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[victor6deep]

I was lucky enough to meet a guy today that has had his conventional OWB and has ran it no higher than 160. He said every 4-5yrs he changed his water and burned good wood plus kept his water treated. Ran his pump on low which blew me away and the stove has had just door rope and a fan replaced during its journey. The 180 degree water temp scientific data is bulljunk.

[willieG]

i dont believe anyone has reallys aid you need to run it at 180 but it has been said not to run it below 150

180 is often used as that is kind of the industry standard for figuring available btu....it is said that 180 degree delivered to the home will be able to giv up 10,000 btu per hour per gpm and have a return temp of 160 (this makes doing math pretty simple)

sending hotter water to the home  will give yo more btu to use, if you use hot water baseboards or hot water rads of any kind and even if you use radiant fin under floor heat they work much better at higher temps. in baseboards for instance at 180 degree water a 3/4 inch single tube slant fin heater will give off about 6 hundred btu per hour per foot of baseboard...every ten degrees less in delivery temp will be about 100 btu per hour less

so if you have a ten foot basebaord receiving 180 degree water you would deliver to your room 6000 btu per hour...if that water  was 160 you would only be getting about 4000 btu per hour from the same heter. and that is fine if you have enough linear feet of baseboard

i can say i ran 150 to 165 for years and it worked fine i now run 160 to 175 and it still works fine but i have no baseboard only hot air and in floor that is tempered to about 110
i can say the only difference i see is the time it takes to go from "no body home" setting to "lets warm this place up" setting

i think most will agree, run it where ever you want as long as not below 150 (actually i think it could go a little lower but with 150 there is a built in safety zone?)

[slimjim]

Victor why is it that you always seem to know more about these boilers than the manufacturer, if you wish to run your boiler at 160 or below , please do not purchase one of my boilers, in my opinion all boilers are better off being run hot but if the manufacturer wants it run cold (160) then by all means do so, it is thier warranty, this industry has come a long way in the past 20 years, most of the country can no longer use the old technology of 20 years ago, listen to the manufacturer.

[victor6deep]

Victor why is it that you always seem to know more about these boilers than the manufacturer, if you wish to run your boiler at 160 or below , please do not purchase one of my boilers, in my opinion all boilers are better off being run hot but if the manufacturer wants it run cold (160) then by all means do so, it is thier warranty, this industry has come a long way in the past 20 years, most of the country can no longer use the old technology of 20 years ago, listen to the manufacturer.

160 til I am burning water. I will start a thread in 10yrs that says "oops it sprung a leak...... gonna get new stove from SlimJim".

[idahohay]

160 til I am burning water. I will start a thread in 10yrs that says "oops it sprung a leak...... gonna get new stove from SlimJim".
[/quote]

Victor,  180 would be better for your stove.

[slimjim]

NO, you are wrong Victor. You see I choose to do business with those people who will work listen and learn.

[victor6deep]

Where is my buddy Scott at?

[AirForcePOL]

You could change the oil in your truck every 15k miles for years and your truck could still run fine.    Someone else could let theirs go 10-15k miles just a few times and their engine could blow up.  If you ask me, why take the risk? I don't see any advantage to running lower temps unless it is in mild weather.  I wan't the air coming out of my vents to be as warm as possible.

[victor6deep]

You could change the oil in your truck every 15k miles for years and your truck could still run fine.    Someone else could let theirs go 10-15k miles just a few times and their engine could blow up.  If you ask me, why take the risk? I don't see any advantage to running lower temps unless it is in mild weather.  I wan't the air coming out of my vents to be as warm as possible.

Funny part is I run 180 in early spring mild weather because if I ran low temps it would be too long of idle times and moisture. I run cooler in the winter because the stove cycles just enough to where moisture isn't an issue.

[idahohay]

Victor, what temp do you actually run your stove at? 

In one of your early posts (Nov. 2012) you stated the sweet spot for your stove was between 165 low and 180 high.  So if you ran it in that range last winter and now you are saying you run 180 in early spring that would indicate you are knowledgeable about the need to keep temps up and in fact do so but just feel like "stirring the pot" maybe?

I am new to OWB's this season and am enjoying the learning process.

Lets say the guy you met had a OWB  and was pumping about 40 gpm through a heat exchanger.  If his supply was 160 he cold get(40 x 8.3 x 5 x 60) 99,600 btu/hr and still have a safe return temp of 155. So in his case running at 160 is perfectly acceptable.

[victor6deep]

180 eats wood is what I found out

[Scott7m]

Woooop de doooooo

everyone gather around and give victor a big round of applause for disproving conventional wisdom across the entire boiler industry

hip hip hooorayy

hip hip hoooray

feel better?

[victor6deep]

If some of you guys weren't dealers the whole 180 temp on conventionals wouldn't be a big deal. I have did the comparisons and 180 simply burns the wood off before my home has the demand for it. My stove at 160 saves wood yet it also meets the demands when my home needs it with less cycles going out the stack being unused. 242 views for a stupid thread huh?

[pointer80]

I have had a woodmaster 4400 for about 7+ years and I run mine at 172 degrees with a 10 degree recovery.  it gets down to 162 and the blower kicks on and builds it back up to 172.  This is what my dealer recommends. 

[RSI]

If you are trying to make it cycle less, change the differential setting. It will work a lot better than leaving it the same and changing the temperature.