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[kso5002]

Hi everyone, I'm brand new to this whole thing. I know very little about all this and I'm at my wit's end!

We have a 400 dcss, heating our hot water and 3 levels, 900 sq feet each. I know, the 400 is a bit over kill for our house but we plan to hook another building up to it in the future, so we went big. Problem: we cannot get the fire to stay lit. We have tired everything we can think of, even had an 8 inch bed of coals going at one point and still no luck. We live in Northern PA, it's been chilly (mid 30's-40's) the last week. We've only had this furnace for a month and just finished hooking it up and we are so frustrated my husband is ready to bag the whole deal and go back to propane.

If you need more info on our system, ask away. I didn't personally do the install, my father and husband did, so I'll pass questions along if need be.

Thanks!

[LittleJohn]

Well welcome to the forum

..it sounds like the problem is that your calls for heat are not enough to keep your fire going (shoulder seasons are the worst for trying to keep a fire going!!!)

First question, what is the water temperature of your OWB? ..what is the differential on you controller?  May have to tighten up the differential to try and get the OWB to fire more.
Second round of questions:  When OWB is up to temperatute, are the lines to warm to the touch

**I  know its a lot of difficult/weird questions to answer, but troubleshooting a system you have never seen or designed can be tough.   But if past history is anything, this group should be able to at least point you in the general direction of the right answer

[CountryBoyJohn]

Mr. LittleJohn has asked some very good questions!  Please answer them for us and we'll be happy to help!  One other quesion I'd ask is what kind of wood are you burning?  Is it seasoned? 

Your problem is common!!  Don't give up yet!  I think tightening your temp differential will help.  Like Mr. LittleJohn said, the mild shoulder seasons are difficult, especially when you are oversized. 

Keep your chin up! 

[JTS717]

I recently installed my first OWB.  I also oversized my boiler for my current needs knowing that I will be moving to a different house in the future and plan on taking it with me.  I can tell my heat load is barely enough to keep my fire going.  I set the water temp to 180 Deg F with a 5 degree differential.  I opened the fire door to look at the fire when the water was down to 176 and I can't see a single red ember.  But when the fans kick on it comes back to life pretty quick.  Some things I would recommend trying:
Set the differentail lower, make sure you are burning dry wood, in the warmer part of the season it is better to fill it up with many smaller peices than a few big pieces.  I haven't burned any peices larger than 4" diameter yet.  It will get better as it gets colder out and your heat load increases.  Until then you need to find a way to make sure the combustion air fan isn't off for long periods of time.  You may even want to increase the temperature of your house or open some windows to increase the heat load on the boiler.   

[slimjim]

All very good questions guys, JTS717 like countryBoy said don't give up, it's called a learning curve and we will all do what we can to get you going in the right direction!

[lindnova]

Some good advice already given.

I burn better wood during warm weather as it will hold coals better.  I burn mostly elm or cherry in warmer low heat loads, boxelder, pine, elm mix when the temp is in the 20's and whatever when it is real cold depending on how often I want to load.  I burn light woods when I am home during the day, oak on real cold nights or when I am away for a long day.  You will find your own formula.

Dealers will tell you the Heatmor will burn green wood and it will, but you will go through more and if there is low load the fire will go out.

Smaller split, 25% =/- moisture, good coaling wood and it should stay lit once a coal bed is established.  Yesterday I ran out and had only a few embers left.  I raked the few coals to the front loaded a layer of 6" splits, and 10" split and rounds on top and it restarted in 10 minutes.

It will get better once you get used to it.

[kso5002]

Thanks for the information everyone! Sorry I took so long to respond, I guess I didn't set the email notifications for my own post!

We have our water temp set for 180 with a 10 degree differential I believe. We did finally get a coal bed established and haven't had any issues for the last 3 weeks...until today. It's 50 degrees out and I barely have any coals. I'm going to try and change the differential and see if that helps.

[hondaracer2oo4]

Tells us about your wood that your burning. Type, sizes, whole rounds or splits, how dry etc.

[Jwood]

You need a lot more load on that boiler you are obviously idling to long things will be better as it gets colder

[kso5002]

we're burning oak. mostly splits. pretty big. We usually just split the wood in half unless it was a really large piece to begin with. It's pretty dry. It was either dead down or dead standing that my husband cut this year and we left it sit in the sun for months to dry it out. I haven't had any issues since the weather has been colder. But the last 2 days have been warm and I just can't keep a good coal bed. This morning I went out and the temp was down to 150! We have the high set at 180 with a ten degree differential so it shouldn't get that low right? My husband has thought from the get go that there was something wrong with our aquastat, it just doesn't seem very accurate.

[Jwood]

Was the fan on when it was down to 150 and was the fire going or out it just seems like you are idling to long and then the fire can't recover. Now when it was colder you boiler would have been cycling more and that is why you didn't have as much trouble .

[kso5002]

the fan was not on. I turned it on and the fire started right up. I was wrong on the differential, we have a 5 degree differential set, so I don't understand why the temp would ever drop to 150?

[Jwood]

How did you turn the fan on if it wasn't kicking on by itself?

[kso5002]

I turned on the fan by the door...with the light switch.

[Jwood]

Could very well be the aqua stat where do you live and who is your dealer? Also just for curiosity what piping did you run underground.