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yes

14 (56%)

no

11 (44%)

Total Members Voted: 25

[hondaracer2oo4]

Hopefully slim or sprinter can chime in what he knows about plate exchangers and the amount of heat transfer that is appropriate.

[woodman]

A 30 degree delta t is significant. Is the hawkin  gassing correctly? Are you getting much smoke, or is it burning cleanly?

[Schavis]

@Woodman - from what the big cheeses at Hawken tell me, it is burning correctly - when you open the lower door it looks like a blow torch flame... I get smoke generally only right after it is loaded, or if the temp falls lower than 140 - on those cold nights when I get a burn time of 4 hours and I choose to sleep 5. 

[woodman]

Tubes are clean?

[hondaracer2oo4]

Shavis, what is your aquastat set for? Like I said you really need to be operating at 180 plus to get the heat that is needed into the house. What temp does your oil boiler run at? We need to have the heat exchanger producing at least that temp to be able to heat as your oil burner does.

[Schavis]

The furnace is clean and good...
The aquastat on the oil burner has been set at 140 for 12 years... we never change it.  From what I can tell, the settings on the OWF are 185 and 140.  The 140 is as high as it goes on the low end from what I can tell. 

[woodman]

If it is the same mechanical honeywell aquistat that I have, there should be a roller on the right side of it which allows you to set the difference between the high and low set point. I think mine is adjustable from 10-30. That is not going to help your burn times though, and I am sorry to say I am out of ideas for you. I think you have every right to be upset with Hawkin as it seems you did everything correctly. What really throws me though is the EPA rated btu's. I really thought those numbers could be trusted..... I think I would forward this thread directly to Hawkin and ask them to make a responce here, if they are sure there is no problem on their end.   

[hondaracer2oo4]

How often is the stove in gasser mode?(not idling). I am wondering why your indoor temps after the heat exchanger aren't higher. You should be able to raise the temps on the house side of the exchanger to within 10 degrees of the stove I believe.

[Schavis]

@woodman... thanks anyway... I have already told Hawken all this and they basically say tough... not their problem...
@hondaracer2oo4 Well today, it is not idling much at all... I did catch it idle for about 5 minutes an hour ago, but I can't see it from my office, so I only can tell you that most everytime I check on it, the fan is running and it is gassing.

Thanks everyone, I do wish Hawken would care a little and man up to the fact that they messed up and should have never sold and installed this unit at my house... yes, it was Hawken that installed it, I didn't do it myself. 

[hondaracer2oo4]

I am still baffled why you are having issues getting your in house temps up to the temp of the outdoor boiler??? This doesn't make sense. It should be able to output at full output the amount of btu's that you need for your home even if everything is calling for heat at one time. But it looks as though it can't bring it up to the temp of the owb for some reason. It also doesn't make sense to me that you would go through so many btu's from the owb but by your amount of fuel that you payed for when using your indoor boiler the numbers don't ad up. Something is a miss here.

[woodman]

These next few days could be a real opportunity to see what his home's heat requirements are. If it was me I would bypass the owb and let the oil burner heat the house for 24 hours. Keep the thermostat exactly where it is with the hawkin. Then either measure how much oil is used in 24 hours and or time how many minutes per hour the oil burner fires (assuming he knows what size nozzle it has). I have an idea the demand is going to be huge.

[hondaracer2oo4]

It has to be if it's straight gassing all day!

[Schavis]

we left the house all day friday to have a little me time.... Left at 8am and returned at 7 pm.  All that was left in the firebox was ash, yes ash, not even coals, so I figured I would just let it go overnight and see how the oil heated the house when the Hawken couldn't.... The oil furnace heated the house and the return loop on the OWB and the water jacket of the GX10, and all the water in the radiators... It ran alot, but heated the house. ... the temp on the front of the unit held at 110 all night with no fire...  So I guess I really can't tell you how much the furnace works to heat just the house, it now has the EXTRA load of the GX 10, 80 feet of pipe and whatever heat loss we get on the plate exchanger. 

@hondaracer... yes, the Hawken NEVER took a break the other day... it could not even bring the temps up to 180, they hovered between 160 and 173 for the better part of 30 hours...

[hondaracer2oo4]

Shavis,
"heating" the gx10 with the indoor boiler really isnt any load on the system. After the water is up it really shouldnt lose much? Its not heating anything. Your GX10 also heats the house fine correct? The burn times are just shorter than you would like. Would you be able to give us an estimate on how much 'alot' is in hours? Could you tell us the BTU rating of the indoor boiler is? Should be right on the plate somewhere on it.

[Schavis]

The GX10 can only heat the house "fine" when the temps don't fall below freezing, at 30 it only has a burn time of 6 hours, at 20 about 4.5 to 5 hours and at 10 and below it needs wood every 4 hours or less just to keep the water temps of the GX10 over 170.  Our burn times as you can see are VERY SHORT... It is not that they are shorter than I would like them to be, it is that if I want to have more than 4 hours of sleep without filling the furnace, I loose temps and then have to recover from a low water temp in the furnace and the oil burner kicks in.  So they are just NOT acceptable and certainly not even close to what Hawken says they should be.

I disagree with you saying the GX10 isn't a load on the oil boiler, there is about 110 gallons of water that is outside (even though it is insulated) with an air temp of 10, it has to be loosing temperature.  And doesn't the transfer plate and the sidearm heat exchanger work both ways?

The oil boiler is 149,000.  It has been servicing the house just fine for 13 years.   "alot" can be defined as - it cycles on and off all day... if I had endless time to sit in the kitchen and listen to it and use a stop watch, I could tell you, but I would be fat as a tick - eating and cooking all day.  So, I really cant quantify a total running time on the oil... sorry.