Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Advanced Plumbing => Topic started by: Smokeless on September 29, 2017, 11:20:40 AM

Title: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: Smokeless on September 29, 2017, 11:20:40 AM
Was looking threw the hawken boilers and came across this posting. Was hoping that someone picked up on it before it came to the end of story. But they did not.   
  So when a heat exchanger ️(HX) is hooked up wrong it will make any boiler function poorly and work harder to get the results it is rated for. We all know this to be true.
 So in this post the ️HX is hooked up in parallel flow.   Example. 180 from OWF 150 from house. Heats to 165. ( Acts like it is mixing instead of transferring heat.) 165goes to owf  165goes to house. Thus your zones are starving for BTU's and your boiler is working harder n longer. To get to the shut of temp.
The correct way is the counter flow.as we all know    So the incoming cooler house water warms up to the 180 or close to it. And the return to the OWF is cooler maybe 155deg water so it can absorb more heat energy. Your house will come up to set temps sooner and then let your OWF come up to the shut off temp sooner.   
  In this old  hawken post, the same thing still happens to a lot of customers still today.with any boiler.
Hondaracer was on track with the ️HX.   What do you guys say. ??
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Re: Pleased with Hawken?
« Reply #57 on: January 21, 2014, 10:13:22 AM »
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@hondaracer2oo4 and @ woodman   It is snowing big time outside and we have a bunch of wind... so the temps are for when the zones are calling for heat... BRRR wicked cold out right now.. so this is what I got for ya.   Water jacket temp reads 172 on the front of the unit.  The supply line on back of furnace measures out to be about 165 and the return line 139.  Inside the basement about 75 feet or so the lines measure 163 and 137. 
The lines across the plate exchanger measure 165 135 on the Furnace side and 137 121 on the house water side. 
Air temp inside the house is 68
Is this what you needed to maybe help?  Did I miss anything?
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Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: hondaracer2oo4 on September 29, 2017, 09:08:15 PM
I'm confused about you bringing back this old topic? Is this the boiler you just switched out for a new g200 and the hawked was plugged up all the time?
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: Smokeless on September 29, 2017, 09:37:10 PM
No Honda it is not about a particular brand of furnace. It is about bad installs that can make any furnace look bad. Or under perform. So if you know of a bad install that might help someone out of a jamb. You can post it here. Also was asked to remove the hawken post which I did. Sorry for any confusion.
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: mlappin on October 01, 2017, 09:35:49 AM
Makes me wonder about poor underground line as well causing boilers to be blamed for excessive wood consumption or poor performance.

I did a small one day show yesterday, not a lot of people but mostly local and only a few miles from home. I got the wife up and going yesterday morning then came home to grind cow feed, while I was gone she had a guy that had a 10+ year old Woodmaster that he’s thinking about replacing as its really eating the wood the last few years. This is what the wife told me, first thing I thought was compromised underground line. Not sure what he’s using, but I’ve already been contacted about underground line, I give em my prices for Logstor and Performaflex XT, the one guy got back to me later saying he bought some on Ebay for less than $5/foot.

First thing I thought was “dumb*ss”, second thing that really concerns me though is he’s gonna install himself, which is no big deal if you do the research, but if he thinks for less than $5/foot he’s actually getting the good stuff, then I doubt the rest of the install is going to go well either, which in the end he’ll wind up b*tching, whining and moaning to anybody that will listen about how OWB’s don’t work, are a waste of money and eat too much wood. Which just will cost us sales in the future or is going to lead to a lot of misconceptions that will need to be educated out of people.
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: Smokeless on October 01, 2017, 07:21:22 PM
Yes Marty people always take short cuts when possible (human nature) 30 /40 deg you can get away with mistakes. When it is below 20*F is when the problems show up. I don't know what the statistics are but a lot of people don't come on this site until they have a problem. then the problem solvers come on and try to build a system in their head from the partial info they posted.
   Seems that more new people are coming here before purchasing and are trying to get good information so it will be done right  the first time. Kudos to them.
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: mlappin on October 01, 2017, 07:51:27 PM
Yes Marty people always take short cuts when possible (human nature) 30 -40 deg you can get away with mistakes. When it is below 20*F is when the problems show up. I don't know what the statistics are but a lot of people don't come on this site until they have a problem. then the problem solvers come on and try to build a system in their head from the partial info they posted.
   Seems that more new people are coming here before purchasing and are trying to get good information so it will be done right  the first time. Kudos to them.

 :post:
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: E Yoder on October 02, 2017, 06:22:23 AM
I was confused by the title. Would it help to say something like " bad installs and misplaced blame"? I dunno.

I agree, trying to trouble shoot with bits and pieces of info can be pretty tough.

It's funny how the furnace gets the credit and blame when things go well or not. The install gets forgotten.  :)
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: OTR on January 15, 2019, 11:12:55 PM
Sorry for the necro, but I wanted to say thanks for making the post - a year after installing, I now know why my house water is about 15 degrees lower than I expected it to be. I can't believe that through all of my reading and whatnot, I never knew that the fluids should flow counter to each other.

On the plus side, despite that 15 degree temperature lag, the system does a great job of keeping us nice and warm. So I'm sure it will perform even better once I fix this. Just not looking forward to cutting, cleaning, and re-fitting of 1.25" copper, heh.
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: slimjim on January 30, 2019, 11:38:10 AM
Would like to make it easy and fast?
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: slimjim on January 30, 2019, 02:17:12 PM
Oops, would YOU like to make it easy and fast?
Title: Re: BAD BAD BOILERS.
Post by: OTR on February 02, 2019, 08:45:21 PM
Who, me? Yes! What, do you know some trick?