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16
HeatMaster / G series manual footprint drawing correction
« on: October 03, 2016, 09:09:15 AM »
I am in the process of moving my g200 to its new location. When I was measuring for the boiler lines where the holes are cut in the bottom of the boiler I must have measured 5 times the center to center distance just to make sure I put the lines at the correct spacing since the unreconstructed pex flex really has no give, you have to get the placement exact. Well pad is poured and lines are in place but I haven't moved the boiler over to it yet. Well I was reading through the manual last night out of boredom. The g200 footprint drawing shows the center to center distance of the boiler lines at 21 inches. Well since I wasn't at home to check I about s*** my pants because I had set the lines at 15 1/2 center to center like I had measured. Well when I got home this morning I looked and I was right. The c to c is 15 1/2 not 21. The outside edges of the holes are 21 though. I would be pretty mad if I had bought the boiler and had to go off the drawing to pour the pad before it showed up and be off by 6 inches. I am calling hm today to tell them so hopefully they fix the manual. Hopefully this helps someone from making a mistake.
17
Plumbing / New slab and logstor
« on: September 12, 2016, 05:29:47 PM »
So I built a new garage and had to move my boiler. I just dug the trench today and dropped the logstor in the trench. As anyone who has worked with logstor knows it's a bear to bend. So I have two lines coming into the back of the boiler. I have tied a rope on the pipe about 6 feet apart and then used that to pull the pipe into a curve and then tied it off so it's curved up out of the ditch to the point where it comes up through where the pad will go. My question is does anyone see a problem it just pouring the pad right around the lines so that it locks them in place? I was planning to have a small form section that went around the pipes to keep the cement away from them but the lines are so difficult to wrangle that I figured I could just pour the pad to lock them in place.
18
HeatMaster / New g series manual
« on: August 26, 2016, 09:05:38 AM »
I found that heatmaster put out a new operators manual. The info includes how to edit the high/low operating temps, idle times and low temp shut down. I don't have my g series hooked up to power at the moment to try and check out the edit screens so I was wondering if this info applies to the 2015 models too? I thought that some kind of chip was required to change this stuff. I might like to bump mine to 185. That would help a little with some warmer temps coming out of my water to water then to the w/a hx, although last year seemed ok. I would reallllly like to bump the low temp shut down up to 150 or so though because currently when it shuts down at 120 the boiler has zero and coals left.
19
General Discussion / Hydraulic cylinder drift
« on: August 24, 2016, 04:14:56 PM »
I know a lot of you guys are farmers and do a lot of mechanical repair on farm equipment. I have a 1967 case 430 backhoe. The front bucket tilt cylinder is a double acting cylinder. It will drift prettyquickly when even no load is on it. Dips down from horizontal to vertical with only about 250 pounds within a minute or two. The other day I blew the ollld hydro line to the raise bucket side of the cylinder. I pulled off the bad hose and raised the bucket arms up in the air. The bucket dropped right away and hydro fluid came quickly out of the open port. This suggested to me the oil is leaking around the piston??? I also thought though that the oil would have to bypass the actuator lever seals though???
20
General Discussion / Staining new vertical shiplap siding
« on: August 21, 2016, 09:01:06 PM »
Well I have been building a garage at my house this summer. It is time for siding and I am looking for anyone knowledgable about painting and staining. I am going to be using pine shiplap installed vertically. I will be nailing the siding onto horizontal furring strips on the sheathing with spacers behind the strips to create and breathable rain screen to dry any moisture at makes its way around the siding. I will be using a solid red stain on the siding. My question is about covering of the backside of the siding. I know that it is highly advisable to finish all six sides so that the moisture diffusion is equal on all sides of the wood to keep from cupping. Since I am using a solid stain should I just straight stain all six sides or should I use a primer only on the backside and stain the rest?
21
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Nozzle plate guard
« on: August 04, 2016, 02:18:29 PM »
First year last year with my g200. I would say I will get 2-3 seasons out of the ceramic nozzle before it needs replacement. Over on hearth forum a lot of guys have made steel nozzle plates that prtect the ceramic with good success. Has anyone over here made one and what are your thoughts?
22
General Discussion / Framing new garage
« on: June 17, 2016, 09:41:12 AM »
Good morning. I am getting ready to frame my garage up and wanted to bounce a question off you guys. So the Garage has a full frost wall foundation so the frost walls sit 6-9 inches above the floor slab(pitched 3 inches over the 28 feet towards the doors). My question is about the PT sill plate. The frost walls have J bolts 1 foot in on the corners and every six feet on the walls. The j bolts stick up about 2.5 inches. I plan to lay a PT sill down but my question is should I do a double bottom plate? PT sill first bolted down then wall assembly with a KD bottom plate/shoe somehow attached down to the PT sill when it is stood up? Or should I just go with a PT bottom plate/sill in one? I would like to put a PT sill down first and bolt it down making sure everything is all squared up first and then plate a wall assembly on top but I am hesitant because I would need to drill out the holes for the KD bottom plate to slip over the j bolts holding down the PT sill and then I would have to somehow attach the wall to the sill. Any suggestions would be great!
23
HeatMaster / One season with the G200
« on: May 17, 2016, 07:19:43 AM »
So I thought I would do a season end review of my G200. I started running on October 12, the day Richard dropped off the boiler. I shut down for the season around the 20th of April.
Total burned for the year was +\- 8 cords. I was normally doing between 12-14 cords with the hardy h4 depending on the severity of the winter. My wood is a mix of maple, oak, beech and white birch. It was cut spring of 2015 and split in June 2015. My moisture ranged anywhere from 20% with the maple and birch to around 30% for the oak. The drier the better. This year I have 3.5 cords c/s/s left over which will have a full year and a half before they are burned. That stuff should really run nice. The rest of the wood has been cut split. I have 7 cords in pallet racks stacked and drying out in my windy sunny field for this summer. I have another 4 cords plus cut split and piled until I get more pallet racks. I am hoping to only burn half of my wood this winter and get more wood this summer to continue to get ahead with drying wood. I think I can easily get under 7 cords with less than 20% moisture.
Running the G200. It is very forgiving. I never had to relight the boiler. I did have times when I didn't put enough in and came back to just ash in the bottom. Stirring the ash up brought coals up to the surface. I then put some kindling on that then larger stuff. It always started back up. It would take about an hour to get a good bed of coals back to start the gassing process. When I didn't screw up and come back to nothing left I found that simply throwing the wood on top of the coals/unburned wood without breaking up the coals was best. If I broke up the coals and didn't have enough smaller wood on the bottom of the load the coals would burn up fast without getting the new load going well. This would cause a slow burn that didn't gas well until the new load really started producing new coals. So I just left the coal bed alone and loaded the new load right on.
My cycle times from160-180 would last anywhere from about 38 mins to 1 hour and 20 min depending on what part of the burn load I was in. Mid load is the shortest. The beginning and end are the longest.
I never added any water to the boiler all year. Filled it once at the beginning and I probably lost 2-5 gallons over the season.
I cleaned out the ashes from the upper burn chamber twice but just to bring the ashes down to about 3 inche depth. I pulled the ashes out of the reaction chamber about every 2 weeks. I would get about 1-2 inches of ash down there. I found it was very difficult to remove the the ash that was behind the refractory horseshoe pieces at the back right below the heat exchanger tubes. The area above the heat exchange tubes where the flue gasses end up before they go up the stack was cleaned out only twice. Once mid season and second at the end of the year. Both times only about a half inch of ash was up there.
I did a thorough clean out for the year vacuuming all the ash out of the boiler. I also wire brushed all of the welds in the chamber above the heat exchangers. In the upper burn chamber(wood load area) I also wire brushed the welds that weren't coverered in creosote and around the door frame etc. I removed all of the air curtains which wasn't that easy because of creosote in the channel piece at the top. The curtains didn't want to slide up so I really had to work them a lot until they would go up enough to clear the bottom channel. I had some creosote on the wall behind the curtains, this fell right off with no effort but I was surprised how much it added up to on the bottom of the firebox when I finished. The creosote that is on the top of the firebox and on the back of the firebox where there is water on the other side would be near impossible to remove. I did have to chip off big chunks of creosote/ash where the creosote on the back wall had dripped down to the ash on the bottom. Where the creosote hit the ash it was extremely hard and chunky, it took about 30 mins with a screwdriver and hammer to remove it all. I removed the primary/secondary air wheel and motor assembly and cleaned in there. Little to no creosote was in there. I removed the short section of flue pipe and cleaned up there which I would suggest everyone do. There is a lip around where the fan connects to the flue that is about an inch deep and was full of ash that was hard and wet from rain water not having anywhere to go. I cleaned that and wire brushed it.
Overall after the end of season cleaning the stainless all looks brand new. Really nice to see.
My refractory nozzle has a few cracks through it. Nothing that would be a problem but the nozzle sections would not come out in a single piece if they needed to be removed. The left side of the nozzle is more worn than the right. I think I will get three seasons out of the nozzles if the wear continues at the same rate. Maybe a nozzle plate would save the nozzle? I think that is something that is worth talking about.
Overall extremely happy with the unit. It just plain works without being temperamental or finicky. My wife ran it without issue. Wood stacking in the boiler does matter. I made sure the bottom was completely covered with wood then stack the wood in a tight manner right over the nozzle.
On another note I am building a garage and had to move the boiler. I had made homemade lines with the spray foam in trench method. I never had a noticeable drop in temp from the supply to return lines but I had noticed that I was melting snow further and further away from the boiler over where the lines ran. At the end if the season I was melting about 10 feet away from the boiler. When I pulled the lines I found that the closed cell foam actually had water inside. You could break off a piece of foam and squeeze it producing water from the foam. Some sections of the foam where dry while others seemed to have a significant amount of water in it. I have bought logstor pipe leftover from one of the forum members and plan to use that to feed the house and the new garage next year. I think this will cut down a little on wood usage as well. I believe that the foam in trench method would work without issue in a dry area. My area is pretty damp and has high water. My lines were in the ground for 4 seasons.
Total burned for the year was +\- 8 cords. I was normally doing between 12-14 cords with the hardy h4 depending on the severity of the winter. My wood is a mix of maple, oak, beech and white birch. It was cut spring of 2015 and split in June 2015. My moisture ranged anywhere from 20% with the maple and birch to around 30% for the oak. The drier the better. This year I have 3.5 cords c/s/s left over which will have a full year and a half before they are burned. That stuff should really run nice. The rest of the wood has been cut split. I have 7 cords in pallet racks stacked and drying out in my windy sunny field for this summer. I have another 4 cords plus cut split and piled until I get more pallet racks. I am hoping to only burn half of my wood this winter and get more wood this summer to continue to get ahead with drying wood. I think I can easily get under 7 cords with less than 20% moisture.
Running the G200. It is very forgiving. I never had to relight the boiler. I did have times when I didn't put enough in and came back to just ash in the bottom. Stirring the ash up brought coals up to the surface. I then put some kindling on that then larger stuff. It always started back up. It would take about an hour to get a good bed of coals back to start the gassing process. When I didn't screw up and come back to nothing left I found that simply throwing the wood on top of the coals/unburned wood without breaking up the coals was best. If I broke up the coals and didn't have enough smaller wood on the bottom of the load the coals would burn up fast without getting the new load going well. This would cause a slow burn that didn't gas well until the new load really started producing new coals. So I just left the coal bed alone and loaded the new load right on.
My cycle times from160-180 would last anywhere from about 38 mins to 1 hour and 20 min depending on what part of the burn load I was in. Mid load is the shortest. The beginning and end are the longest.
I never added any water to the boiler all year. Filled it once at the beginning and I probably lost 2-5 gallons over the season.
I cleaned out the ashes from the upper burn chamber twice but just to bring the ashes down to about 3 inche depth. I pulled the ashes out of the reaction chamber about every 2 weeks. I would get about 1-2 inches of ash down there. I found it was very difficult to remove the the ash that was behind the refractory horseshoe pieces at the back right below the heat exchanger tubes. The area above the heat exchange tubes where the flue gasses end up before they go up the stack was cleaned out only twice. Once mid season and second at the end of the year. Both times only about a half inch of ash was up there.
I did a thorough clean out for the year vacuuming all the ash out of the boiler. I also wire brushed all of the welds in the chamber above the heat exchangers. In the upper burn chamber(wood load area) I also wire brushed the welds that weren't coverered in creosote and around the door frame etc. I removed all of the air curtains which wasn't that easy because of creosote in the channel piece at the top. The curtains didn't want to slide up so I really had to work them a lot until they would go up enough to clear the bottom channel. I had some creosote on the wall behind the curtains, this fell right off with no effort but I was surprised how much it added up to on the bottom of the firebox when I finished. The creosote that is on the top of the firebox and on the back of the firebox where there is water on the other side would be near impossible to remove. I did have to chip off big chunks of creosote/ash where the creosote on the back wall had dripped down to the ash on the bottom. Where the creosote hit the ash it was extremely hard and chunky, it took about 30 mins with a screwdriver and hammer to remove it all. I removed the primary/secondary air wheel and motor assembly and cleaned in there. Little to no creosote was in there. I removed the short section of flue pipe and cleaned up there which I would suggest everyone do. There is a lip around where the fan connects to the flue that is about an inch deep and was full of ash that was hard and wet from rain water not having anywhere to go. I cleaned that and wire brushed it.
Overall after the end of season cleaning the stainless all looks brand new. Really nice to see.
My refractory nozzle has a few cracks through it. Nothing that would be a problem but the nozzle sections would not come out in a single piece if they needed to be removed. The left side of the nozzle is more worn than the right. I think I will get three seasons out of the nozzles if the wear continues at the same rate. Maybe a nozzle plate would save the nozzle? I think that is something that is worth talking about.
Overall extremely happy with the unit. It just plain works without being temperamental or finicky. My wife ran it without issue. Wood stacking in the boiler does matter. I made sure the bottom was completely covered with wood then stack the wood in a tight manner right over the nozzle.
On another note I am building a garage and had to move the boiler. I had made homemade lines with the spray foam in trench method. I never had a noticeable drop in temp from the supply to return lines but I had noticed that I was melting snow further and further away from the boiler over where the lines ran. At the end if the season I was melting about 10 feet away from the boiler. When I pulled the lines I found that the closed cell foam actually had water inside. You could break off a piece of foam and squeeze it producing water from the foam. Some sections of the foam where dry while others seemed to have a significant amount of water in it. I have bought logstor pipe leftover from one of the forum members and plan to use that to feed the house and the new garage next year. I think this will cut down a little on wood usage as well. I believe that the foam in trench method would work without issue in a dry area. My area is pretty damp and has high water. My lines were in the ground for 4 seasons.
24
General Discussion / Electrical question for new garage build
« on: March 25, 2016, 05:54:15 PM »
I am building a 28x40 garage this spring. The garage is detached from house. It will be about 55 feet from the house. I am going to run a sub panel in the garage tapped off my panel in the house. The run from the panel in the house to the sub in the garage will be in the neighborhood of 110-120 feet when you account for turns in the wire Etc. My thought was to run a 60 amp breaker off the main panel and use a main lug panel in the garage. First my plans are to run a 180 mig welder once in a while and a Lincoln tombstone welder once in a while. Those would be the two highest consuming power items. Other than that I will put a two post lift in at some point which will be 220. Anyone think that 60 amps isn't enough? So my real question comes down to someone that is knowledgable about carrying capacity of wire. Is 6/3 with a ground wire going to be sufficient or not over that run? I think I am pushing it with 60 amps at that length with 6/3. Could I run 4/3 in the basement which is about 45 feet into a junction box and then step down to 6/3 for the underground conduit to go out to the garage which will be about 65 feet if the 110-120 feet is to much?
25
Advanced Plumbing / Radiant in garage slab
« on: March 10, 2016, 04:59:37 AM »
Ok everyone, planning on pouring my 28x40 foundation for my garage in about a month in a half. I am looking to put radiant in the slab, I will never get a chance to do it a second time and I figure if I never hook it up not much is lost. My question is any suggestions on the thermal break around the edges of the slab to the frost wall? I have gotten people suggesting 1 inch of foam on the interior frost wall which will be level with the floor when it is poured. Also got suggested cutting 2 inch foam at a 45 bevel and placing the against the frost wall and you will never see the foam at all but it breaks the wall from the slab. Any other suggestions esspecially around the garage door openings for thermal breaks. Thanks.
26
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Whole house Humidifier
« on: January 30, 2016, 09:24:46 AM »
I have a forced hot air system in the house. Every winter around this time the humidity really drops down and the house feels cold even though I run it at 70 during the day and 66 at night. The humidity level on my little indoor thermometer says 20% humidity. I looked up what that equals for a 'Real Feel' or Heat index and at 70 degrees that feels like 66-68 and at 66 it feels like 62-63 so its not wonder why it feels chilly in the house even when warm. My question is does anyone have any thoughts on whole house humidifiers that run off the forced hot air system and any suggestions on a good model?
27
HeatMaster / Wood gas explosion
« on: January 15, 2016, 09:50:57 AM »
I think I had my first expierence in the g200 with a wood gas explosion. I went out to load the boiler before work. The boiler was in a burn cycle and had reached 172. There was coals and a couple pieces of wood that I was able to breakdown and spread out. I raked the bed even and loaded the splits for the day. I closed the damper bypass and door. I went into my shed to grab something and came back out about a min later. I heard a bang like some hitting metal with a hammer. I thought I was wierd but maybe a log fell down the pile and hit the side of the boiler. 30 seconds later a much louder bang and the bottom ash door was pushed so hard that sparks and ash blew around the gasket. Then again bang, ash and sparks came out around the gasket. Know it had my attention. I went and looked through the glass at the reaction chamber and there was a strong gas flame. The damper was at 80 % or something close I that. All I could think was that the damper was closed down creating a lean condition with a strong new load if wood gas hitting the super hot ceramic was causing the wood gas to suddenly ignite with explosive force.
28
HeatMaster / What gives Heatmaster!
« on: January 03, 2016, 08:04:02 AM »
I noticed last night that Heatmaster has taken down all of there EPA test info that they had on their website. I am really disappointed! What gives?
29
Plumbing / First Failed Pump
« on: December 31, 2015, 06:38:36 AM »
So this morning at work before heading home I looked at my Mfi monitoring software and saw that around 8 pm the temp started dropping in the primary loop on my primary/secondary piping system. I figured that maybe the firebox bridged out on me or something. Well I then looked at my Fan coil and saw that it had been running since around 11 PM and continued running all night! Well now surely I had a problem somwhere but I wasnt sure where yet. When I got home I felt the primary loop, very hot up top and cold down at the bottom. The taco 007 that pumps the primary loop 24/7 was HOT!. So I unplugged it and plugged it back in. I got just a little clunk but obviously it wasnt moving any water. So I shut the isolation valves of and unbolted it from the pipes. I plugged it in again as soon as it was out, again a click but the impeller didn't move. So I stuck a screw driver in and the impeller spun easy. So I plugged it in again and the impeller spun right up without an issue. So I had a spare( another used 007) and decided to bolt that up instead. After I bolted that up, opened the isolation valves back up and looked for leaks I went over to the make up water for the system and looked at the pressure on the boiler gauge. The boiler gauge read 0 psi, hmm. So I opened up my manual make up water valve and let it fill up. Took about 30 seconds of the valve being just cracked open to bring the system up to 22 psi. So here is my question. The 007 is mounted with the motor in the VERTICAL position with the impeller being at the top. The manual for the 007 says that this is permissible if the system remains above 20 psi. I was cheap and did not put an auto make up water valve on the oil boiler(the oil boiler does have a low water cut out) so I have to manually crack open the valve and watch the psi come up if the pressure drops for some reason. Now I had not checked the PSI in probably a month because it seemed to have been holding steady at 20-22 psi. I am coming to the conclusion that the psi dropped at some point for some reason(small leak maybe that I don't see or bad pressure relief valve) which caused the pump to operate at little to no PSI causing it to lock up. I am going to add an auto make up water valve now to the system.
30
HeatMaster / New Heatmaster G200 Owner
« on: October 14, 2015, 06:13:59 PM »
So I wanted to take a few minutes and put in a good word for SlimJim. As some of you may have seen I bought SlimJim's show boiler that he ran this fair season. The deal was when he was done with it after Fryeburg he would deliver it to me. Well he dropped it off this morning with his new school bus work truck and new brindle that he built, both are top notch! He easily backed right in and dropped the G200 right on my pad(which was quite unlevel from 5 years of heaving). Richard left me with a few feet of truck heater hose which he likes to hook up from the pex to the pump flange incase of heaving or movement between the pad and the lines. It worked out really slick, anyone who has tried to hook up 1 inch pex before knows what I am talking about. I had the stove hooked up in about an hour. Richard had left the charcoal and some firewood in the firebox from the last burn at the fryeburg fair. He had not cleaned the stove in 15 full days of running. The small amount of ash in the secondary and the primary box was impressive for 15 full days of run time. I added some newspaper and kindling to the firebox and lit it up. At about the 5 minute mark it was already gassing! It took about 2.5 hours to come up to temp and shut down. I had seen the unit running at Richards before so I knew that it really does put out zero smoke as soon as it starts to gas and the same was true today. As soon as it was gassing the only thing you could see was the heat waves. Ill keep everyone updated on how it runs. I took some pics, the first couple are 5 minutes from light up in the secondary chamber. The third one is the stack and lack of smoke!