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Author Topic: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.  (Read 2453 times)

Bluegrass Wood Burner

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Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« on: January 05, 2018, 11:39:49 AM »

Ok boiler experts and beginners, I'm needing some help here. I found out about a guy about 100 miles from me who has the very same boiler that I do. The brand I have is not really widespread in a lot of states or popular like the top brands. I called him to get some tips and he informed me of a few things he feels I'm doing wrong.

1. He feels I'm not getting the efficiency that I should because my pump runs 24/7 rather than cycling with my furnace blowers. How would I go about doing this with two separate heat exchangers, Thermostats, and blowers in my house. Would this be practical for me to do.

2. He also feels I should put the little cover back on my combustion fan that cuts down on air flow. He feels not having that on pushes a lot of my heat out the stack.

3.He informed me that I need to flush my water every year and add new chemicals.

Any advice on any of these would be helpful to me. The guy I bought my boiler from didn't train me on anything. He is no longer in business. Most of the things I learned by trial an error. And I have learned a ton from all of you.

     
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mlappin

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2018, 12:32:17 PM »



1. He feels I'm not getting the efficiency that I should because my pump runs 24/7 rather than cycling with my furnace blowers. How would I go about doing this with two separate heat exchangers, Thermostats, and blowers in my house. Would this be practical for me to do.

I’ve personally never understood this, if cycling your pumps off saves any real BTU’s then it’s faulty underground line thats losing the heat, cycling your pump is just a bandaid at best. Any supposed heat lost in the basement from a full time running pump isn’t really lost as its in a heated space.

2. He also feels I should put the little cover back on my combustion fan that cuts down on air flow. He feels not having that on pushes a lot of my heat out the stack.

That could be very likely, I tried a forced draft on my old conventional once, just really ate the wood then, not like it already didn’t.


.

3 He informed me that I need to flush my water every year and add new chemicals.

   
Why? The older the water the “deader” it gets, fresh water leads to fresh corrosion. If your water is bad and needs changed yearly then RO water or something needs seriously looked into.
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Bluegrass Wood Burner

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2018, 12:58:36 PM »

Thank You sir. I felt I needed other opinions on this. I'm burning around 12 cord of wood per year and heating 5400sq ft. I think its fairly efficient. I know im losing a little heat in my attice where my pipe runs back to the furnace plenum, but not much.
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wreckit87

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2018, 10:04:49 AM »

The fan thing may hold some merit, but the other things not so much. I concur with Marty- there is no reason to cycle the pump. Turning them off and on all the time will kill a pump much faster than running it constantly, not to mention the volume of nearly frozen water in your lines that would need to cycle through your heat exchanger, blowing ice cold air, before you get any heat. Counter-intuitive the way I look at it. 100 ft of 1" PEX underground holds about 3 gallons of water, so at the standard 7GPM you're blowing ice cold air for 25 seconds before gaining any heat- while also pouring 6 gallons of ice cold water into your 180 degree boiler; we know how good that is for your boiler. The water flushing thing makes no sense either. As Marty said, fresh water will introduce fresh oxygen thus fresh oxidation. Not a good plan. This goes to show that ya can't believe everything you hear. That guy is ill-informed or perhaps just goofy. If you're only going through 12 cord for 5200 sq ft, I probably wouldn't screw with the fan either. Seems to be working well for you. Might be worth picking up a $12 BBQ thermometer from Mills Fleet and putting it in your stack to monitor temps, then unplug the fan and watch it again for a few days. That'll tell you what you're losing up the stack by using the blower or not
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mlappin

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2018, 10:52:51 AM »

Something else, it costs more to start and stops electric motor than to leave it run most of the time, thats one reason why short cycling is to be avoided. You could see this with the old electric meters and the wheel in them, I could stand and watch the wheel spin like mad when a larger motor started on the farm then it would gradually slow down to indicate the actual load while the motor is running. They do this to charge more for each start up as it costs the utilities money to size everything to handle the amperage surge when a motor starts, not so much to keep it running. This is why when everything still used fuses you had to have slow blo fuses for electric motors.
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E Yoder

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2018, 11:01:37 AM »

My thoughts....
Choking the draft usually only helps efficiency is there is minimal baffles/ heat exchange in the exhaust. Other wise you just create a slow dirty burn. Which is inefficient and a creosote factory.
Stopping flow through the boiler will create stratification issues and boiling on warmer days. I wouldn't do it. In the old days with poorly insulated pipe it helped a bit but makes little sense to me now.
Mlappin and wreckit had good advice there too.
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E Yoder

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2018, 11:03:57 AM »

Draining the water might help if you have debris from an anode rod that would build up. I'm not a fan of anodes for that reason. With proper treatment and testing I wouldn't drain as was already mentioned.
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Bluegrass Wood Burner

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2018, 04:08:57 PM »

Once again, thanks for your help. I wont be talking any advice from my local guy anymore. The good thing is I have a nice warm home even when its frigid cold.

I got a maverick meat thermometer for Christmas, however I cannot for the life of me get a good reading from my lines whether it be on the metal copper or pex. Reads 20-25 degrees low. A little frustrated with trying
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allis48

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Re: Pump cycling with the furnace blower? Need advice.
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2018, 08:08:08 AM »

I got the pump for my building on and off with the blower since it is a larger pump drawing more juice and heat is mainly to keep above freezing unless I am working there so no need to waste extra electric
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