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16

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Left the boiler for five days...

« on: January 03, 2017, 07:42:07 AM »

Yes hondaracer2oo4, that's my setup.  I didn't light my stove until November 30th this year.  The water temp started off at 50 when I started using propane for heat in late October.  It was keeping the water temp right around 104 or so just prior to my lighting the stove.  I didn't notice the furnace running that often at the time though I wasn't trying to watch for it.  I was mostly experimenting on how the propane heat could keep the water lines warmer.  So I'm not sure if I would have the same issue that you experienced.  I hope I don't, as what you did to fix it is way beyond my capabilities.  I'd just make sure the propane tank was full if I had to leave for a month or more, as I burn 2.5 to 5 gallons of propane a day when heating with it...

17

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Left the boiler for five days...

« on: January 03, 2017, 06:54:13 AM »

Third year with an OWB, first time I've left while it's running.  We left town Thursday morning.  I shut off the blower/thermostat and left the two circulation pumps running.  When I left, water was a 190.

Got back last night around 8 PM.  Water was at 109 and the propane heat was just about to kick on.  By the time the furnace in the house shut off, water was at 119.  I've got a forced air setup in the house with an aquastat so the propane kicked on once the water temp dropped below 130.  The propane heat was keeping the water quite warm.  Temps while we were gone were only in the 30s or 20s, though lows were down in the low teens.  So not sure if it would work better in sub-zero weather (where the propane furnace kicks on more often) or worse (if the lines lose heat more quickly). 

Feels good not being tied to the boiler if we need to leave town for a few days.  The past two years I was worried about freezing lines if I left.  All for nought. 

BTW, when I got back, the stack was still smoldering.  Fire lit back up in about 30 or 40 seconds after I opened the door.

18

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Wife insisted on going somewhere warm for a week. Now have a frozen line

« on: December 20, 2016, 06:34:51 PM »

What kind of underground lines are they, pex or pex-al-pex?  If pex-al-pex can you hire someone to come thaw the lines with electricity?  I think that's how they have to thaw frozen water lines in the city water systems when they freeze.  Or would that ruin the pex that is on the pex-al-pex?

It seems odd that it is frozen anywhere other than exposed areas, like from the boiler until it gets underground, or somewhere else.

Don't kick yourself too much.  I have a friend with an OWB and he shuts off the fan and water pumps and leaves for a couple days and comes back and it's fine.  He swears by it.  I leave the pumps on and always would, but you're not the first to try it with them off...

19

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Wind

« on: December 15, 2016, 05:24:17 PM »

I don't go through a ton of wood, but it's obviously more wood than on the warmer days.  I have a well-insulated and air-tight house too which helps.  I think a drafty house is the biggest contributor to increased wood usage on windy days.

My stove has firebricks in the bottom 1/3 or so.  When it's colder I make sure to shovel ash our more often to keep those firebricks exposed and the forced air to be able to blow in better.  I get better burns and more heat retention that way meaning less wood consumed throughout the day.  If I get lazy or busy and don't shovel the ash out and it piles up past the firebricks, I burn more wood.  I usually shovel ash out on the weekends, but do it during the week once or twice too when it's sub-zero.

20

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Draft or pressure?

« on: December 15, 2016, 04:57:17 PM »

Check your pipe fittings from the stove to the underground lines and from the underground lines to your pex in the houses.  I've noticed sometimes with a big heat change they need to be tightened.  So if you're fire went out and your water temp dropped 100 degrees in a few hours, it may have caused the fittings to loosen from the contraction from the temp drops and you lost some water there. 

Also, if you are dropping that fast on temp it's probably from the forced air blowing into the firebox from the small fan.  It's shooting in cold air and cooling the water.  Do a search on this site for slimjim's posts about how to wire in a shutoff switch that will kill the small fan when the water temp drops below a certain set point.  That should keep you from losing heat so fast if the fire goes out.

21

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Water line on Central Boiler not heating house

« on: December 05, 2016, 08:15:10 AM »

I think this guys figured it out? He posted this 1+ year ago?

Or, he's happy someone FINALLY answered and now he can fix it!   

22

Equipment / Re: Skidsteer Grapples

« on: May 24, 2016, 06:10:39 AM »

Since I started this thread, I figured I should update it.  I went with a stump bucket with a grapple on it.  So far so good.  It's a wildkat brand.

23

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Shutting Down

« on: May 24, 2016, 05:51:06 AM »

10/19/2015 - 5/23/2016.  Finally shut her down.  May fire her up again if it gets cool out just to burn some junk wood and brush but it only flows to the water heater and bypasses the furnace.  So can still use A/C.

24

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Radiant or Hot Air

« on: May 18, 2016, 04:47:41 PM »

I don't like the fact that with radiant in-floor heat, you waste btus by mixing cold water into the hot water to reduce the temp before it's pumped into the floor tubes.  So even if it's a nice even heat, I just couldn't live with the thought that I wasted btus like that. 

25

General Discussion / Re: whats with the dem's always trying to take our rights????

« on: March 28, 2016, 02:38:17 PM »

Funny to me the seatbelt law was mentioned. Halloween 1989 we had an ice storm show up about 11:00 that night. Had 40,000 bushels of wet corn in the dryer when we lost all electricity. I was harvesting corn on the east farm when it got too bad to go. Got home about 1:30, tried to get the generator to fire the drier but no luck, hard fuses were blown when power went down. 7am was in town and got fuses. Roads were pure ice. 5 miles from home I hit some pot holes and pickup went sideways, went sliding on the ice, into the ditch, 3 1/2 roll overs. I was thrown out. Pickup rolled over me. 2 vertebrae broken. I'm in ambulance and Highway Patrolman sticks his head in (when he tried to stop his car went in the ditch) and asked if I was wearing my seatbelt. No. He said, "You would be dead if you had been wearing it." 11 weeks later when I got home I saw my pickup. The steering wheel was where my knees should have been. I have been stopped twice since then for seatbelt violations. Show them some pics and they let me go.

We watched a guy roll his truck onto its side about 25 years ago.  He wasn't wearing a seat belt and he was thrown halfway out of the driver's side window.  Truck rolled onto him and crushed his lungs, all his ribs, sternum, etc.  Coworker tried CPR but it was like pushing on jelly.  Had the guy been wearing a seatbelt he'd have lived. 

So it can cut both ways.  As for me, I wear it.  You can still die wearing one, but you can die more ways without one.  I also like having it keep me in place and better able to maintain control of the vehicle after impact instead of getting tossed around inside the car.

26

Portage & Main / Re: 28-40

« on: March 27, 2016, 10:48:15 AM »

I have had this stove all this winter,and if they would take it back and refund my money i would give it back.First  i made a outside stove that i used for 13 years ,till the back rusted through.
       -this stove smokes out the fill door no matter what i do,need a hazmat suit to fill the stove LOL
       -the water level gauge is a joke,i have to remove the gauge to fill it,and it only takes a bought 3 quarts from full to empty.
       -the fill door is made for left handed people,get dirty when my back end rubs on the open door.
       -they never finished the corners in the opening between the two doors, open insulation is exposed to sparks
       -have to open the back door to access the switch to shut of fan
       -no back light in control ,need a flash light to read temp
       -no insulation on back door
       -to deep from fill opening to bottom of stove,makes it hard to fill with big wood.
     

I agree with each nitpick you list except the last one, but I just view them as minor inconveniences because the stove is burning wood really well for me (I have the next size bigger).  I put foam around the pipes in the back, then covered with fiberglass insulation.  The lack of a light is annoying only if I stop at night to check the temp without my headlamp on my head that I always where on a planned excursion to load it in the dark.

I think the reason it can smoke a lot when the door is open is because it doesn't just shoot smoke straight up out the chimney.  It burns more efficiently with that return on the exhaust though, so I'd rather have it that way.  Also, I don't get a lot of smoke anymore now that I'm using more dry wood than wet wood.

I do wish the door opened the other way though.   Never dawned on me that that is why my left side of my jacket is all dirty.

27

Portage & Main / Re: Things I've learned from my BL3444

« on: March 22, 2016, 11:23:02 AM »

How can u run your AQ s so high and not have left over heat /creep and  goto boil over mode

Don't know.  The highest I've ever seen the thermostat on the back of the stove get when it shuts off the blower is about 193.  When I have the stove open too long to clean and load, I've gotten it up to about 197 and then it started to boil over.

28

Portage & Main / Re: Things I've learned from my BL3444

« on: March 21, 2016, 11:17:07 AM »

That's a heck of a lot less wood than I burnt in my central boiler in a year and only was heating about 1900 sq ft house and 700 sq ft garage.  Dealer I purchased from insisted that he used 20% less wood at least in this model.  I still have to finish the install though.  I have access to 2 500 gal l.p tanks that I was thinking about hooking up as extra thermal storage, just not sure yet if that's what I'm going to do.

I'm also super insulated (new home constructed) with R60 attics, R21 blown cellulose walls with R6.5 dense board foam boards wrapped around it too, plus high efficiency windows and doors, with R10 foam boards under the basement floor.  Garage is R21 walls with fiberglass batts and no foam board.  So my main heatloss would be from there, but it's only 1200 square feet.  I wish the standard insulation on these stoves would be R38 batts though.  My house might be insulated better than the stove even after accounting for doors and windows...

Last year burning December 23 through May, I went through about 11 full cords or so, maybe 12.  I think I was losing efficiency on the stove though last year by having such a huge ash pile in it.  Had this winter been as cold as last winter, I'd probably be up to 10 cords by now.

29

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Domestic hot water

« on: March 19, 2016, 08:23:14 AM »

I have a 20 plate running into the top of the electric water heater and it works great.  I have my boiler set point at 190 degrees.  What's your at?  If it's too low that may explain it.

30

Portage & Main / Re: Things I've learned from my BL3444

« on: March 17, 2016, 12:44:58 PM »

Hope I am as satisfied as you when I get mine hooked up!  I have approximately 20 cord cut, split and drying(not stacked so no accurate measurement) and I should be able to finalize all of the hook up by then.

I've had my fire burning since October 23, 2015.  It was lit the week before for 3 days but then I went out of town and relit it when I got back.

Since then, I've used about 8 full cords when adding in the softwoods that I was burning earlier with the hardwoods since late November.