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[Brad]

Do any of you Hardy guys also have an oil fired boiler?  I ask this because I am noticing that my oil fired boiler in the basement is kicking on and I seem to be using way more oil than I thought.  The plan when we put this in was to NOT use oil, only as a back up.  I talked to my local Hardy guy last night and he had me tweek the aquastat on the oil boiler to see if that would help.  That was set at 195 and I dropped it down to 180.  My Hardy is set at 180 on the high side and 165 on the low side.  This is my first year in this old farm house so I'm trying to learn how these things work, plus we added in the owb so I'm really confused now...  I sat in the basement and watched the temp guage on the inside boiler drop to about 160 and then the oil fired up and ran it up to about 190 and it shut off.  I think this is happening all the time I just recenntly noticed it.  I have a hvac guy who a freind of the family coming out Friday to  try and figure this out.  We have radiant baseboard heat and keep the house around 70.  Not sure if this is enough info for anyone to chime in but I'm just curious if anyone else has had this happen.  I have 35 gallons of oil left and I'm a little hacked off that I will need to but more.  Our temps have been 20 during the day and 0 to -5 at night.

[AirForcePOL]

I don't know anything about oil boilers but from what I can tell, you probably need to turn your temp way down on your oil boiler because if your owb only goes to 180 and that's what your oil boiler is set at, when you are using heat from the owb and the water temp drops your oil boiler will kick on.  That's just my guess.

[sawyer45306]

I still have my propane fired boiler in the basement and have the Hardy plumbed into that system. I too have my propane boiler as a back-up. What I have found for my system is this, during the early and end of the normal heating seasons, my circulating pumps dont run continously bringing hot water into the house. That allows the water in the line from my boiler outside to the one inside to cool off. So when one of the pumps kicks in it will initially be bringing cooler water in than what my propane boiler's aquastat is set for and that boiler will fire to offset that water temperature difference. Once the water is hot coming in ( above 120 F )my propane boiler shuts down. During the colder months when my system is calling for hot water almost constantly and I have at least one pump circulating ( my house has 3 seperate heating zones/pumps ) my propane boiler never fires. I end using about 200 gals of propane a year.

You should have your oil fired boiler's aquastat set back to kick in at around 120F. If your Hardy is set to shut down at 180 like most are, you should be carrying about 160 F water into your house from the Hardy pretty steady and your oil boiler needs to be set below that or it will always be running too. I have a temp gauge on my propane boiler and I can montitor my incoming water temp and mine usually stays between 140 and 160 when my pumps keep circulating.

[Pit Crew]

I have a oil burner also. I have a toggle switch installed to not allow the ingnighter to light the boiler. It cannot fire unless I flip the toggle switch. My backup can only run if I make it run.

[Brad]

I just went and turned the aquastat on the oil boiler down to 140. That's as low as the dial will go. I don't totally understand how everything is supposed to work together but I'm getting there. I really have already learned a ton from this place.  I really appreciate everything.  This old house is new to me as is the owb so I realize there will be a learning curve to get everything to work in sync. When the owb was installed it did not come with a ton of info and most of the stuff appears to have to be tweaked.