Wood Doctor not producing enough hot water

[sgruver78]

I just fired up my new wood doctor and I am having trouble with it. I installed it myself since apparently they say its easy and it was but now I can't seem to make the water hot enough. I can get the water to about 155 degrees in my house but I thought it should be at least 180 so my existing boiler doesn't kick on all the time.

My controller temp is set 170 with a 15 degree differentional and a Hi Limit at 190. I was outside near the unit for about 4 hours yesterday and I don't think the blower kicked on even once.

Am i suppose to be having 180 degree water at my existing boiler or is the 155 good enough and if its enough do i need to turn my aquastat controls on my existing boiler down lower so it doesn't keep firing up?

PS-I am only burning about 4 pieces a wood a day in low 30 degree weather. Does this make sense?

 

[webbie]

It sounds like you have to turn your existing boiler down.....
and maybe your wood fired unit up.
If the blower is not coming on, then the wood boiler must "think" that it is satisfied in terms of heat. You should be burning a lot more wood than 4 pieces in this weather!

 

[sgruver78]

i was reading some other posts and a guy said he has his aquastat set on 180 with a 5 degree diff. think that would be a good setting for me as well? i have a lot of sut built up on my door already from the smoldering fire and its been only burning a few days. it actually seems like it dripping from my door.

 

[webbie]

Nothing wrong with 180 degrees plus! A range of 180-185 should be A-OK.

 

[mpilihp]

Is this boiler a gassifier? Mine is not but I would think you would want similiar settings. What does the manufacturer recommend for settings? I would have the aqustat on the wood boiler turn on at 180 and a diff of 5 or 10, set it so that the circ stops pumping when its done to 160 or no lower than 150. You must also have a damper control which is what tells the unit how hot to keep the fire, I set mine to close at 185 and depending on how cold it is I turn it up to 190, this keeps the OFF time of the circ down, ie it recovers quicker.

My Safety over heat aqustat is set for 210 and I got that settting from someone else that has a boiler like mine, I have gotten to that temp and it did kick on and the pressure relief did not activate so I feel comfortable about it.

My oil boiler aqustat is set to turn on at 120 (lowest it will go) and off at 170 I think, but right now I have it completely off as Im able to keep the house hot with just running the wood boiler.

Good luck

~ Phil

 

[sgruver78]

i am new to this hole world of heating homes with wood so i don't really know what a gassifier is. its a wood doctor original regular size. i had it sent to me direct from wood doctor through the Maine Wood Doctor. The settings came to me at 180 for the controller and 200 for the Hi Limit. I was told when I hooked it up to have the circulator pumps run non stop both on the Wood side and the one thats already on the existing boiler. Is having the circ pumps running constatly a problem?

 

[mpilihp]

Yes having the circs run all the time is a problem. The circ for the oil boiler should only come on when its active.

The circ for your wood boiler should only come on when the wood boilers temp is 180 deg and set the diff to stop it at say 160 or 150. This should be controlled by an aqustat on your wood boiler. There should be a second one that is set to say 190 or 200 that is the high temp limit and set to activate a heat zone so that the excess heat will be distributed out to a zone to cool the system down to its safe operating temp range.

Do you have a website for this doctor boiler??

~ Phil

 

[sgruver78]

http://www.wooddoctorfurnace.com/

 

[603doug]

I have the converter and have set my temp at 175 f with a 10 f differential and it heats my house hot tub and today hooked up 1 floor in my wife's future office and it seems to work great. Also I do not have any creosote issues, a couple friend of mine have different manufacturers boilers and the creosote is a major problem. I did have to work with the timer to keep the boiler going for dhw at low demand. Plus I have not started burning hard wood yet just pine and I am very pleased with the boilers performance

 

[mpilihp]

I found the website and im assuming you installed it per this drawing:

http://wooddoctorfurnace.com/hookup3.html

I must have missed that its an outside wood boiler.

Do you have it set up with an HX?

Do you have just water in the wood boiler side or glyco?

Mine is an inside wood boiler and I dont have the HX transfer issue/setup as you do. This would be different. If you have just water in the outside wood boiler side they may want the outside circ to run all the time to keep the pipe from freezing, I dont know. Id look for advice from someone on here that has an outside wood boiler. Provide more detail on the setup, IE do you have an HX and so on....


Sorry I cant be of more help
~ Phil

 

[crs7200]

Yes having the circs run all the time is a problem. The circ for the oil boiler should only come on when its active.

The circ for your wood boiler should only come on when the wood boilers temp is 180 deg and set the diff to stop it at say 160 or 150. This should be controlled by an aqustat on your wood boiler. There should be a second one that is set to say 190 or 200 that is the high temp limit and set to activate a heat zone so that the excess heat will be distributed out to a zone to cool the system down to its safe operating temp range.

Do you have a website for this doctor boiler??

~ Phil

All of the OWB er's I know of, including my own, all have the OWB circulating pump running 24/7. Your oil boiler pumps are only suppossed to run when the house is calling for heat. The water circulating from the OWB to the house is what helps with the water staying hot. Without a flow of water, HXer's will not stay hot.

As far as your temp settings, my OWB is adjustable to my own needs. Once the weather is constantly below 40degrees, i put the temp at 180 and I use a 12 degree diff. During the more mild months such as the first and last months of the heating season, I turn the stove temp down to 155 -160. The hoter water in the colder months makes a BIG difference in how fast the house heats up.

I can't imagine why your WoodDoctor won't heat over 155. With a fire burning in the stove, it should continue heating until the air supply is stopped. If your not running out of wood, then it is strange. Almost like there was a big drain on the heat. You did make sure that your OWB is COMPLETELY full of water and there is no air in the lines especially in HXer's and pumps.

What size pump are you running on the OWB and how far from the house is the stove?
after my first year, i had to put a bigger pump on my system. The 2nd year was much colder thatn the first and the rate at which the pump ws flowing water wasn't suffiecient to heat the house on the really cold days. Once I put on a bigger pump, all those problems went away.

Like any other wood burning stove, they take some getting used to. Once you figure it out, you should be happy with it.

 

[sgruver78]

i have the wilo star 30F for my OWB and its about 140-150 feet one way. my house set up is a Burnham oil burner that is hooked up to a Crown Airhandler and I run my forced air and AC through it. I have seen some setups with one pump and also some setups where they have two pumps on the inside boiler. I am running one pump (Taco 007) to circulate through my inside boiler. how do i wire that pump to turn on only when i need heat or would that happen if i left it the original way before i got the OWB?

 

[rowerwet]

Is the 155* at the wood boiler or inside at your oil burner? if it is inside you may be loosing excessive heat in your plumbing run to the house.
Your setup sounds like you have an oil boiler that puts out hot water to a water to air heat exchanger, correct?
You added a OWB and have it circulating water to the oil boiler with one circulator and another circulator to run the hot water to the water to air HX continuously, correct?
If that is true you may want to just put another water to air HX in the airhandler.
just my 2cents.

 

[sgruver78]

yes that is my setup. i have the OWB stat set at 180 +/- 5 but the temp gauge at the OWB boiler is 160ish and the fan isn't kicking on. i am almost thinking that the gauge is broken but who knows. the water in the insdie boiler now is staying at 160 so it seems like they are at the same temp. just wondering why the fan isn't kicking in when the water temp at the OWB when its down to 160. does someone have directions on how to wire the existing boiler circ pump since i have it running constantly?

 

[rowerwet]

just going by my oil boiler, there is an aquastat on the boiler that controls the oil burner and the circulator, look for any metal boxes with removable covers (mine has one screw in a slot). inside the aquastat on mine there is a dial (water temp adj.) and eight screws for attaching wires (like on the side of an electrical outlet plug. two are for power in, two are for the thermostat wire, two are for the circulator and two are for the oil burner.
the circulator is controled by the thermostat whenever the thermostat is calling for heat it runs, the oil burner is also turned on by the thermostat it fires until the water temp reaches the high setting and then it shuts off. the circulator will continue to run as long as the thermostat calls for heat.
I am not sure how the airhandler works, does the fan come on when ever the heat inside the duct gets above a certain setting? or does it run like the circulator does? on my parents hot air oil burner the fan will sometimes cycle when the burner isn't firing because the temp in side the furnace duct hit the right amount just from residual heat in the burner.
If your fan comes on based on a temp switch then you will want the water to air heat exchanger to only get hot water when the thermostat calls for it.
I would try to turn down the aquastat temp to its lowest setting and see if the OWB takes over the load or not.
It does sound like the water temp settings are to low.

 

[sgruver78]

my airhandler fan only comes on when the house is in need of heat. i am confused why someone told me to keep inside boiler circulator pump running all the time instead of running only when its calling for heat. is there any kind of directions or diagram out there on how to wire the circulator pump? also, do most people run one or two pumps on the existing boiler side? i only have one.