Want to do a back up for my over heat loop

[Briquetmaker]

Power went out today when I had a nice fire going and temp went crazy. My fires are hot with the briquets I burn so I'm concerned when leaving for the day. I know my over heat loop is undersized and gravity feed doesn't move enough water so I want to add a circulator to move the water faster. I am going to add more commercial fin tube to help the situation. My question is, I want to put a battery backup to run the circulator on the loop but I'm not sure how to hook that up.What is the switching device to activate that? OR can I set all the controls and circ's to work off the back up?

Anybody have setups like this?

 

[goosegunner]

I have been thinking about this lately too. I was also thinking about adding a second circulator in parallel with the main supply. Maybe it could be controlled by an aqua-stat so if it hit say 185 it would turn on. the auqa-stat would need to be near the boiler.

It would accomplish two things

1. It would move more water when you are reaching the set point for storage.

2. It would kick in if your dump zone couldn't keep up.

It could also aide in cooling boiler if you shut down fan and main circulator with temp sensor. If boiler temp continued to climb due to coals the second pump could kick in independent of the thermocouple shutdown.

gg

 

[timberr]

This is what I use, power inverter with built in transfer switch and battery charger. I have the Pure Sine version because I am running a number of Tekmar controllers and the fan on my Eko will not work right with a modified sine inverter. I use on deep cycle battery and it last for more then 6 hours running the entire heating system. I have had this set up for 3 years and it has worked flawlessly, we loose power at regularly, I never worry about leaving the house with the boiler running.

http://www.aimscorp.net/1500_Watt_P..._with_Built_in_Transfer_Switch_-and-_Charger/

Good luck

 

[Briquetmaker]

I'm still confused on how to separate from "the grid" to the backup, 5 circulators and 2 boilers. How does the wiring work from the circut breaker panel. Electrician needed?

 

[Fred61]

I'm using the same one. I first tried a modified sine wave unit but quickly disconnected it after hearing buzzing pumps and flickering controls.

 

[timberr]

No electrician needed. On the 110 supplying the heating system I put a regular 3 prong plug. The Inverter is plugged into a 110 outlet, the inverter has a "output" cord which I wired to a regular 3 pole outlet and I plugged the heating system into that. In normal mode the inverter passes 110 through to the heating system. When the power goes out, the inverter automatically goes to Batt. power and out put's 110 to the heating system.

 

[rkusek]

No electrician needed. On the 110 supplying the heating system I put a regular 3 prong plug. The Inverter is plugged into a 110 outlet, the inverter has a "output" cord which I wired to a regular 3 pole outlet and I plugged the heating system into that. In normal mode the inverter passes 110 through to the heating system. When the power goes out, the inverter automatically goes to Batt. power and out put's 110 to the heating system.

Are you running anything else off of the inverter? I would think I could get by with one half that size.

 

[stee6043]

The easiest way (in my opinion) to provide battery backup is to buy a UPS (APC for example).

I've bought two APC UPS 1500's off eBay in the last 5 years for my boiler for very good prices. They work great and the batteries can be found for very reasonable prices. Installation could not be easier - plug your boiler into the UPS, plug UPS into wall. They even maintain their batteries all by themselves.

I did some math a while back and my APC 1500 will provide at least 5 hours of backup for my EKO including the fan and the primary circ. For me 5 hours will exceed a full load of wood burning since I have storage.

 

[Briquetmaker]

There's a lot here to hook up to a backup as you can see. Seems like a lot to wire unless I have a big enough backup on the main feed for the room? My main thought was to put a circulator on the over heat and have backup for that as a protection setup. I do think I will get everything set up with a generator down the road.

 

[Fred61]

No electrician needed. On the 110 supplying the heating system I put a regular 3 prong plug. The Inverter is plugged into a 110 outlet, the inverter has a "output" cord which I wired to a regular 3 pole outlet and I plugged the heating system into that. In normal mode the inverter passes 110 through to the heating system. When the power goes out, the inverter automatically goes to Batt. power and out put's 110 to the heating system.

Are you running anything else off of the inverter? I would think I could get by with one half that size.

You need television when the power is out!
I found it to be a good use for my RV house batteries after I put it to bed for the winter months. It keeps them charged, prolonging their life. Previously I would store the RV with the batteries in it and they would sulfate on me so I need to remove them anyway. I store the motorcoach in a warehouse several miles from here so I am unable to frequently get there to charge the batteries.

 

[Fred61]

There's a lot here to hook up to a backup as you can see. Seems like a lot to wire unless I have a big enough backup on the main feed for the room? My main thought was to put a circulator on the over heat and have backup for that as a protection setup. I do think I will get everything set up with a generator down the road.

I actually have it set up so I can operate a circulator specifically dedicated to overheat which circulates water through a coil in the bottom of my upright storage tank or I can plug the whole system into the inverter. Since my house heat load is so low and I can coast for several hours without heat, I normally just keep the overheat aquastat plugged into the inverter.

 

[timberr]

If I remember right AIMS makes this unit in 1500 & 3000 watts. I choose to run the whole system which draws about 350 watts. When the power goes out the heating system runs normal. The benefit to this is if we are away during the winter and we loose power the house would be heated for at least 1 day running the propane boiler. I wish there was a smaller unit but there isn't. At the time I got my inverter on sale for not much more then a APC 1400 watt unit. I have a 1400 on my computer and I tried it out and it lasted less the 3 hrs, that is fine if I am half way through a burn cycle. I do have a light I can plug into the inverter give some light in the basement until I get the generator running and GENTRAN switch on.

 

[Clarkbug]

There's a lot here to hook up to a backup as you can see. Seems like a lot to wire unless I have a big enough backup on the main feed for the room? My main thought was to put a circulator on the over heat and have backup for that as a protection setup. I do think I will get everything set up with a generator down the road.

I would say you can add the circ on the overheat loop, but put it in parallel with your Automag valve. Then run the automag off of the battery array/inverter as well. Then if all of that runs out, or has a failure, then the automag can open and you get gravity circulation.

 

[Briquetmaker]

There's a lot here to hook up to a backup as you can see. Seems like a lot to wire unless I have a big enough backup on the main feed for the room? My main thought was to put a circulator on the over heat and have backup for that as a protection setup. I do think I will get everything set up with a generator down the road.

I would say you can add the circ on the overheat loop, but put it in parallel with your Automag valve. Then run the automag off of the battery array/inverter as well. Then if all of that runs out, or has a failure, then the automag can open and you get gravity circulation.

That seems like the best way to go. Thanks for the input.