Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Hardy => Topic started by: MikeD on December 27, 2013, 01:52:52 PM
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I recently bought a 4200 sq ft, 1860 home with a H25. I can tell you what I do on a daily basis and also tell you what appears to be wrong.... I'm looking for answers as to why I can't keep the temp in my home at a steady (or close to) 70 (warm temp) degrees. I fill the stove twice maybe three times a day. There is always smoke coming from the stack. I recently saw smoke seeping from the door of the stove. The home has 3 t-stats. There are baseboard heaters on every inch of every wall of the home. I recently installed what I was told to be the largest pump possible for my stove. And replaced the grates. There is no hot water pressure. And at move in I installed a whole house water filtration system. A smaller version from Lowes. I've been told to burn green wood..... I've been told to burn large wood. When I burn the large wood... it really has a problem heating the house. Any suggestions are appreciated.
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I don't know anything about radiators, but I do know that you shouldn't be burning green wood if you don't have to. You will achieve much greater burn times with dry wood. What settings do you have your aquastat set at? Does your water temp satisfy your aquastat when you're burning green wood or does your blower run constantly? What kind of lines do you have running to your house? Do you have any idea what your heat loss is from the stove to the house?
Just a few things I can think of. Hopefully someone will chime in and help you out. Welcome to the board!
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I recently bought a 4200 sq ft, 1860 home with a H25. I can tell you what I do on a daily basis and also tell you what appears to be wrong.... I'm looking for answers as to why I can't keep the temp in my home at a steady (or close to) 70 (warm temp) degrees. I fill the stove twice maybe three times a day. There is always smoke coming from the stack. I recently saw smoke seeping from the door of the stove. The home has 3 t-stats. There are baseboard heaters on every inch of every wall of the home. I recently installed what I was told to be the largest pump possible for my stove. And replaced the grates. There is no hot water pressure. And at move in I installed a whole house water filtration system. A smaller version from Lowes. I've been told to burn green wood..... I've been told to burn large wood. When I burn the large wood... it really has a problem heating the house. Any suggestions are appreciated.
first thing i would ask before i started to blame the stove or the pump or anything at this point is your baseboard heat.
if you have normal 3/4 inch slant fin single tube heaters they normall have an output of about 600 to 650 btu per foot of baseboard. (this is at a delivery temp of 180 degrees) i like to use 600 as we never have a constant 180 delivery....now you say you have 4200 square feet to heat. if we said (this is purely a guess) taht you required (on a cold night) 30 btu per square foot to heat your home taht would be 2400 x 30 btu = 72,000 btu per hour ro hw the house... now divide that by 600 btu (the most you could get from a foot of baseboard) you would require 120 feet of basebaord to achieve the required btu
you say the home was built in 1860? h ow well is it insulated ? perhaps on a cold night my estimate is low?
there are many many questions to be asked starting at the OWB...andmoving through the pipeing (size, amount of total length) number of fittings ect.
you say 3 zones, how many feet of basebaord are on each zone...if the gpm is not high you could be sending cooler water to teh farthest baseboard on a zone...this cooler water could very well mean a much lowere rate of btu per foot of baseboard. every 10 degrees under 180 means about 100 btu per hour less per foot of baseboard getting to the room.
there are a lot of questions to your delima to be asked and answered i think before pinpointing any problems with your system
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So in order to heat correctly and efficiently the first thing you need to do is get the owb up to the operating temp. That is what you set your aquastat to which would be anywhere from 165-180, I would suggest 180. After the OWB is up to operating temperature you can turn your thermostats on in the house and allow the house to start drawing off of the OWB system. The OWB should now cycle on and off cooling down to 165-170(whatever the differential is on the aquastat) and then heating back up to 180. I can tell you that with my H4 it is hard for the stove to recover temperature with only burning large rounds and would be impossible to do with large GREEN rounds. You need to have a mix of smaller and larger stuff. I don't put anything in the stove over 10 inches in diameter. If it is over 10 inches I split it in half once. I also mix in a few smaller pieces. Now the next thing that you need to do is measure what the temperature is when it enters the home from outside and what the temperature is of the returning water with all of your zones calling for heat at the same time. An infrared thermometer does this well, they are about $40 at the big box store. After that we can start to get a good picture of how your system is functioning and where your problems are.
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Thank you everyone. Youve given me a starting place. I'll let you know how it goes....thanks again.
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Monitor your supply n return temps from boiler to first exchanger. If you want the 600 but per ft then you need 180 in & 160 out.
Who in the heck told you to burn green wood? There is tons of info and horror stories on why not to do this. First off is at least a 30% more wood consumption. Besides damage to the stove and voided warranty.
What pump do you have on there? Biggest is never best in this case.
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How did you make out?
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Yeah Im interested in how you made out also. I too have the same issue. I just spent $500 on insulating my attice, feel like I wasted my money! Got to 13 last night. House was set at 72 and got down to 68. Not happy!!! I need to find someone local that installs these and have them personally check my system. And Im heating half of what you are with my H4
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Dave, where is Montgomery, we have a dealer in the Binghamton NY area that installs and does a good job with diagnostics, is he to far away, he charges travel time.
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Binghamton is about 1 1/2hrs away straight north of me. There are no other hardy dealers in my area except my parts supplier and hes not the one who installed it.
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His name is Kerry Ellis, would you like me to PM you his contact info.
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Yes please. Thanks Slim!