I recently installed a gw 100 about sixty feet from my house. Have a total loop of 170' going through a 30 flat plate hx in the house near my boiler. I did not have enough heat in the beginning using a Taco 007 pump. This Warm house in Mansfield reccomended I change the pump to a 0011. I did and saw a big improvement. I also discovered that my temp gauges on my oil furnace were way off. I bought a thermometer with a metal probe and clamped it to my copper supply lines of the house furnace and found I was getting higher temps. My oil furnace temp gauge was showing 140-150 but the digital thermometer was reading 172-180 similiar to the output of the gw-100. Getting temps in the house of 68-69-70 with the average oil furnace temp of 160-165. Good Luck. It will take you 2-3 weeks to get it all balanced out.
Rich

We also bought ours from This Warm House and we are getting the GW up to 195 degrees but losing 8 degrees by the time it gets to the house. Seems to be losing quite a bit of heat by heating the furnace water. thinking about bypassing the furnace and going directly to the zone pumps.

Did you experience any heavy smoke and how often do you have to stoke the unit?

Thanks for your info.

Tom

 

[thuffy]

thuffy,

Sorry I did not welcome you to the forum sooner...Welcome aboard - you will find a wealth of knowledge and extremely helpful people here!!

Hard to diagnose your problem without a schematic - please post as soon as you can.

Great that your not idling alot and do not have creosote build up.

In the meantime, more questions:

Do you have automatic air purgers in the Greenwood loop?

What was you original burner that you hooked into? BTU rating? Oil? Gas?

Does the flat plate hx connect to the existing burner in the supply or return loop?

Is the pump in the existing system running when the Greenwood is running?

Is the flat plate hx set up so that the flow from the Greenwood is in the opposite direction of the flow from the existing system?

Is your existing system a primary/secondary setup?

How can I get the schematic pictures to you?

 

[thuffy]

Why did you purchase a 200 when your fossil unit is only 100?

You said the damper was open on the GW . .is it ever getting to temp and closing?

We purchased the 200 because we are going to also heat the garage and pool.

The unit cycles like it is supposed to and reaches temperature quickly and yes it closes the way it should.

 

[thuffy]

Not an expert by any means, but... what is your heatload? Did you ever get the temp up to 75F with your oil burner? Baseboard heat?

yes we got it up to 75 but on bitter cold days it struggled to get into the high 60's.

 

[Steaming Pile]

Hi thuffy, I too have greenwood 100 purchased from this warm house(customer service is terrible). I would have to agree that a look at your install schematic would be a help. I would be willing to send you a copy of my schematic if you think it will help. Although I do not use a heat exchanger. Trust me there is a learning curve with these units but if can learn to live with the quirks you will be happy with end result.

 

[tigermaple]

Flat plate hex IMHO do not work well on wood boilers for a number of reasons. Air locks, improper hook-up/positioning, equal flow, deposit build-up etc. Ditch the plate and line it right in to your boiler. Also make sure the ID of the pex between GW and existing furnace is at least 1" for a GW200.
Good Luck

 

[thuffy]

Hi thuffy, I too have greenwood 100 purchased from this warm house(customer service is terrible). I would have to agree that a look at your install schematic would be a help. I would be willing to send you a copy of my schematic if you think it will help. Although I do not use a heat exchanger. Trust me there is a learning curve with these units but if can learn to live with the quirks you will be happy with end result.

I would like to see your schematic and I can only send mine via email because this site will not allow me to send my pictures...pixels are to high. Yes, TWH Customer service definatley needs improvement....wrong parts sent in the beginning and took weeks to get the right ones. Do you have yours hooked into another heating system? What type of heat did you have? Thanks, Tom

 

[thuffy]

Flat plate hex IMHO do not work well on wood boilers for a number of reasons. Air locks, improper hook-up/positioning, equal flow, deposit build-up etc. Ditch the plate and line it right in to your boiler. Also make sure the ID of the pex between GW and existing furnace is at least 1" for a GW200.
Good Luck

Cannot hook the GW in to the existing boiler because of a pressure issue. the existing boiler exceeds the Gw maximum allowance that is why we need the heat exchanger. the ID of the pex is 1". Thanks,
tom

 

[SteveJ]

thuffy,

Attached are the first six pictures you sent - should liven up the discussion...

Looks like you are dripping creosote in the second picture.

 

[SteveJ]

thuffy,

Attached are the remaining pictures you sent - for reference in the discussion...

 

[Steaming Pile]

I would like to see your schematic and I can only send mine via email because this site will not allow me to send my pictures...pixels are to high. Yes, TWH Customer service definatley needs improvement....wrong parts sent in the beginning and took weeks to get the right ones. Do you have yours hooked into another heating system? What type of heat did you have? Thanks, Tom[/quote]


Thuffy, My greenwood is looped through the oil boiler on the return side using close spaced tees. PM me with your email address and I'll send you some pics and what not. I have baseboard with a DHW loop. regards, D.J.

 

[tigermaple]

From the picts, your plate hex looks to be to small and they work better when the supply from the GW comes in at the top like you have it but the supply to your furnace should be at the bottom of the plate. You might want to bypass your furnace altogether. Looks like you spared no expense in your install.

 

[thuffy]

From the picts, your plate hex looks to be to small and they work better when the supply from the GW comes in at the top like you have it but the supply to your furnace should be at the bottom of the plate. You might want to bypass your furnace altogether. Looks like you spared no expense in your install.

We are thinking that we are going to bypass the system...that is our next step. Thanks for the info.

Tom

 

[91220da]

Hi Thuffy,
8 degree heat loss sounds high but you are running 150' supply, I see from your pictures that you used the maxx-r it is good stuff. Hopefully one of the joints did not seperate when you backfilled causing the dirt to touch the pex and acting as a heat sink. That happened to a friend of mine with a central boiler. I agree with the other guys your heat exchanger looks to small. I used a 30 plate, big rectangular one on my gw 100 and I think that is to small. Anyway I do have the typical greenwood smoke issue but mine is in a drafty old garage that self ventilates through the eaves and ridge vent. I can stoke the furnace at 5 am plenty of hot water for 2 showers, plus heat the house to 70 all day, have to add a log or 2 around 3:30 in the afternoon. If the wife is doing alot of laundry I add an extra log or two but usually don't have to load it again until 10pm. Most mornings the supply temp is 140 or lower and the heat retention kit has the damper closed. Reset the control, rake the coals, add 3 or 4 logs and she fires right back up.
Rich

 

[thuffy]

Hi Thuffy,
I recently installed a gw 100 about sixty feet from my house. Have a total loop of 170' going through a 30 flat plate hx in the house near my boiler. I did not have enough heat in the beginning using a Taco 007 pump. This Warm house in Mansfield reccomended I change the pump to a 0011. I did and saw a big improvement. I also discovered that my temp gauges on my oil furnace were way off. I bought a thermometer with a metal probe and clamped it to my copper supply lines of the house furnace and found I was getting higher temps. My oil furnace temp gauge was showing 140-150 but the digital thermometer was reading 172-180 similiar to the output of the gw-100. Getting temps in the house of 68-69-70 with the average oil furnace temp of 160-165. Good Luck. It will take you 2-3 weeks to get it all balanced out.
Rich

Rich,

You said that you changed your pump to a 0011. did you do up from a 007 or 009....or did you come down to the 0011? we are thinking we are pushing too much water with the 0011. Thanks,

Tom

 

[heaterman]

Flat plate hex IMHO do not work well on wood boilers for a number of reasons. Air locks, improper hook-up/positioning, equal flow, deposit build-up etc. Ditch the plate and line it right in to your boiler. Also make sure the ID of the pex between GW and existing furnace is at least 1" for a GW200.
Good Luck

Cannot hook the GW in to the existing boiler because of a pressure issue. the existing boiler exceeds the Gw maximum allowance that is why we need the heat exchanger. the ID of the pex is 1". Thanks,
tom

1" pex under what is considered normal design conditions is good for an average 80,000 btu output, 100,000 would be maximum. You just can't flow a lot more water through it than that. You probably have two main issues that are unfortunately quite common. The HX is undersized and you maybe should have used 1.25" pex for more flow.

Under normal engineering standards you would see the following temps on your HX. Wood side in 180*, wood side out (back to the Greenwood) 160, House side return 150ish, house side supply 170 or so. What are the actual readings on yours?

I just visited a guy with a lack of heat complaint. His installer used 220' of 1" pex to supply a 30 plate HX. The owner has approx 3,500 sq ft of heated space plus two indirect water heaters. The temp drops on the heat exchanger were much higher than I just described which would indicate not enough flow and heat transfer area. His CB Classic spends a lot of time idling even though the system will only maintain about a 60* differential from indoors to out. He did not like what I had to tell say about his installation.

 

[91220da]

Hi Tom,
I went from a 007 on the back of the Greenwood 100 to a 0011. I am running an open system so the pump pushes the cold return water through the greenwood and back to the house through 1" pex about 80' to a 30 plate mounted next to my New yorker oil boiler. The New Yorker side is attached to the hx. via 1" copper. I aggree with heatermans post above and I do have the range of temps he mentioned. My entire greenwood loop to and from the house is a glycol/water mix with a sentry battery back up and a self designed expansion tank/resevoir for boil over and makeup or recovery water.
Rich