Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: evilgma on November 22, 2010, 10:29:06 AM
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Hello, I'm new to this site and have inherited a 20 plus year old home with a hardy furnace. This was my parent's home and I paid close attention to the Hardy operation; however, a problem has surfaced that I cannot diagnose. Random boil overs are occurring. It can happen anytime, day or night. I actually sat by the furnace one day just to see what was happening. A boil over occurred while the doors were closed, the fan was not running and the damper was closed. I deduced the door seals needed replacing, WRONG, still happening. We are burning cured red, black and white oak and occasional hickory while keeping trash, etc. to a minimum. Any thoughts?
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Hi. It has to be getting too much air from somewhere if it is getting too hot with fan not running. Are you sure the damper is closing enough when fan not running.... since you already replaced the door seal?
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Defiantly getting air when it shouldn't be. I have had problems with dampers not completely closing, an 1/8inch crack will cause problems on a warm day.
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Areas to check are the fan damper and the flap at the rear of the stove. Either one can cause an air leak.
My guess is that you are filling the stove full and have very little heating load this time of year.
Try only filling the stove half full and this will help the boil overs until we get some colder weather.
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When I had a hardymine would boil over on warm days I ended up taking hvac tape and sealing the opening around theclean out door opening that solved my issue!!
Take the back off the store hold a cigarette around that clean out and around the fan flapper watch where the smoke goes!!
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Got to thinking that the boil over you are seeing could actually be the Temperature and Pressured Relief Valve on the domestic hot water opening up. Mine does that when the water gets ~195 and no one is using any hot water in the house. Once the weather turns cold I don't have any problems with it opening up.
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I don't know why the temp. relief valve would be opening. The stove is set to stop the fan when the water temp. is 175 or 180 I believe. Therefore the domestic water should be no warmer than that unless the water temp. is higher than that.
As someone else sad, I would check the clean out flap that goes into the bottom of the ashpan. My silicone seal failed on mine and was allowing too much air in there. As was also said, check to make sure the flap on the fan if completely closing to for a seal. If not, take a flat head screwdriver and open up the chain links enough to give it some slack.