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76
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / OWB Maintenance
« on: September 30, 2014, 07:23:18 AM »
I recently inherited a 1996 Central Boiler OWB, after asking some questions on this site and several others I was able to get it up and operating about 3 weeks ago. It has been heating my DHW ever since with no issues and everything seems to be operating fine.
This leads me to the next topic I need to learn about and that is maintenance. A little background on this furnace, it is a '96 model CB 17 (I think). It holds 170 gallons of water. It was purchased used by my father and hooked up "temporarily" for two years at my grandfathers. My grandfather was in poor health and couldn't afford to continue heating with fuel oil. My father and uncle burned it year round for two years heating the house and DHW until my grandfather passed away. Other than adding water conditioner, there was little to no maintenance done in that two years, and we have no idea what maintenance was done prior. The fire box does appear to have one patch welded on the side and it did develop a leak in a different location when my uncle forgot to shut the door after stoking the fire and boiled the furnace over. He welded that leak shut and it has held for a little over a year now. It has a taco 009 pump that I believe is original but I don't know that for sure.
I know this furnace isn't going to last forever but I am interested in doing anything I can to make it last as long as possible. Do you guys have any suggestions, tips, tricks to keep this thing in the best possible condition?
This leads me to the next topic I need to learn about and that is maintenance. A little background on this furnace, it is a '96 model CB 17 (I think). It holds 170 gallons of water. It was purchased used by my father and hooked up "temporarily" for two years at my grandfathers. My grandfather was in poor health and couldn't afford to continue heating with fuel oil. My father and uncle burned it year round for two years heating the house and DHW until my grandfather passed away. Other than adding water conditioner, there was little to no maintenance done in that two years, and we have no idea what maintenance was done prior. The fire box does appear to have one patch welded on the side and it did develop a leak in a different location when my uncle forgot to shut the door after stoking the fire and boiled the furnace over. He welded that leak shut and it has held for a little over a year now. It has a taco 009 pump that I believe is original but I don't know that for sure.
I know this furnace isn't going to last forever but I am interested in doing anything I can to make it last as long as possible. Do you guys have any suggestions, tips, tricks to keep this thing in the best possible condition?
77
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: home built insulated pex
« on: September 29, 2014, 08:21:50 AM »Quote
I'd be somewhat concerned of water infiltrating the spray-foam over time. Did you guys put anything in place to protect it from potential ground water soaking it? I'm not criticizing, just curious. Thanks, Roger
The spray foam is supposed to be waterproof at 1 3/4" thick. There is a minimum 2 1/2" to 3" around my pipes. I still had some concern so for an extra layer of protection I placed my lines on top a 4" perforated pipe and 6" clean stone, and then backfilled to the top of foam with more clean stone, this way there should never be standing water around the foam. With stone, perf. pipe, pex and spray foam it came to about $8.50 per foot. This was less than half the cost of Logstor or any other pre-insulated closed cell product I could find. Also, because I ran my return line halfway back to the OWB in the same trench as the supply but then bent it 90 deg, ran it into my garage and then back to the trench, the pre-insulated products wouldn't have worked.
It may be a little anal but it wasn't much more expensive then the 3 and 5 wrapped products, and I have read a lot of horror stories about water infiltrating the pipe with those products and have witnessed it first hand with my cousins first install. His pipe started leaking the first year, he had water running into his basement through the wall and soaking wet insulation in the pipe. I have also seen the math that shows 1 deg. heat loss in your trench is roughly the equivalent to 1 extra cord of pine per year. The less wood I have to cut the better.
78
Plumbing / Re: Keeping OWB from freezing when not in use
« on: September 26, 2014, 07:36:41 AM »
That's not a bad idea Little John.
I also considered the neighbor Idea, but knowing my neighbor I am not sure that I can afford to buy enough Pabst to keep him stocked up for the entire 10 days, which is probably what he would require.
How much extra oil do you think I would burn. I can't imagine it would be a lot, because I would only be transferring heat to the OWB when one of the zones in the house would be calling for heat. As soon as that zone reached temp, it would shut down and the oil boiler would no longer be transferring heat to the OWB.
I also considered the neighbor Idea, but knowing my neighbor I am not sure that I can afford to buy enough Pabst to keep him stocked up for the entire 10 days, which is probably what he would require.
How much extra oil do you think I would burn. I can't imagine it would be a lot, because I would only be transferring heat to the OWB when one of the zones in the house would be calling for heat. As soon as that zone reached temp, it would shut down and the oil boiler would no longer be transferring heat to the OWB.
79
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: home built insulated pex
« on: September 26, 2014, 07:28:50 AM »Quote
How about hiring an actual spray foam guy to come out and shoot your 20' section with closed foam, or course you would probably have to build a form to hold the pipes out of a hard foam board or something like that
This is what I did, I had about 180' of trench. It ended up costing me about $5.60 a foot for the spray foam. I didn't have to build any type of form. The spray foam guy simply picked up the pex, sprayed about 3"-4" underneath, then laid the pex back down and sprayed 3"-4" on top. Worked really well and went pretty quickly.
80
Plumbing / Keeping OWB from freezing when not in use
« on: September 25, 2014, 12:44:18 PM »
Here is my current setup: I have an OWB (boiler holds about 170 gallons of water) sitting about 150' from my house with the lines buried about 2' and insulated with closed cell spray foam. My OWB is plumbed into my indoor oil boiler with a 50 plate heat exchanger, and also into my DHW with a 30 plate heat exchanger. I plan on going out of town for about 10 days this winter.
Here is my question: If I let the fire in my OWB go out but I keep the circulator pump on, and I allow the indoor oil boiler to heat my house, do you think that my indoor oil boiler will transfer enough heat to the OWB water through the heat exchanger to keep my OWB lines from freezing? Or should I find someone to keep my fire going while I am out of town? I understand there are a lot of variable here, like how cold is it outside, how often the indoor boiler runs, etc. but does anyone have any guesses?
My father has volunteered to keep the fire going but its about a 25 min drive each way, and something that I don't want to make him do unless its necessary.
Here is my question: If I let the fire in my OWB go out but I keep the circulator pump on, and I allow the indoor oil boiler to heat my house, do you think that my indoor oil boiler will transfer enough heat to the OWB water through the heat exchanger to keep my OWB lines from freezing? Or should I find someone to keep my fire going while I am out of town? I understand there are a lot of variable here, like how cold is it outside, how often the indoor boiler runs, etc. but does anyone have any guesses?
My father has volunteered to keep the fire going but its about a 25 min drive each way, and something that I don't want to make him do unless its necessary.
81
Plumbing / Re: Mounting plate heat exchangers
« on: September 16, 2014, 06:21:42 AM »
Thanks for the information guys. I assumed it was okay but I will sleep a little better now that some other people have confirmed it also. I was not looking forward to cutting and re-soldering all of that copper to re-mount them.
82
Plumbing / Re: Mounting plate heat exchangers
« on: September 15, 2014, 12:59:43 PM »
Thanks for the information. I have yet to find any reasoning for the vertical orientation. I have found mounting instructions for various brands on line that say things like "should be mounted vertically", " Mount vertically if possible" and found one website that alluded to them working more efficiently if mounted vertically but I have never found any reasoning for the requirement?
83
Plumbing / Mounting plate heat exchangers
« on: September 15, 2014, 11:19:14 AM »
I recently installed an OWB to heat my house and DHW. I fired it for the first time this weekend and with the exception of one minor leak in on of the copper adapters to my heat exchanger everything is working great.
However, as I was cleaning up I picked up the manual for my heat exchangers and noticed that it said that they must be mounted vertically. I somehow didn't see this when I was installing them and mounted both a 5"x12" 30 plate for DHW and a 5"x12" 50 plate that heats my house horizontally. The horizontal mounting made the piping a lot easier and 'cleaner'.
Did I make a mistake? Will the heat exchangers still function correctly mounted horizontally?
However, as I was cleaning up I picked up the manual for my heat exchangers and noticed that it said that they must be mounted vertically. I somehow didn't see this when I was installing them and mounted both a 5"x12" 30 plate for DHW and a 5"x12" 50 plate that heats my house horizontally. The horizontal mounting made the piping a lot easier and 'cleaner'.
Did I make a mistake? Will the heat exchangers still function correctly mounted horizontally?