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1

Empyre / Re: Elite xt100 heating capability

« on: January 13, 2014, 12:45:00 PM »

I am located in Northwest Arkansas.  My elevation is around 1850 feet.  It is much cooler at my house than down in the river valley.  The local distributor is trying to figure this out too.  He swears he has these heating 3500 square feet with vaulted ceilings and still getting 8 plus hour burn times.  I dont know what to believe.  I tend to believe what Scott7m is saying about the top end being somewhere around 2400 square foot. 

2

Empyre / Re: Elite xt100 heating capability

« on: January 06, 2014, 11:15:00 AM »

The weather here is the coldest I can ever remember.  It was 4 when I left for work this morning, not to mention the wind is so strong it blew some sheet metal off my barn.  The only thing worse than the weather is my satisfaction with my boiler.  I cant go anywhere for any great length of time with out having to have someone put wood in it.  Also I stay up late to fill the thing up(hope it doesnt bridge out) and then wake up again in the middle of the night to fill it again.  When i leave for work I top it off.  My mother or my wife keep it going until i get home.  I am ready for warmer weather.  I am upset that this is the unit my installer recomended for my house.  He says he is committed to my satisfaction but says he cant swap me units without me taking a hit due to the fact my week old boiler is used.  I specifically asked him about the burn times and also he told me i would have nearly unlimited hot water.  Both of these have been no where close to the truth.  This might be the worst investment I have ever made.  My installer has offered me some (a fraction) of my money back to "wash his hands of this and be done".  What is worse is that I really like this guy and think he really didnt know and made a mistake himself by recommending this unit to my application.  He certianly didnt make any money off of my install.  I am catching some major crap from the wife, this may be worse than the finiacial aspect of the whole thing.  On a postive note, the boiler does a lot of heating from a minimal amount of wood and makes very little ash.

3

Empyre / Re: Elite xt100 heating capability

« on: January 05, 2014, 09:43:04 AM »

I got up under the house and found that the installer had placed the heat exchanger at the end of my supply plenum which bypassed a major leg of my ducting.  This explains some of the rooms being cooler than normal.  I swapped locations of the HX and the duct that was being bypassed.  The house is much more evenly heated and I am hoping the overall net efficiency will go up.  I know I am passing more flow across the HX but I'm also not sending in cooled off air into my home.  I have a package unit so every time the heat is off that mass of metal cools off requiring extra btu's to heat it back up on a call for heat.  I didnt get a good burn time last night.  The fire box was still very full but had bridged out sometime in the early morning.  We are having some cold weather so I will get a good test tonight if I can load this thing right.  I love that this unit only uses slightly more wood than my wood stove to heat my whole house, i just wish i didnt have to fill it up just as often.

4

Empyre / Elite xt100 heating capability

« on: January 03, 2014, 08:36:50 AM »

I just had an Elite xt100 installed.  I havent been too impressed with its burn times.  I am getting about 8 hours max out of a load of wood most of the time about 6 hours though.  I am heating a 2750 square foot house and have a side arm on a 50 gallon hot water tank.  My house has vaulted ceilings in the main living area.  I was told this was on the high end of the limits for the stove but i still should get atleast an 8 hour burn no problem.  I am still learning the stove and think i have some areas where i can make some improvements in my operation of the unit.  I also have noticed that my house is not very tight even though it is not super old, the heat kicks on often.  I am working on tightening the house.  Do you think this unit is undersized for this application?