Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: walkerdogman85 on February 22, 2015, 05:14:55 PM
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I put a thermometer in the back of the hardy today, the bung I used is at the top. When I screwed it in and checked the temp, it was 155. Aquastat is supposed to be 164 on 174 off. I then bumped the aquastat up till it kicked the blower on and let it cycle. The temp then got to 172 before it shut off. I'm just wondering if the water is hotter up top or can my aquastat be off that much? i figure in loosing about 20 degrees form the boiler to the inside hx. I do have a temp gauge on the supply line inside. It's just a thermocoupler taped to the line. It's now reading 152..
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Yes, the water temp will be higher at the very top, but it won't be off a whole lot from a few inches down. It's probable that either the thermometer you installed and/or the aquastat aren't 100% reading correctly.
Also, losing 20 degrees between the boiler and the house? That's unacceptable unless your underground piping is about one mile long.
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The thermometer I don't think is off. I am more concerned with the one inside. However after reading on the Honeywell I believe it's not very accurate. I do believe the way the dealer installed my lines are wrong. He just slide black pipe insulation over the pen and put it in PVC and buried it. I would someday like to redo it. The main reason why I am checking water temps is from info I have gotten from this forum. And so far I have found that my lines need redone, I hve considered buying a new model since I was in a hurry and bought what everyone around here had. I just hate to spend another 12-15000 dollars..
What's your guys temps at the boiler and inside? My boiler is 50' from house then the lines are ran thru my basement another 30' unisulated.
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I don't have snow melting above my lines though. I wish I new then what I know now...
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Walker dog, I have 200 feet of z-supply 1" pex-al-pex five wrap underground from my boiler into my mech room in my basement. I lose less than a degree or so in that distance. Other guys have stuff that works similarly, so if you are losing a lot of degrees in 50 feet you need new lines. I doubt you are losing 20 degrees though unless you can see snow melting over the line.
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The setup is right at 3 years old. The temp gauges I use inside are what we use at work just termocoupler wire twisted together taped to the line with a digital readout. Not sure how accurate they are without the probe and not being directly in the water? I need to come up with a better way to check temps. The one on the boiler is right in the water. I believe it's accurate. No snow melting above lines and my DHW is hot as hell.. I hate the thought of redoing all of this even though is has saved me a lot of money vs electric, I have since realized that I messed up when I bought all of this..
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I take it your sensor is just on the PEX? Pex won't ever give a accurate reading of what your true water temp is coming in the house. You need something like a Sharkbite T with a temp gauge built into it. In my shop I have my temp sensors on copper pipe, with Arctic Silver on the sensor and pipe with pipe insulation covering all. Those temp sensors still read lower than the RANCO which is in a thermowell with arctic silver.
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The few hardy stoves I've seen, the pump only runs when the stove calls for heat it's not continuous like most stoves. It actually kinda makes sense no heat loss just circulating water. The hardy stoves usually don't run high dollar underground lines for that specific reason. They are a pretty cool little stoves, and fairly efficient.
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I have one of the wireless meat thermometers on my setup. I put it on my water to air hx in the house. I used some of that aluminum tape and taped the probes to the hx. One on the supply and one on the return. I feel that it's really accurate that way. I can also monitor how much heat I'm losing from my hx when my furnace is on. 20 deg is huge if that's really what your losing. Especially if that's only one way.
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I'll see what I can do to get a better reading inside. I hate to bust the lines apart right now until I get all the parts here to do so. It's too cold out to have it down for long. I can't complain on the heat though. It keeps it nice in here. And it's paid for.
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If the dhw is good and your house is warm,, sounds like your looking to make work for yourself. ;)
2 cnts
kk
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If the dhw is good and your house is warm,, sounds like your looking to make work for yourself. ;)
2 cnts
kk
More or less. I figure it's all good but I was mainly curious about the aquastat as I am burning coal now and wanted to tighten up the differential but it turn out the Honeywell I have isn't adjustable. So now that I know it also reads wrong I'm going to change it out after winter.
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I take it your sensor is just on the PEX? Pex won't ever give a accurate reading of what your true water temp is coming in the house. You need something like a Sharkbite T with a temp gauge built into it. In my shop I have my temp sensors on copper pipe, with Arctic Silver on the sensor and pipe with pipe insulation covering all. Those temp sensors still read lower than the RANCO which is in a thermowell with arctic silver.
PEX is definitely tougher to get a good reading from but I have temp probes foil taped to PEX and then a couple layers of pipe insulation in my basement which I verified with an infrared thermometer and they are pretty much spot on. I drop 2-2.5 degrees from my boiler with 150' thermopex then about 40 1" copper in the basement (quite a bit of additional loss there). I also have one of those sharkbite gauges on my DHW pex hot line, and didn't find it to be any more or less accurate than my probes. I have another older copper T temp gauge that reads substantially low, but I think that is just a bad gauge. Just my experience
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I'm running a new Central Boiler e2400. It is 100 feet from the house. 1" pex that is also slipped into black 6" conduit piping. I'd say it is buried on average about 3'. I live in the Adirondacks, so pretty cold. I'm losing 15 degrees from the boiler to my basement. I have those round analog thermometers that Central Boiler sells in a tee measuring input and output temperatures. So if my OWB is at 190, it hits the house at 175 and is usually at 155 leaving the house. Does this seem like a lot of heat loss from OWB to house?
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I'm running a new Central Boiler e2400. It is 100 feet from the house. 1" pex that is also slipped into black 6" conduit piping. I'd say it is buried on average about 3'. I live in the Adirondacks, so pretty cold. I'm losing 15 degrees from the boiler to my basement. I have those round analog thermometers that Central Boiler sells in a tee measuring input and output temperatures. So if my OWB is at 190, it hits the house at 175 and is usually at 155 leaving the house. Does this seem like a lot of heat loss from OWB to house?
1" pex but is it insulated? Is it 3 wrap, 5 wrap, soft foam, closed cell foam (logstor, rahau, thermopex)? Do you know what brand the underground line is? Do you have snow melt over the buried line?
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I'm running a new Central Boiler e2400. It is 100 feet from the house. 1" pex that is also slipped into black 6" conduit piping. I'd say it is buried on average about 3'. I live in the Adirondacks, so pretty cold. I'm losing 15 degrees from the boiler to my basement. I have those round analog thermometers that Central Boiler sells in a tee measuring input and output temperatures. So if my OWB is at 190, it hits the house at 175 and is usually at 155 leaving the house. Does this seem like a lot of heat loss from OWB to house?
1" pex but is it insulated? Is it 3 wrap, 5 wrap, soft foam, closed cell foam (logstor, rahau, thermopex)? Do you know what brand the underground line is? Do you have snow melt over the buried line?
It is Thermopex. But I haven't noticed any melt above the lines. 2491 was the part number next to Thermopex on the invoice from the dealer.
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I think your temp readings are off. I think you'd have snow melt if you actually lost 20 degrees in 100 feet. That would be 40 degrees round trip in temp loss. Others on this site know more than me though but I doubt you are losing more than a degree as thermopex is good stuff.
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Well I have some good news! I moved my thermocoupler to the brass fitting where the supply goes into my coil in the furnace, I was surprised at the results. The water temp maxed out at 182 and the furnace shut off. Now according to that my Honeywell aquastat is right on, I have it set on 180-185 it's kind of hard to see exactly what it's on on the cheap dial. Now I believe my screw in thermometer is off, at least I know I'm not losing a lot of heat in the ground. If I'm losing anything it's only a couple degrees of any. I'm going to the great Harbor Freight today and I'm going to look for a laser thermometer and a moisture meter. I'm going to also get batteries and check the supply and return on my coil.. Either way I'm happy with the results! I'll post on here when I get the reading of the return.. Thanks for all of the info, I didn't know it was that hard to get a reading on the lex. I also isolated the point on the fitting to help with the true reading.
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Good news!! I usually have a hard time getting an accurate reading with the infrared thermometers. Unless you have somewhat of a reference, it will be hard to tell if you are getting a good reading or not. Duct tape or electrical tape usually helps me with my readings. The meat thermometer with a little bit of heat transfer paste has worked the best for me.
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Will it be ok to run it at 182?
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Sure! Watch your temps after a cycle though to make sure the temp doesn't creep up too much after your blower shuts off. I wouldn't let it go above 190.