Hello. I'm a new homeowner with an oil burner and a wood burner. I have no experience with that kind of setup. When using the wood burner, the heat is on even when the thermostats are set to a lower temperature , 60 degrees for example so the temperature in the house is 70. It seems like the wood boiler is overriding the thermostats and is sending heat even though they are set to low. Is that normal ? I would think that it should work the same way as with the oil burner which does not send heat when thermostats are lowered.
Heat on with wood boiler but thermostats are lowered.
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My quick off the top of my head assessment would be, do you know if it's overheating?Causing it to dump the excess heat to the house.
This wood boiler heats water. I've just noticed that it also sends heat with the thermostats set to OFF for heat but it sends heat to only one of the zones and not both. I guess I need to contact a plumber or the local stove place because I'm totally not familiar with this system. Hopefully it's not overheating because I'm only burning a couple logs.
A wood boiler is part of wood boiler heating system. It would be very helpful to know how its plumbed up and what sort of controls are on it. Does it have thermal storage ( A big tank ot hot water usually 300 to 600 gallons)?. In general, wood boilers do not work very well at low heating demands. Water is constantly circulated in the boiler and associated piping and that heat wants to go somewhere, not an issue when you want heat but a problem when you do not. If you have zone circulator pumps (versus zone valves) there can be "ghost" flows. Heated water is less dense than cold water so your heating loops tend to move unheated cooler water in the radiators and replace it with warmer water from the basement. Zone valve based systems do not have this issue. If you have zone valves, this is not a new system and its a new problem, you probably have a failed zone valve that is stuck open. They have a limited life but usually easy to replace.
The time of year when you want heat at night and no heat in the day is usually called the shoulder season. Many people including myself shut down the wood boiler and use alternative heating like oil gas or electric. I personally use a mini split heat pump rather than running the wood boiler inefficiently. Wood Boilers with thermal storage usually can be run later into storage season (and reduce yearly wood use by about a third).
The time of year when you want heat at night and no heat in the day is usually called the shoulder season. Many people including myself shut down the wood boiler and use alternative heating like oil gas or electric. I personally use a mini split heat pump rather than running the wood boiler inefficiently. Wood Boilers with thermal storage usually can be run later into storage season (and reduce yearly wood use by about a third).
My grandpa's wood boiler was set up with a dump zone so if there was excess heat it would run that zone to keep the boiler temp under control. Sounds like that could be what's going on.
hobbyheater
Minister of Fire
Had a very similar problem not to long ago , the problem was the thermostat had failed .
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