Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Plumbing => Topic started by: jamesbodeis on May 06, 2018, 04:57:21 PM

Title: Lost thermosiphon?
Post by: jamesbodeis on May 06, 2018, 04:57:21 PM
Hey everyone it's been a while since I've been around. Looking for some help with a problem I'm having. I've got a sidearm hooked up to my 40 gallon hot water heater and it has always worked great. Friday a windstorm took our power out and it was off for a little over 24 hours. When the power came back on and everything was up and running I had hot water as usual. This morning my wife wanted to take a shower and the water was ice cold. Stove was up to temp so that wasnt the issue. I felt the pipe coming out of the top of the sidearm that runs into the hot water heater and it was cool to the touch. So I turned the switch on so the elements would come on and we would have hot water again. What would have caused the thermosiphon to stop, and more importantly how do I fix it? Thanks for any help.
Title: Re: Lost thermosiphon?
Post by: Pointblank on May 06, 2018, 06:21:42 PM
Is hot water flowing from the owb to the house?
Maybe the pump air locked or started cavitating when the power came back on?
Title: Re: Lost thermosiphon?
Post by: RSI on May 06, 2018, 11:02:46 PM
If the pump is running and the hot boiler water is flowing through the sidearm then it might be airlocked.
If you don't have a bleader valve at the top of the sidearm, open the relief valve to flush any trapped air out. (this is assuming the relief is in a tee at the top of the sidearm)