Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: Gibson on April 26, 2015, 08:11:45 PM
-
Hi All,
Looking for potential causes of some ground melt I got during my first season with my new Heatmaster MF 5000E. Other than this, I absolutely love it? Great to look at the oil and not see it move for months!
The installation was done by the dealer, he used Thermoflex pipe, with no extra insulation I am aware of.
I am pretty sure something is wrong here, but I am looking for the most likely causes of melt like this and what I should do.
Darren
(http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww226/dfrenette1/melt_zpspa5burbq.jpg)
-
Welcome to the site Gibson! I believe the thermoflex is a product constructed of field tile material with foam covered pex on the inside. Is that what you have? That's not normal. From the looks of it I would say your pipe has already failed. Have you told your dealer about it yet?
-
Is this what your installer used?
http://www.gtglobeindustries.com/insulated-pex.php (http://www.gtglobeindustries.com/insulated-pex.php)
Unfortunately if so I have a bad feeling that it has already failed either from poor installation or a manufacturers defect that has allowed water in.
-
I'm in a similar situation. If your grass is growing faster around your pipe install, it means excess heat is penetrating the ground. During spring time is very obvious.
-
Keep in mind you will get snow melt on newly disturbed soil before the rest of the surrounding soil does. But! if it is melting on 25 degree days with no sun out you may have a problem.
-
Keep in mind you will get snow melt on newly disturbed soil before the rest of the surrounding soil does. But! if it is melting on 25 degree days with no sun out you may have a problem.
Very true!
Gibson, Do you know what your temp loss is from the boiler to the house by chance?
-
Keep in mind you will get snow melt on newly disturbed soil before the rest of the surrounding soil does. But! if it is melting on 25 degree days with no sun out you may have a problem.
Good point, I missed the first season part. If you can get a reading on the difference from the stove to the house. Too large a differential and you have a problem.
-
Hi All,
I am pretty sure something is wrong here,
Darren
(http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww226/dfrenette1/melt_zpspa5burbq.jpg)
Me too.... how deep down is the pipe??
I f it's shallow,, maybe .?
The Experts on here will know.
-
Oh ya welcome :thumbup:
Where are you located?
You still got snow?
kk
-
Put some pavers on that and use it for a walkway. :-[
I have some Logstor, about 30ft laying on top of the ground, it didn't melt any snow.
-
Just verify the temp coming out of the boiler and the temp going into the house that will let you know for sure if there is a problem. it does not seem to continue under you snow pile, when my old pipe had heat loss it would melt the snow under where i piled it up.
-
Put some pavers on that and use it for a walkway. :-[
I have some Logstor, about 30ft laying on top of the ground, it didn't melt any snow.
I didn’t have that much exposed, but I had about 10-15 foot of trench left open over the winter as we had to wait for the ground to resettle before repairing the tile for the foundation drainage on the house. Not only did it have snow on it that never melted but before the snow it had some ice on it as well that never melted.
Logstor be good stuff Maynard. I’ve stored the extra 13 foot in the rafters of one of the barns, I cut a few chunks off to run my own experiment with, gonna see just how heavy a load it can take before crushing. No point in starting out with the skid steer, it’s tracked and floats over about anything, may start with the industrial loader and go up from there.
-
Pictures Please! I have tried with my 416 Cat and a full bucket of gravel on a gravel drive to crush or damage it, no damage here!
-
Oh I plan on it. First I’ll just run over it as deer’s are usually heavier than kitty’s. Then I’ll grab one of those 1700lb silage bales with the loader and run over it, if that doesn’t work grab two thousand bales on the front and try it. All the other tractors are too light form running wide tall radials. May load the semi up with 60,000 pounds of corn and see what happens if the Logstor lives that long. Our driveway is like cement now that all the frost is gone.
-
That 3 pound foam is strong stuff, and as we know round is stronger than square.
60000 pounds just might do the trick, but I wouldn't be surprised if it held up.
Photos and video will be needed for that experiment. :thumbup:
-
From running the semi across the scales I know the front axle has 11800 pounds on it, the rest is pretty well even across the other 4 axles so figure 84,500 minus the 11800 pounds on the front axle, that leaves 72,700 pounds over the other four axles or 4543.74 pounds per tire. So actually if it can survive the front axles running over it with 5900 lbs per tire no point running the rest over it…except it would look way cool in video to see the tandems running over it.
-
Thanks for all the input everyone.
I have spoken to my dealer, he is talking of charging me to fix it, so I wanted to get some more info before dumping any more money.
haven't noticed increase growth around area yet, but will keep an eye out for it.
The stuff from gt Globe industries looks like the stuff I have.
My dealer also mentioned it may be due to unsettled ground, just not sure if I want to wait another year to find out!
Not sure of the temp drop to the house, but I will look into it. I was told to expect about 1 degree C drop over 100ft, I think I am at 115ft or so. Does that sound about what to expect? If I see much more drop, I probably have a problem?
I was at work during the install, but I imagine it is a bit shallower on the exposed patch and gets deeper as it runs under my driveway. I'll have to ask my dealer for more details.
I am just outside of Ottawa, crazy cold winter, but a happy wife who suffered through inhumane temperatures last year when we were heating with oil. O0
Good luck on the experiments guys!
-
LOl, dang metric system. Entered 1 C into my convert free app, obviously came up wrong, it says 1C equals 33.8 so I know that can’t be right for this scenario, besides if you were losing that much heat would be very hard to keep the domicile warm when it was absolutely frigid out.
SO roughly since water boils at 100C and at 212F, 1C is roughly 2F. Losing 2 degrees F in a hundred and some odd foot run isn’t horrible.
If your boiler is still up and running I’d figure a way out to get a measurement of your heat loss from the back of the boiler to the house.
It could be from unsettled dirt, but mine didn’t do that, but it was also trenched in thru the yard, not sure of the trench width exactly but the Logstor did fit a little tight. So say 5” trench.
-
Would be interesting to stick a meat thermometer in the ground of the effected area and another say 5 ft on either side of the effected area.
-
:post: