Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Heatmor => Topic started by: kso5002 on November 10, 2014, 09:37:34 AM
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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!
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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
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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!
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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Tells us about your wood that your burning. Type, sizes, whole rounds or splits, how dry etc.
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You need a lot more load on that boiler you are obviously idling to long things will be better as it gets colder
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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.
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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 .
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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?
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How did you turn the fan on if it wasn't kicking on by itself?
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I turned on the fan by the door...with the light switch.
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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.
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our deal is Poust outdoor wood furnaces....since the purchase we have been less than impressed with them. Nice people but they gave us some bad advice. Said to just hook up the burner directly to our furnace inside..without a heat exchange plate, which Heatmor disagreed with.
Should we call Heatmor about the aquastat? Is that something that can be replaced?
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Definitely contact Heatmor !
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I don't understand the light / fan switch on your unit. You said you turned the fan on when it was at 150. Could it be wired wrong? My old wood doctor and many other units sit idle with the fan on and light off. When you want to fill you flip the switch, the fan goes idle and light comes on. Guess Heatmor's are different ???????
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Roscoe I believe you are correct
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Heatmor works like this, if there is no call for heat fan is off, when you open the outer most door (not the firebox door) a switch turns the fan on, I believe this is to give some oxygen to the firebox to make flashback minimal. Then you turn a normal looking light switch off which turns the light on and fan off.
kso: I am new to OWB's and the heatmor as I have been burning mine for only a month and half now. I wasn't too impressed with mine in the warmer months...40-59 degree weather. I never did mess with the differential, wish I would have. Fire went out one time for me and I think it was from a low demand for heat on a warm day and burning round birch thats a bit punky, but the main issue I had was the fan flapper would either stick open a bit or closed from creosote building up on it.
I'm guessing you don't have enough load on the boiler but its possible maybe a fan flapper stuck closed and couldn't fan the flame. I think your 400 has two fans, one in the back and one in the front. Might be a good idea to take both out and see if sticking closed was a problem.
I've also noticed that the water temp on the gauge on the front of boiler will read 10 degrees plus or minus a couple colder than what the aquastat is set at. So if aquastat set at 180, which is all the higher my heatmor goes to the gauge will be 170ish when the fan shuts off.
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I have not had any issues with fire going out, wood was cut and split this summer, most of it was from 8' logs that were cut and sitting for a year on the ground. My water temp gauge is the same always 10 degrees colder than the aquastat, tried to turn it up but it is limited to 180, set the differential to 10 degrees but didn't seem to change much.
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That's good and what kind of boiler do you have?
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Heatmor works like this, if there is no call for heat fan is off, when you open the outer most door (not the firebox door) a switch turns the fan on, I believe this is to give some oxygen to the firebox to make flashback minimal. Then you turn a normal looking light switch off which turns the light on and fan off.
kso: I am new to OWB's and the heatmor as I have been burning mine for only a month and half now. I wasn't too impressed with mine in the warmer months...40-59 degree weather. I never did mess with the differential, wish I would have. Fire went out one time for me and I think it was from a low demand for heat on a warm day and burning round birch thats a bit punky, but the main issue I had was the fan flapper would either stick open a bit or closed from creosote building up on it.
I'm guessing you don't have enough load on the boiler but its possible maybe a fan flapper stuck closed and couldn't fan the flame. I think your 400 has two fans, one in the back and one in the front. Might be a good idea to take both out and see if sticking closed was a problem.
I've also noticed that the water temp on the gauge on the front of boiler will read 10 degrees plus or minus a couple colder than what the aquastat is set at. So if aquastat set at 180, which is all the higher my heatmor goes to the gauge will be 170ish when the fan shuts off.
Do the newer ones actually turn the fan on when the door is open? Mine has a mechanical flapper only.
To the original poster: does the light come on when you flip the switch? If not it sounds as if it is being left off and when flipping the switch on then it may be working correctly. Or there is a wiring problem.
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Yes, when the outter most door is opened the fan is supposed to come on. Turn switch to down position which turns light on and the fan off when loading stove. Do you have a fan at all or just a damper that opens during a call for heat? My 200 which was built in late 2012 if I recall has a fan and a flapper, the fan blows the flapper open and when fan turns off the flapper is supposed to close from the weight of its self. Not sure why but I was getting creosote built up on it that on more than one occasion the fan would shut off but the flapper would stay open a inch or two and in warm weather (40s-50s F) the stove would overheat, it only overheated once, the first time, since that time I was aware of the issue and would take the fan out and clean creosote off it every couple days. Only once did it the flapper stick closed and the fan couldn't push it open.
My door switch was sticking and the fan wasn't coming on when the outer door was opened, this cured its self after a week of running. I figure it was from sitting so long with the door closed, from when it was manufactured to sitting on the dealers lot.