Indian Summer

[EForest]

I have not fed the beast since Saturday morning and my over sized cape style house has been 68-70* throughout. I told my wife that the tanks were down to 120* and i might wait till Wednesday to load the Switzer again and she put on a sweater. WAF is a very persuasive factor so I loaded the beast tonight. You gotta love these mild temps in the North east. Yahoo! I hope to go another 3 1/2 days till the next burn.

Its not because of the boiler, its all about the storage.
If you don't have it you should....

 

[NNYorker]

One of these days......... it runs pretty good without storage but.......days between fires sounds so nice. Forecast for snow Thurs.

 

[EForest]

UPDATE!
No fire since Tuesday evening.
The mild temps continue and my boiler is still pumping heat at 180*.
Bottom tank is 150*, top tank is 165* and boiler reads 180*
SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!

 

[Piker]

EForest,

I was just wondering how many Btu's output your boiler is, and what size your house is. Am I to understand you have over 3000 gallons of water in your system? WOW. That's awesome. How long does it take to get all that up to temp?

cheers

 

[EForest]

EForest,

I was just wondering how many Btu's output your boiler is, and what size your house is. Am I to understand you have over 3000 gallons of water in your system? WOW. That's awesome. How long does it take to get all that up to temp?

cheers

Hi Piker,
The Beast is rated at 750K but I've gotten her over 800K with really dry pine.
I start every fire with the draft inducer set to high for @ 30 min then I'll turn to low if it hasn't timed out already.
The inducer is run by a timer that is high when on and low when off.
A typical burn like that will raise all 3K of water 70* in about 3 hrs (70x 3000x8.3/3hrs=581k)
If i really want to get the job done fast I'll keep the inducer on high for the entire burn.
I don't run it on high often due to increased noise which results in complaints from the wife.

The house is a 3,600 sq ft cape w/ two car garage and 1500 sq ft walk out basement. the entire house is kept at 68* min with some spots warmer than others due to radiation from the beast and it's tanks. I keep the garage between 45-50*.

length of burn varies. Average is 5hrs with a 100* rise.

 

[Piker]

I think the term "beast" might be an understatement.

cheers

 

[EForest]

I decided to play with the draft door settings to see what a lower stack temp would give me in temp raise.
Here's what happened. I adjusted the lower draft door to 1/2" and secondary to 1". The stack stayed under 300* for the entire 3 hrs I've been burning tonight. The result is total rise in all three tanks averaged 50*. that computes to a mere 415K over 3 hrs.
I just reset the draft doors and the stack is now 330*. I didn't burn any more wood than normal (actually less) but the beast will continue to burn later than normal.

As garni said in the "heated post of the day" excess air is what keeps a fire hot (at least in my beast).

 

[EForest]

Update

Its been 30 min since resetting draft doors and all 3000 gals have jumped 10*.
That's an extra 85,000 BTU/HR with more air. I gotta go play some more...
I'm over 200* so tweak time is almost over for tonight.