Finished OWB Install

[Encore]

Took me a couple months between agreeing to purchase the unit and the final installation.

I bought this for $4k from a nice lady about 15min away who no longer wanted to run it. It was her husbands before he passed. Its a 2009 model and I knew the guy who'd installed it.

Got it uninstalled in two trips, one for just the unit and a second to get the furnace coil and pex. Given that July was 90+ degrees almost every day I wasn't super motivated to install it.

Saved a good bit of money by doing the digging myself with an excavator. I've run a lot of heavy equipment so it didn't take long to dig about 45" down 55' long ditch for the lines to go in. It's probably a bit over kill on the depth but I didn't want to get through the first winter and see snow melting.

I used the excavator to pick up the unit and set it down on the same concrete pad from the place I bought it. Lady said she had no use for it, so I took it with me by convincing a guy across the road with a skid steer to pick it up and put it in my truck.

Had a friend of mine who does installations come over and help hook up the electric and lines to the water tank and furnace as well as install the coil in the furnace.

All in all, problem free. Total investment is about $4700 which will pay for itself in about 2 years. Previously we'd been using a Vermont Encore which heated the house very well but my wife and I aren't home as frequently as we used to be to keep the stove going. Often times I'd get home around 10-11pm and be up til 12:30 getting the fire going because the house was chilly. Plus our biggest electric draw is our water heater so this will really trim that bill.

Fired it up yesterday just to make sure everything worked properly and of course it did. It'll go out and be left alone until it's cold out. Really looking forward to the increased temp control in the house as well as the even heat. Our basement hasn't been warm in the winter since we purchased the house.

Lots of my decision making information came from this forum! Some of you guys really really know your stuff. View attachment 248103

Sorry the pic is sideways. Not sure how to flip it.

 

[Whitespider]

Like this?

 

[Mac88]

Nice liking unit, encore. That should do what you want and save some bux in the process. It
sounds like you had the install well planned out.

Thanks to whitespider for fixin' the pic.

 

[Encore]

Thanks Whitespider!

Mac, the install did go very smoothly. Much in part to this forum. I've been a member here for awhile and there has been some very solid info put out here that really helped everything go so well.

 

[WVwoodsman]

Nice looking Hardy you have there. You should get many good years of service out of it too. Hardy's are very popular around here in WV.

 

[russhd1997]

The only thing that I see that you did wrong was bury the pipes too deep. When I installed my Central Classic I was told that if you go too deep you can get into the water table when it is high which can cause a lot of heat loss. I was told no deeper than 1.5 feet. If you find that you are using too much wood when the water table is high you may need to dig up and raise the pipes. Did you use insulated pipes?

 

[Encore]

This one called for a minimum of 36"

Yes we insulated them and then fed them through PVC pipe the entire length of the trench.

I could see some heat loss as a result of the water tables being high, but it'd be very unusual for them to be quite that high around here. Course I'm sure last summer with all the rain it was pretty close.

With the drought this summer the clay was just as rock hard and dry at 45" as it was at the surface.