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[Eski]

Hi guys, new to forum. My wife and I bought a 2100 sq/ft home with a detached shop/apartment adding another 1500 sq/ft. Original heat for the home was oil fired furnace with slab in concrete, radiant floor and baseboard throughout. The detached shop was built in 2010 and heat was supplied by an OWB. The previous owner upgraded to an eClassic 3200 in December 2011. The heat source for the shop is the OWB on it's own circuit. As I recall the previous owner had difficulty "keeping the fire lit" last heating season.

We bought the home largely on account of wood heat as fuel costs here in North Pole, Alaska is $4.07 and above. Many with comparable home stats and sizes are spending thousands and thousands on fuel each year. I am brand new to wood boilers and have just general knowledge of mechanical things. I trusted all was well since the home seller was a man of great integrity.

I fired up the boiler for the first time in mid-september with temps in the high 30's. It seemed to work great! The oil furnace never kicked on, nice, hot water for showers, dishwasher, laundry, heat.... and never seemed to run out! The wood consumption was fairly light too, I thought!

Suddenly about 5 days ago the temps went from about +20F down to -5F and as cold at -15F. The day before the colder temps were forecast I went and did a thorough cleaning per the operator's manual. Heat exchangers, firebox, reaction chamber, even the flue I checked. Re-lit the fire and experienced non-stop issues!

It smoked horrendously where it hadn't before!
The water temp on the controller would read 197 and higher or show overheat of the water!
The supply water temp inside the house would read about 130-135 at the warmest. Oil furnace kept kicking on!

This is not why we bought a home with a wood boiler!

I left work almost as soon as I got there this morning just frustrated that my multiple cleanings did nothing to make it run better. That's to this site the last couple of days I've got an education far greater than what the manual teaches.

I bought a Ryobi infrared temp gun for $32 this morning and went to work checking different temps at different places. I learned from other forums to use tape (used electrical tape) to wrap around metal pipe (like copper pipe) to get accurate readings. The temps didn't jive with how a correct install should.

The installation occured in December 2011. The plumber or installers had arrows and writing ("in" and "out") marked everywhere so it was hard for my mind to work logically when indications were the opposite. I tried everything... and noted the install wasn't done thoroughly.
For example, not one-way check valves anywhere in the system. Only one ball valve on the pump for the out-building.

I went against everything that was written (arrows/writing) on the piping/plumbing. I figured I could be wrong but needed to eliminate the possibility that the flow was the wrong direction.

I flipped the pump and VOILA'!~!

Within 30 seconds the inline gauge showed 180F coming from the OWB! The temps on the pex lines in back of the boiler jumped from 105 to 180! The controller water temp dropped from 197 to 160 and the boiler kicked on and started burning without smoke!

Unless you do something yourself and know for sure.... always check other people's work!

[dwneast77]

Way to go!!  Good troubleshooting.  So your pump was just in backwards?  pushing water in through the outlet?  Interesting that under a light load the system was able to keep up for you ok. 

[Eski]

Way to go!!  Good troubleshooting.  So your pump was just in backwards?  pushing water in through the outlet?  Interesting that under a light load the system was able to keep up for you ok.

First, I want to thank you and another gentlemen (forgot username) for providing info that helped me out today.

Not only was the pump installed backwards, all the pipes had arrows pointing the wrong direction as well. Additionally, the copper pipe was labeled "In" on one pipe and "Out" on another. Everything was ass backwards! When I went to the eClassic, opened the rear access door and pulled away insulation, then put the Ryobi Infrared Temp Gun on the Pex lines... the bottom (return port) was warmer than the top (supply port).  That was wrong. There was also no check valve installed so I knew it was possible to be pumping in the wrong direction.
In my set up the pump was installed in the garage, next to the oil boiler.

I went to the manufactures website (AIC) for my water/water heat exchanger and discovered the flow is supposed to be opposite to each other. It was in parallel in the original set up.

Once I reversed the flow (to the correct way) the heat exchanger also loses 20F now where before it lost 10F. This tells me there is a more efficient heat transfer taking place, because the supply is giving up more heat thru the exchanger.

I'd share some pics but this has been a long day!

[johnybcold]

One mans arrow is another mans wtf

[Eski]

One mans arrow is another mans wtf

Dealer installed.... go figure.

[MrDan27611]

One mans arrow is another mans wtf

I had a vendor come in to work on my system. Nothing much was labeled and as they were tracing lines and reverse engineering all the plumbing, they were taking sharpie markers and marking the lines for what they actually do. Nice, labels are handy things. Except they did it as they went and before they'd discovered what everything actually did. Now I have things labeled incorrectly all over the place. Ugh! I went out and bought lockout/tagout tags and labeled most everything with the correct label so we don't have a repeat. I need to go back and acetone off the writing so it's not confusing. I hope I get that done before I keel over and some poor soul has to do it based on the labels.

[AirForcePOL]

wow! that's a pretty big mistake on their part.  Glad you got it figured out though, happy heating!