Stove installed Friday, NOT inspected yet, Oil Burner "broke" Today --- what to do?

[Hestia]

Our wood stove was installed Friday (pictures in the picture forum.) Something sounded funny in the house, I checked at 6 am, and water is in the basement - not a lot, but enough. Coming from the top of the 3 year old oil fired water heater. Called to heat the furnace, and it just buzzed at us. It is old, needs replacement, considered doing so this Fall, but decided to instead invest in a wood stove.

We decided to do 3/4 of our heating by using a wood stove - this house cannot be heated all with wood, as it is a U shaped ranch, and the halls are narrow - the pipes would probably freeze in the far end of the U. Boiler waited until we spent our money on the wood stove/install. I'm looking at gas conversions. A pain and sad to think about the money we spent on the oil fired one. We might stay with oil, but the gas boilers are so much more efficient - local bills are so much lower for gas.

We can heat water on the stove to wash with for the moment, and it is not terribly cold, but we will need heat. It is in the 30's and 40's for the next few days.

If we could only get the inspector out - it is Sunday! We aren't supposed to fire the stove up until inspected, I love our installers, except they did not pull a permit according to the contract (we are holding final payment until they do - they said they didn't because they wanted to get the information off of the stove first - isn't that what telephones are for? I would just be a little annoyed at this, but now we have no heat!) and the inspector probably will not be able to inspect it until late next week, if at all. Do we just ignore our local inspector, which I don't want to do - he is fairly strict.

Hot water is oil fired as well. I am posting this here because I am panicking a bit, and also wanted to see if anyone who heated with wood part ways has had experience from changing from oil to gas - Are they glad that they did? I hope that I am not off topic too much. I'm off to the basement to help with the water clean up. Any advice welcome!

Hestia

 

[Redox]

Murphy rears his ugly head! That oil burner KNEW what you were up to. Sounds like you might have to call the oil man one (last?) time?

Any syptoms on the boiler? Where's the water coming from? Maybe we can help you jury rig it.

 

[syd3006]

I have had similar problems as far a my oil going out on a weekend, had to get by with electric heaters put in strategic places to keep the water from freezing. Might be worth a try phoning the inspector and explaining things to him the same way you did to us, he may let you start a fire in the stove, it is a bit of an emergency.

 

[Hestia]

I went to sleep late, but woke up early and something did not feel right. There was a far away whooshing sound, but I thought it was the dish washer far away in the kitchen. Now I know it was the furnace trying to start up. The almost brand new oil fired water heater was leaking water out of the top.

We have a service plan, and the guy is coming in half an hour or so. He walked through certain things over the phone. Thanks so much for answering back - you can probably tell I was in a panic. Murphy does exist!

I boiled some water on the stove, I am considering putting the extra soapstone we ordered for the top into a low oven so we can then snuggle up to them. It is about 55 in the house now. I will post again after the service person comes. I would still like to hear from anyone who has done the oil to gas conversion - Something I worry about is gas with a flame from the fire in the wood stove. Has anyone with gas ever had any such safety issues?

Thanks for the hand holding!

Hestia

 

[Stevebass4]

it's only a 3 year old furnace? or is it a 3 year old indirect hot water tank off the furnace

just try to press the reset button ONCE on the furnace again just ONCE

i would say you should still be covered under warranty

and if by chnce your funnace is a burnham v73 *big blue one - they have a ten year fully covered warranty

 

[eernest4]

I would fire up the wood stove & later find out when the inspector was comming & vacuum up the dead cold ashes, emphisis on dead & cold ashes, with a ASH VAC not your house vac
as the life span of a house vac used to vac ashes is measured in seconds, like 30 to 40 sec.
to total motor failure. It seems the filter in home vacs won't keep ashes out of the motor.

I CAN'T TELL YOU IT IS OK TO DO, FIRE UP THE STOVE BEFORE THE INSPECTOR COME,BUT IF YOUR ALTERNATIVE IS TO FREEZE FOR A WEEK WAITING ON SOME JERK OFF TO SHOW UP & INSPECT., well that your decision as to what you choose to do.. i tell you what I would do, but I would be willing to suffer any consequence of my actions as being preferable to FMAO for 14 days.



If you don't have a ash vac & can't afford $200.oo +ship & tax to buy one, You can use a shop vac, kmart or wallmart, 49.95, get the 5 or 6 gal size. Make sure that you have the paper bag filter around the outside of the foam filter which is around the outside of the automotive air cleaner type filter.

The paper bag filter does most of the work keeping the ash out of the vac motor ,so it must be in new condition & change it out after 2 ash vacs. Put water in the bottom of the vac canister to trap ashes in the water ,but not enough water to splash up the sides of the canister & wet the paper filter.

Freeze waiting for a stove inspector for better than a week???. I dont think so. Just watch the stove like a hawk for the first 5 loads of wood for indications of anything amiss. If you think something is not right,stop burning the stove & get on line here & ask someonw about it.

BE AWARE THAT A NEW STOVE IS GOING TO BURN OFF THE PAINT ON THE STOVE & ON THE SINGLE BLACK WALL STOVE PIPE if that is the pipe you have. Stainless double wall insulated pipe has no paint to burn of & so should not give off any oder.

The stove will probably stink of burning paint for the first 5 or 6 loads of wood. This is normal
but you will have to open doors & windows, as the paint fumes are not good to breath.

Don't be afraid to use a ventalator fan to remove harmfull fumes from paint cook off.

READ YOUR OWNERS MANUAL ,TWICE BEFORE LOADING & LITING YOUR STOVE.

After all,you have never done this before.

USE 1/4 LOAD OF WOOD FOR THE FIRST FIRE,1/2 LOAD OF WOOD FOR THE SECOND FIRE,
2/3 LOAD OF WOOD FOR THE 3RD FIRE & 3/4 LOAD OF WOOD FOR THE 4TH FIRE.

The reason why is a small fire is easier to control, & put out,if you have to & it allows you to burn off the paint more slowly, with not so much stink. It also allows for a easy test run to work out any bugs which the stove probably does not have.

MAINLY, YOU WILL NEED TO LEARN THE WAYS OF YOUR STOVE & OF BURNING WOOD.
Just like learning to drive a car, you don't start out by running the indy 500, but by putting down a deserted side road at 20 mph.

So, start your stove out on 1/4 load of wood, & then ,if every thing seems ok, go to a 1/3 load of wood.

One of the ways of controling the temp of a stove is by limiting the amt of wood you put in it.

Don't burn any green wood or wet wood as it smokes up the neighbor hood & wont give a hot fire. It would be hard to reach 400 deg with wet or green wood & you need 550 deg to initiate secondary combustion or engage a catalytic combustor.

If you have a catalytic combustor ,let the stove burn on bypass mode for at least 30 minutes before engaging the cat, in order to drive any moisture out of the wood . Cats are highly sensitive to changes in temp or water or steam in the wood & can shatter the honeycomb matrix because of it.

Never burn any wood that has any type of finish or paint or glue on it because they all give off toxic to you & corrosive for your stove fumes. The same is true for plywood,cardboard and particle board. The glues in them give off toxic,corrosive fumes & they burn hotter than hell, because the release nitrious oxide, they same stuff that boosts race cars from 90 mph to 180mph in 4 seconds & it do that to the temp in your stove too. you go from 400 deg to 1100 deg in under 60 seconds. SO, DONT DO IT.

Reason I know is that I did it & witness the results & now I know better.

Always keep some water by the stove for emergency extinguish of fire. a pump up garden sprayer will work well here. also, a wet towell or blanket(sized to cover inside of firebox) & kept inside a plastic bag so that water can't hit the hot door glass. When you throw it on the fire,the plastic melts & the water comes out of the bag & the towell smothers the fire. Don't get any water on door glass when it hot,because it will shatter. $150.oo glass you don't want to break.

Maybe now ,you won't have to do any of this ,since I started writing ,you got the oil guy to come & maybe he fix the money burner for you.

 

[eernest4]

Hesta,

I did a gas to oil conversion 6 years ago for a friend. I pulled out his broken gas burner that was costing him 900.oo to 1000.oo per month to heat a 3 family house & replaced it with a becket retention head oil burner that he paid 350.oo for. The gas burner
that we throw out to junk yard would have cost 790.oo for just the burner.

As to fuel saving, he heated with the oil burner for 250.oo a month, but oil then was 1.oo /gal, but he was realizing a savings of 800.oo to 900.oo a month,back then.

Now,if he used 250 gal a month of oil,it would cost 250 x 3.25 gal = $812.oo /month
but he only uses 100 gal a month now because he install a wood pellet stove as supplimental heat.100 x 3.25 = 325.oo a month, not bad with todays prices.

Again,I can tell you what I did, but not choose for you. I install both a 45,000 btu/hr pellet stove in my living room ,as well as a 12 cubic foot firebox secondary burn wood stove in my basement to heat 3000 sq ft house. i still use my oil burner ,ocassionally,to take the chill out of the second floor rooms that the wood heat can't reach very well.

The wood heat gets the second floor up to 55 to 59 deg , depending on outside temps, while the kitchen is 75 to 79, my bedroom 70 to 72, mom's bed room 70 to 76 & the living room with pellet stove off, 70 to 74, with pellet stove on 80.

With pellet heat,living room 80 ,kitchen 72 to 76 ,my br 68 to 71,moms br 72-74.

The wood stove,in the basement, heat up all basement first then heat goes up to first floor. Usually,I dont bother to open the stairway door to the second floor as it stays 59 ,just by heat rising & I live on first floor. second floor just cold storage rooms.

i would say,dont convert to gas heat, the price of gas follow up the price of fuel oil & gasoline.
Convert instead, to wood & pellet stove heat, as I did. a pellet stove is thru the outside wall,
direct vent for only 120.oo ,cost of parts & DIY. Pellet stove cost 1695.oo , pel pro 45,000btu/hr shop heater ,sold by archeronon hardware.

Pellet heat no wood cutting ,spliting ,seasoning,laying of fire,watching of fire to see if primary air setting is ok & not too high, no up at 4 am FYAO, when wood fire burn out.

Pellet stove push button to start,refuel once every 2 or 4 days, take 5 minutes max to refuel.
Push button off, self ignition but needs electricity. When i am too tired to lay the fire, I push button on pellet stove & go 2 bed.

Pellets cost $5.00 a 40lb bag that last for pel pro 45,000 btu pellet stove, 24 hour of constant burn, bag last 1 day. That never shutting it offf. You shut it off 1 hour out of 2, then bag last 2 days.

point is, 24/7 run, no shut off, cost $35.oo a week to heat. 7 bags x $5.oo=35.oo

in sept 08, pellets go up to 6.00 bag , the 7 bags x $6.oo=42.oo week for 24/7 heat.

Pellet stoves have wall mounted thermostats, just like your oil burner & are way safer to opperate that a wood stove. So,you can set & forget ,the pellet stove for when you are out of the house or asleep.

Don't convert to gas, keep your oil burner for very ocasional use & do 95% of your heat with wood & pellet stoves ,like me. i alraedy put my money where my mouth is & it worked out
much better that I expected. I save 3000.oo to 4,000.oo every year, as that what it cost me to heat with oil ,which I don't do any more. I spend 1800.oo on oil all winter which is about 2 months of only oil heat for my house ,so savings this year is 2200 because mom 96 years old & not see 97 & want 80 deg in house. Not a fair test of savings compaired to before mom got sick & we kept 72 in the house. I keep her warm & damn the cost, but cost reasonable thanks to wood & pellets.

I am not am expert,just a highly knowledgable amateur, but I'm close to an expert,he lives just next door. ;-P

 

[Hestia]

Thanks all for answering my panic post this am. Technician was here for about 1.5 hours, and was able to get furnace to run, thankfully. He did say that it was impossible to kill, that it was built like a tank. It is not efficient at all, and is oversized. However, if we will be heating mostly with wood, we can live with that for another couple of years at least.

Wish we could do more from the basement, however back near the bedrooms that part of the basement gets wet. We have cast iron boiler fed hot water baseboard throughout the house, so we cannot use a circulating fan to move heat - we will be using box fans. Our bedroom/bathroom is what we would ideally like to heat (addition, three sides unprotected) however I don't think they allow a wood stove there. We have to look further into this.

I would still like to hear from those of you who heat with wood with gas backup. The boilers for gas are 90% efficient, while a new one for oil is about 80%. I think that 10% must add up a lot over time. Any worries about using gas and a wood stove in the same house?

Thank you all for listening to me panic earlier!

Hestia

 

[Redox]

The 10% by itself will never pay for the conversion, particularly if you are now trying to burn wood or pellets. Most new oil boilers operate in the 85-88% range now. To convert, you need a power gas burner that costs about a grand to install, not including piping to your existing boiler. Just to clarify, you have an oil hot water boiler as your primary heat? It's been a while since I bought a gas boiler, but they are less expensive than an oil burner. I am not aware of any gas boilers that top 90% AFUE; I thought you had to go to forced air to do that, but let others here answer that one. I have a 90% condensing FHA furnace that I enjoy not hearing run with the new woodstove. I could probably sell the furnace if I got a pellet insert in the LR. HMMM....

 

[Hestia]

Redox,

We had quotes in the Fall for close to $7,000 for a good quality, efficient oil boiler with install (and get rid of the old one). Near that price for three different quotes. Online - the local gas supplier quotes giving a $1,000 rebate for high efficiency gas, (and stated that was for a 90% efficient gas boiler.) I really would rather get off fossil fuels all together, but am not at all sure how to do it with our odd house layout - our bedroom has a crawl space underneath, and the bathroom gets so cold in the winter that I avoid it anyway. It won't freeze with the room temperature - just not comfortable. Our room is always at least 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house, and we keep the house at 60/61 (lower at night.) We can't heat from the basement, and I am fairly sure that we would not be allowed a stove in our bedroom. That would solve a lot of problems. Pellet there would be fine. Anyone know if we could have a pellet stove in our bedroom in Massachusetts?

Thanks, Hestia

 

[swestall]

If you have a modern lifestyle and are in and out, travel or are away for more than 10 hours sometimes, you need to have a reliable, automatic heat backup that will operate to keep your environment above 45-50 degrees. When the thermostat is at 45-50 the outside walls are much colder and pipes can freeze; not just the fresh water but the heating system ones as well. It seems your situation requires backup for very cold times and times away.
There is no guarantee what is going to happen with oil and gas. In the past 40 years they have gone back and forth in their attratctiveness as a fuel source. One thing is sure, they will continue to cost more and more. Gas seems to have a better domestic supply.
It would be wise to take the long view here. First with wood, realize you are talking about a long term committment to it or something that will burn in your wood stove.
Second, pick the fuel you like and then save up for the conversion unit during the next few years, while you get the most you can out of that old oil boiler. When you have enough saved for full payment then just do what you decided you are going to as far as a fuel source is concerned, and get your best deal.

 

[Stevebass4]

Redox,

We had quotes in the Fall for close to $7,000 for a good quality, efficient oil boiler with install (and get rid of the old one). Near that price for three different quotes. Online - the local gas supplier quotes giving a $1,000 rebate for high efficiency gas, (and stated that was for a 90% efficient gas boiler.) I really would rather get off fossil fuels all together, but am not at all sure how to do it with our odd house layout - our bedroom has a crawl space underneath, and the bathroom gets so cold in the winter that I avoid it anyway. It won't freeze with the room temperature - just not comfortable. Our room is always at least 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house, and we keep the house at 60/61 (lower at night.) We can't heat from the basement, and I am fairly sure that we would not be allowed a stove in our bedroom. That would solve a lot of problems. Pellet there would be fine. Anyone know if we could have a pellet stove in our bedroom in Massachusetts?

Thanks, Hestia

just an FYI i changed my old 1950s furnace with a new Burnham mpo 147 (87% efficient) with an indirect hot water tank for 5k (in Norfolk ma) – it pays to shop around as the prices were around 1.5 to 2k higher for the same thing

also with Massave – do an energy audit first (free) and then they will give you a $750.00 rebate if you upgrade from an old furnace to a new one

 

[TheFlame]

Fire up the stove!

Is the chimney brand new as well? If so then zero chance of a chimney fire. The only other concerns are clearances and pipe connections, and you should be able to verify those are ok before you fire it up.

What is the inspector going to do to you if you do burn it? Deny you a permit? Based on what? Anything legit he would come up with based on the install would have to be taken care of by the installers anyway, so what do you have to lose? Is there a fine of some sort possibly involved?

 

[Hanko]

Our wood stove was installed Friday (pictures in the picture forum.) Something sounded funny in the house, I checked at 6 am, and water is in the basement - not a lot, but enough. Coming from the top of the 3 year old oil fired water heater. Called to heat the furnace, and it just buzzed at us. It is old, needs replacement, considered doing so this Fall, but decided to instead invest in a wood stove.

We decided to do 3/4 of our heating by using a wood stove - this house cannot be heated all with wood, as it is a U shaped ranch, and the halls are narrow - the pipes would probably freeze in the far end of the U. Boiler waited until we spent our money on the wood stove/install. I'm looking at gas conversions. A pain and sad to think about the money we spent on the oil fired one. We might stay with oil, but the gas boilers are so much more efficient - local bills are so much lower for gas.

We can heat water on the stove to wash with for the moment, and it is not terribly cold, but we will need heat. It is in the 30's and 40's for the next few days.

If we could only get the inspector out - it is Sunday! We aren't supposed to fire the stove up until inspected, I love our installers, except they did not pull a permit according to the contract (we are holding final payment until they do - they said they didn't because they wanted to get the information off of the stove first - isn't that what telephones are for? I would just be a little annoyed at this, but now we have no heat!) and the inspector probably will not be able to inspect it until late next week, if at all. Do we just ignore our local inspector, which I don't want to do - he is fairly strict.

Hot water is oil fired as well. I am posting this here because I am panicking a bit, and also wanted to see if anyone who heated with wood part ways has had experience from changing from oil to gas - Are they glad that they did? I hope that I am not off topic too much. I'm off to the basement to help with the water clean up. Any advice welcome!

Hestia

Lite up the new stove, I would

 

[Webwidow]

Do what I always do, if busted be nice and say OPPS sorry, my mistake. :red: The inspector is human (well at least most of them are).

 

[Redox]

It's amazing how often this works. I know mechanical contractors that regularly don't pull permits. If they get caught, they will claim "I didn't know you needed to pull a permit for THAT!" Happens all the time.

 

[Hestia]

I'm not sure what the inspector would do if we fired it up, but we have been told that he is strict. We were told no fire at all (even break in ones) until the stove and install is inspected. We don't want him finding fault with the hearth that we built, (can't have the installers faulted for that!) so we are following the rules. I'm just grateful that the boiler finally started. I think that we will keep it limping along, saving our money (should be easier heating with mostly wood next winter!) and having a new system of some sort installed down the road a bit. Maybe by then there will be a more energy efficient (and affordable) technology.

Hestia

 

[Highbeam]

Nomatter what you do to try and clean up after yourself that stove will stink like smoke even if you burn only one small fire. I know because I lit a renegade fire before inspection but after install. I couldn't help myself. The inspector stuck his head inside this newfangled soapstone stove and surely knew that it was burnt. I didn't mention it and neither did he. Who's to say the stove wasn't a used stove and was already stunk up by a previous owner?

 

[critterfitter]

I'm plumbing and heating contractor I put wood pellet boiler in house and used all oil boilers existing controls and wiring .A lot cheaper operating cost than oil boiler a little higher initial purchase cost but fuel savings will pay for it in about three years.

 

[berlin]

exactly how with pellet prices what they are, do you expect a pellet boiler to pay for itself in three years?? lol. one of the best alternatives in that area is anthracite coal, if you're looking to save money; unless you cut your own wood.

as far as the OP's idea of replacing his old oil boiler, it will never likely pay for itself, ever. so if you want to spend money, that's your right, but don't do so with the thought of it being a "good investment" think of it like buying a car.
the newer oil boilers are only slightly more efficient than the old ones. make sure that the burner is in top shape, also that it's set up correctly by the tech (ask to see his bacharach kit, if he doesn't have it or know what that is find another tech fast) barometric dampers have to be adjusted correctly, too much overfire draft and you waste vast amounts of heat out the chimney.