Dad bought a used Econoburn EWB200 a year or 2 ago and had been running it sort of "rigged" up with a fan blowing on a radiator in his shop.
He had many problems, mainly from cutting corners, but a few due to how he burns.
His install was just a simple, install with the circulation loop connected to the heat-exchanger and the heat-exchanger blower tied into the thermostat.
His shop isn't co-located with his home, IE, he can't just run outside and check the boiler occasionally. Depending on his work schedule there were times the boiler would burn out (run out of wood) because he hadn't been able to check on it but the thermostat would be calling for heat, running the heat-exchanger, just circulating air, which would run up the power bill.
His other problem is that a couple times he had over-temp issues with the boiler. If for some reason the shop was hot and there was a good fire going in the boiler there was no "heat-dump" to get rid of extra heat in his simple setup so the boiler would go over-temp and boil off some of the water.
He also got a free 200 gallon electric water-heater tank given to him. Just had 1 hole that had been punched in the side (looked like it had maybe been dropped) that he had to patch. He wanted to use that as water storage to increase the "carryover" when the boiler did run out of wood.
So I helped him fix up the tank and install it, then I figured out some "controls" to take care of some of his issues. The heat-exchanger blower is now controlled by a relay that is controlled in 2 separate manners.
#1 If the boiler ever goes into "over-temp alarm" the circulation pump (should already be on) and the heat-exchanger blower are automatically triggered on (no matter what the thermostat says) to start dumping heat, even if the air-temp is above the thermostat set-point.
#2 If the boiler temp has dropped to the point that the circulation pump turns off (pump is always on once boiler is over a certain temp) the heat-exchanger blower cannot kick on, even if the thermostat calls for heat. IE, if the pump isn't circulating water the water is cold and kicking the blower on cannot do any good, therefore the blower cannot kick on when the pump isn't running.
He said it's been working good so far (bit less than a week now) and he is happy with it.
He had many problems, mainly from cutting corners, but a few due to how he burns.
His install was just a simple, install with the circulation loop connected to the heat-exchanger and the heat-exchanger blower tied into the thermostat.
His shop isn't co-located with his home, IE, he can't just run outside and check the boiler occasionally. Depending on his work schedule there were times the boiler would burn out (run out of wood) because he hadn't been able to check on it but the thermostat would be calling for heat, running the heat-exchanger, just circulating air, which would run up the power bill.
His other problem is that a couple times he had over-temp issues with the boiler. If for some reason the shop was hot and there was a good fire going in the boiler there was no "heat-dump" to get rid of extra heat in his simple setup so the boiler would go over-temp and boil off some of the water.
He also got a free 200 gallon electric water-heater tank given to him. Just had 1 hole that had been punched in the side (looked like it had maybe been dropped) that he had to patch. He wanted to use that as water storage to increase the "carryover" when the boiler did run out of wood.
So I helped him fix up the tank and install it, then I figured out some "controls" to take care of some of his issues. The heat-exchanger blower is now controlled by a relay that is controlled in 2 separate manners.
#1 If the boiler ever goes into "over-temp alarm" the circulation pump (should already be on) and the heat-exchanger blower are automatically triggered on (no matter what the thermostat says) to start dumping heat, even if the air-temp is above the thermostat set-point.
#2 If the boiler temp has dropped to the point that the circulation pump turns off (pump is always on once boiler is over a certain temp) the heat-exchanger blower cannot kick on, even if the thermostat calls for heat. IE, if the pump isn't circulating water the water is cold and kicking the blower on cannot do any good, therefore the blower cannot kick on when the pump isn't running.
He said it's been working good so far (bit less than a week now) and he is happy with it.
