Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: uncle on January 19, 2014, 05:48:37 PM
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I wish more people would write in sometimes and let others know of their blunders so others can laugh and/or learn from others mistakes.
This is my first year with my OWB and I'm learning. I am running two loops, one to the house and one to my wife's sewing shop. When she's not sewing much, I kill the pump to that loop.
It got down to single digits here a couple weeks ago and my wife did not get out to the shop any. Yesterday she goes to the shop and water goes everywhere. Froze and broke heat exchanger.
I haven't replaced it yet, it's leaking in about 20 different places. This was my $200 mistake. I was a tightwad and will be wiring the pump to run all the time. it never even dawned on me that the thing would freeze; my head was just not in it.
There you have it, run your pumps all the time in the winter.
Brian
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Uncle = I have a shop that I don't use much, so when I ran the pipe to the shop, I installed the pump and a thermostat inside the shop and set it at 35 degrees. When the temp reaches 35 degrees, the thermostat turns the pump and fan on that pushes air through the heat exchanger. This may work for you if you don't use the sew shop much.
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I just let my pump run and turn the fan off if I a m not going tombe in the shop.
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Any chance of putting a I thermostat on it? Or even a timer. Sorry to hear about the sprinkler.
We lost power in a few cities during that sub zero episode. It only took 10 minutes to bust some poorly insulated copper with the blowing winds to -30's windchill
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I have the OWB and pumps on emergency power, and a thermostat on the fan for the shop. I don't know what I was thinking when I kicked the pump off.
Brian