Appreciate all the posts. I will get a bunch of pics at lunch. Not sure I can do much better than what I posted on the link someone else already pasted on here, but I'll try.
After reading these, I'm wondering if my pumps are failing because that bottom chamber was open?? I know they've quit with everything closed down too...so I'm not sure.
I'm going to do a rundown of my procedures to see if I'm on the right track.... I have my water set to start circulating at 160 (per advice I got here). But here's where I run into a bit of trouble (thus heating with the bottom chamber open). When I start my boiler from cold (the other night the water temp was at 92 degrees), I build a small fire using some paper and smaller splinters of wood with both chambers cracked open. Once it gets hot and going, I'll add larger pieces of dry wood. The water temp will usually increase fairly rapidly until it hits that 160 mark. When it starts circulating, it drops back down to 150 or so because you have the colder water returning and mixing in. After a few minutes it'll start catching up again and will climb over 160. I USED to let it get to 170 before I closed both chambers and pushed the start button, but what happens is once the chambers are closed and I go turn one furnace on, that one furnace will drop my water temp down to the 150's. Obviously once that happens, my furnace is blowing nothing but cold air on cold coils because the water isn't circulating (under 160). So then I have to go shut the furnace off, let the temp get back up to 170, and then turn the furnace back on. Back and forth and back and forth. You end up leap-frogging my thermostat one degree at a time until the house is comfortable. Kind of an utter pain in the a** and takes a lot of time. So recently, i noticed that if I left that bottom chamber open while my furnace(s) were running, it was able to maintain that 170 water temp while my house heats up faster. But obviously the problem being if the pumps shut off it becomes the runaway freight train like I found out the other night!
I have the dial set at 175 (per advice from here) and once the house is warm, it all functions beautifully. It's just the intitial warming process of the boiler AND the house that eats my lunch. When the house load drops the boiler temp below circulating, my fans blow cold air in the house and the boiler never catches up (and the house drops in temp from the cold air)...thus the babysitting I have to do for an hour every time I cold start.
After my little ordeal the other night, I let the boiler cool down to the 170 range...I checked everything out to make sure I didn't have any leaks and I let it continue to run. The digital guauge and the analog gauge (if those are proper terms!) both matched up like they always do and the whole deal functioned the rest of the night. I was a tad nervous to leave it, but it seemed to be doing what it always did. Just had to blow off a little steam!
For the record, I spoke with the local guy that has the outdoor units and he said that the pressure release should have been piped through the ceiling and roof and right outside. After I got off the phone with him I called my plumber and he said you shouldn't pipe anything like that outisde because if it freezes I don't have any release and therefore I basically have a bomb. I tend to agree with the plumber just from simple logic, but that's an example of my local resources not knowing what I have and are merely guessing.
