Oh the humanity!! 8 Days on nothing but oil!

[JP11]

LOL.. Feeding the heck out of the boiler tonight. Over heating my basement concrete so I can 'coast' a few days.

Why.. I'm headed on vacation. We have a house/dog sitter. Not asking her to run the wood boiler. SO.. I'll be closing my shutoffs to the storage, and cranking my aqua stat that runs the relay between oil and storage circulator.

A whole 8 days! I think I'll cry a little when I turn those valves.

On the plus side.. VEGAS tomorrow night. Utah and San Diego are on tap too. Rare to be hotel living with my wife.. I do it WAY too much at my job.

JP

 

[hobbyheater]

LOL.. days.
Rare to be hotel living with my wife.. I do it WAY too much at my job.
JP

This is a holiday with the wife! Nothing can match that!

 

[avc8130]

Why not leave the storage?

Do everything you can to get that 1k to MAX temp before you leave and leave with a firebox full of wood burning. Then let the oil burner take over when that runs out.

ac

 

[JP11]

I have on a rare occasion had the relay stick and it stay on wood for too long for my comfort. I'd rather just give up on the potential 5 or 600K BTUs I could put in the tanks.

I THOUGHT I had the sticky aqua stat fixed when I went to remote bulb. But I have tapped it occasionally to get it to switch. Maybe it's just my set point is too ambitious, and i'm just in that null spot on it. I guess that's one of those things I'll troubleshoot in warmer weather.

If I just crank the aqua stat to force oil.. I can close off the ball valves going to storage. I have seen some flow out the return line when running oil only. I'll take the loss of tanks to keep the oil from heating storage for no reason.

I think as warm as it is down in my office in the basement now… this zone won't call for a few days!

JP

 

[avc8130]

Just out of curiosity, wouldn't heating the storage tanks with the oil be just as efficient as not? I mean, the oil burner is most efficient when it operates continuously just like the wood boiler. If your storage is insulated and efficient, and even better yet within the heated envelope I don't see any reason heating the storage would be "bad".

ac

 

[JP11]

It's not really plumbed to do that. My wood connects with close spaced T's on the hot leg of the oil boiler.

My "ghost" flow is out the return line to storage… water is going the correct direction, so it just thermo siphons some.

When the oil boiler is running, the circulator from storage does not. The setup works great 95% of the time. I just don't want to have to wonder if the aqua stat stuck… want to know our house sitter is on oil and one less thing I have to explain to her.

JP

 

[flyingcow]

IMO, it's good to run the oil system some from time to time. I bet I use 25 to 50 gals a yr either for quick heat when I come home late, or just to exercise it.

Have fun on your vaca. Hotel living, I don't miss that a bit. I'm sure it'll be a nice change for you.

 

[Coal Reaper]

When i am on oil my system sends 3gpm of hot water from the house to the bottom of my storage tanks. They are about 160* after whatever period of time i am gone. Its like i was never away when i go to light a fire after shutting the oil down. Doesnt seem to effect the ammount of oil i go through although i need to hook up a timer to prove this i guess. It only maintaining heat loss in the tanks if i leave with them charged. If tanks are cold then it takes a substantial ammount of wood (=reloads and time) to meet demand and charge tanks. I ussually want to be busy doing other things when i first get home. I still need to get the oil side automated tho.

 

[muncybob]

I will also have my oil on this weekend but for only 24 hours when I visit my sister....would rather be in Vegas!