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[slimjim]

Two more things that you may be overlooking, if I'm not mistaken you built a conventional boiler and are now comparing it to a good gasser, if you want a real eye opener compare stack temp losses. I would be willing to put money on the table saying that your stack temp will go well over 1000 degrees when it is running hard, the boiler that Honda is running is my old show unit, I used it here to heat about 6800 feet of not great insolation and as hard as we could run it with 8-10 hour burn times we never saw over 450 degrees! A lot of your heat is going up your stack in two forms, 1 heat and 2 unburned fuel ( smoke is unburned fuel )
The second thing that I think we are overlooking is your pump size, early on in our installation business we thought bigger is better, the trouble with that is that if you size the circ to big, it will cavitate and the water will simply not move well, evidence of this happening is when you can audibly hear the circs water over the motor noise, personally I would step down in size to a 0011 or even a 009 with your pipe size and length.
Look at it this way, put a box fan in a room, turn it on, feel the air movement now cover half of the fan with a piece of cardboard, both the velocity and the CFMs will suffer dramatically because of the restriction, the same thing happens with an oversized circ pump, they DO NOT pump, they only circulate!

[Jd79]

Thats pretty cold well water, never really checked the temp of ours, I know the well is about 120’ deep. Thats gotta taste pretty good when its hotter than hell and humid.

I only wish it was that cold coming out of the faucet in the summer time!  We are not on well water though--that is the county water supply.  When we built the house, I had the meter upsized from a 3/4" residential to a 1" commercial due to the length of the run to the house from the water main at the highway (about 450').  The plumbers ran a 1 1/4" line from that meter to the house of pvc underground, but I'm guessing they didn't run it deep enough because in the winter that incoming water is so cold it's like ice water coming out.

[Jd79]

Slimjim-what's a good way to measure the actual exit gas temperature?  I don't have anything that will measure that high of a temperature that I can think of.  I know when it's burning hard, there is a good 3-4 foot heat wave signature above the stack but no smoke.  The only time it smokes is when it first starts or when it is idling, unless I'm burning green wood.  As a side note, since I'm on a volunteer Fire Dept, last week I went down and got our thermal imaging camera to see if I could visually see any heat loss in he ground, but the ground was very dry and I couldn't see any temperature difference of the ground.  It was handy for seeing where I have insulation losses inside the house though.  Pretty neat how you can see every stud and roof truss through the drywall with that camera.  If it had a good thermometer on it, I would use it to measure stack temp, but it only shows a range on the side of degrees, not an actual temperature.

[mlappin]

Thats pretty cold well water, never really checked the temp of ours, I know the well is about 120’ deep. Thats gotta taste pretty good when its hotter than hell and humid.

I only wish it was that cold coming out of the faucet in the summer time!  We are not on well water though--that is the county water supply.  When we built the house, I had the meter upsized from a 3/4" residential to a 1" commercial due to the length of the run to the house from the water main at the highway (about 450').  The plumbers ran a 1 1/4" line from that meter to the house of pvc underground, but I'm guessing they didn't run it deep enough because in the winter that incoming water is so cold it's like ice water coming out.

Ahh, that makes more sense, I checked ours this morning out of curiosity, between 53-56 degrees from a 120 foot well. I’m guessing the 53 is from when the well is actually running and the warmer temp is from the expansion tank.


I’ll check the temp drop on our plate exchanger later. Can’t get an accurate reading now as when I redid all the plumbing in the basement I added a sidearm as well strictly for demonstration purposes, so atm I have a hot water heater full of hot water, plate exchanger is after the water heater. I closed the valve for the sidearm though and once the wife uses up all the hot water I’ll check the temp drop with all our hot water taps open.

[slimjim]

I have a temp probe for my Fluke multi meter but aside from that I would think that there should be something online available

[coolidge]

Even a turkey fryer thermometer.

[mlappin]

I’ll check the temp drop on our plate exchanger later. Can’t get an accurate reading now as when I redid all the plumbing in the basement I added a sidearm as well strictly for demonstration purposes, so atm I have a hot water heater full of hot water, plate exchanger is after the water heater. I closed the valve for the sidearm though and once the wife uses up all the hot water I’ll check the temp drop with all our hot water taps open.

I turned on all the hot taps in the house including the tub tap, using a 20 plate 5x13” HX on a secondary loop, had a forty degree temp drop at first until the Taco Delta T pump adjusted then it was 20 degree differential just like programmed. I’ve had a call for heat, hot water and snow melt and never seen more than a 25 degree delta T once the pump has a chance to compensate.

[heat550]

I just checked my heatmor 400dcss stack temp burning dry oak in between heavy burn it was at 600f  at the top of 6 ft insulated extension . took temp of the cap I have on it .

Heat550

[Jd79]

Thanks for all the advice.  Unfortunately it is raining now that I'm off work and now it seems like I'm burning more wood.  We had one morning with frost, but basically in the lower 40s here during the days and upper 20s and 30s at night.  Burned a rick since Thursday night.  . Will try to get some accurate temps when it dries out a little.  Still leaning toward underground lines being junk, but it's a little too late this season to go replacing them now.

[mlappin]

  Still leaning toward underground lines being junk, but it's a little too late this season to go replacing them now.

Long as the ground ain't froze they can be changed out anytime, granted not as much “fun” now as the middle of summer, but still doable.