New to wood boilers:Need some help

[Stokedlight]

Hello everyone, I just found this site and after searching the internet and not finding any real answers I figured maybe I could post in here and someone would know something. We just moved to a new home and to had an existing Heatmor wood boiker outside probably about 50ft from the house. After moving in we were informed that it wasn't hooked up properly and we wanted to have someone go through it and give us the run down before we started using it. We had someone come out and hook it new feed and return pex lines a flat plate heat exchanger. Now the lines come in through the circulator pump to the heat exchanger then into the furnace where there is a temp gauge. I have the stove set to 190* and I'm noticing that the temp at the furnace when I just use the boiler is usually around 120* I figured that was a dramatic loss for only having the stove 50 or so feet from the house. On top of that I feel that I'm burning through wood at a rate that I'm not seeing other people mention. To keep the house at 70 degrees during the day I'm loading the stove at least 4 or 5 times a day and if I kid it at night (usually around 10 or 11) taking a hot shower in the morning is almost impossible because the stove has burnt out the house has dropped to 60 degrees and the incoming water temp is around 120 if not a little less. Also after everything was installed the basmement furnace kept kicking on even though the aquastat was set way below what the water temp was. I'm a tad overwhelmed and very confused. Any advice or help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Karl_northwind]

can you post any photos? or make a diagram or something? how big is the house? knowing what the underground piping looks like would help too. some stuff is complete garbage, some is really good.
you definitely have something undesirable going on.

 

[Stokedlight]

The house is a 2700 sq ft contemporary with very high ceilings so I do understand that it will take some wood to heat it and keep it warm. What I have been doing to stop the furnace from turning on is just unplugging the wiring harness and usually the house stays around 70-75* using just the boiler depending on what the gf wants. We had the new pex out in and the circulator and heat exchanger put in about 2 months ago and have burned through about 3 cord of wood. Before I continue I will say that the last month or so has been unusually cold around here anywhere from 0 to -7 when I wake up and a high about 10 during the days. I called the guy who did the work respectively just to ask him what was up with the temps and what's going in and he said it was just because it was so cold out and with all the zones in the house calling. Am I expecting too much from the stove? I read about people heating their houses, barns, greenhouses etc with one stove and I feel like that would be impossible here. My gf just wants to wake up in the morning and have a hot shower and I want to make that happen but using the wood boiler instead of our oil tanks. I have pictures I can upload if the forum lets me.

 

[Stokedlight]

The top pic is the furnace aquastat and temp gauge. The second picture is the pump and heat exchanger and the in/out piping. If the pictures don't help I wish I coukd exain more but like I said this is all new to me so I'm learning as I go. I have a general grasp on the concept and the piping but could prob only describe/explain it to a degree.

 

[Karl_northwind]

3 cords in 2 months in an OWB at 0F degrees and a biggish house doesn't sound too bad. how much wood are you putting in 4-5 times a day? but sounds like about right for what you have.
some boiler re-wiring, and maybe piping might be in order, to keep the oil boiler from firing as long as the house stays up to temp, and only allow it to fire if the house temp drops too far.

 

[Stokedlight]

I usually put in an armful of solid size split seasoned hardwood. Overnight I put in the non split round logs hoping for a longer burn time. I'm glad to hear I'm not excessively burning wood, I read people talking about getting 14+ hrs of burn time on one load and got really concerned. In one of those pics you can kinda see there's a copper pipe next to the furnace aquastat. I think that the setup is what is making the furnace come on when it's not supposed to because that pipe is the feed from the well when we call for water in the house and I think that it's dumping cold water over the sensor making it think that the water isn't to temp. But I'm not sure because today I plugged the furnace in just to see what happened when we weren't calling for water and it still fired but as long as you think it's running okay for now and we're still warm I guess I shouldn't be complaining.

 

[maple1]

So you had new underground piping put in? Exactly what type of product is it - because as mentioned above, it certainly isn't all created equal. Are the ends of the whole product exposed at either end you can snap a pic of? Foam insulation or wrapped?

More temp info might help, like temps in & out of outdoor boiler, temps on each pipe (supply & return) at the basement entrance, in & out of both sides of the heat exchanger, and in & out of the indoor furnace (boiler?). Should be able to find where the heat is going by measuring all the temp diffs, wherever it goes in & out of something - ground, hxs, or boilers/furnaces.

 

[Stokedlight]

I didn't even think of consistently measuring those specific areas to get an idea of where the loss is. Good advice. All I have is a temp gauge in the jacket of the stove and then one more coming in to the furnace. The house stays very warm during the day as mentioned above usually around 70-73 takes a cpl loadings a day. I also thought about digging up the pipe that runs from the boiler to the house and either correcting it or insulating it more. Is that a possibility? We just moved in to the house a cpl months ago and the boiler wasn't set up correctly by the previous homeowners (no heat exchanger, wrong lines not rated for the temps) kind of a nightmare, so we had someone come in and install the heat exchanger and change the pex lines so I'm learning little by little about the system as a whole.

 

[maple1]

So were the underground lines also replaced in the recent work?

3 cords of wood in 2 months with an OWB isn't really bad for an OWB, actually - I guess Karl also pointed that out above, I missed it the first time. Spend some time gathering/assessing temps to get a handle on possible problem spots - your underground might be OK too, don't really know with info so far. Another thing to check out, is if the OWB boiler has return temp protection or not. A steady diet of return water going back into it that is below 140° or so will increase creosote condensation in the firebox & possibly increase firebox corrosion & shorten its lifespan. That can be accomplished with a thermostatic valve, or a near boiler bypass circuit/pump.

I've started using a Maverick ET-732 dual probe BBQ thermometer for temps - just tie/tape the probes right against the pipes under some pipe insulation & watch for a while. Seems to work pretty good. You can leave in one spot for a while then move around to different places over time. Might be other things out there that will work too - typical indoor/outdoor termometers I found didn't quite go high enough in their temp capacities.

 

[Clarkbug]

Looks like you have several circulators on your last photo. Do you have radiators or baseboard heat in the house as well?

3 cords isnt terrible for an OWB in those temps, especially if its green.