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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Aquastat sticking??

« on: January 29, 2009, 08:10:35 AM »

The little round limit switches are called snap disc limit switches. I just looked on ebay and they're fairly cheap. Fixed limit about $5-6 and variable about $20.

2

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Insulation

« on: January 27, 2009, 03:26:04 PM »

It's my understanding that the foil bubble stuff is grossly overrated. Overall we're definately on the same page, insulation is the gift that keeps giving.

3

General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Heating water

« on: January 27, 2009, 03:21:41 PM »

Some people use flat plate heat exchangers, I prefer sidearms. Plate exchangers usually require an extra circ. Sidearms are more robust and easy to make yourself. Sidearms use the thermosiphon effect to heat the tank. By using the appropriate tee fittings and filing out the stop so 3/4" tubing will slide through you create a shell and tube heat exchanger. Unless you have extrordinary HW needs you should be able to use your existing water heater and turn it off. My 50 gallon elec. heater has been off for four years now. No matter which way you go you'll need to plumb the water heater outlet with a mixing valve at the outlet to prevent scalding.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Gettin ready to buy my first outdoor boiler

« on: January 26, 2009, 10:56:00 AM »

I'm running an old global hydronics stainless unit. The stainless corroded in just a couple years, so stainless can have problems. I wrapped the firebox in copper tubing replaced water jacket and filled the old water jacket with pea gravel to normalize temp swings. I would shy away from any OWB with a blower to feed the fire. My blower is disconnected so the aquastat only allows the solenoid to open the port for combustion air. When I fired it up for the first time with the blower the heat going out the stack was truely amazing. I paid $300 for the junk unit and I'm pleased with everything especially considering all in costs of $3K. This won't heat a McMansion but for a modest home is a pretty good choice. I'd also recommend a sidearm for hot water. My system has had a fire for about four years now winter and summer.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: What did you use?

« on: January 16, 2009, 04:30:31 PM »

There's an installer in Michigan who posts on another forum and he swears by putting the pex in a trench and spraying in place with a closed cell foam. He installs Garn boilers and from the way people talk they're as good as you can get. He swears that one place to never skimp is on your underground linesets. Another point he stresses is 1" pex is only meant to handle 80K BTU/HR according to proper design criteria.