Help with OWB, is my pump right?

[Timbercreek]

Praying my 0013 arrives tommorow. House is going backwards in this cold and wind. Down to 50 when i left it around 8pm.
Boiler is stoked for the night as of 10:30.
Hope i dont lose too much traction on the thermometer, i told the sprayfoam guys it would be 50.



And for those referencing air, we did purge the air out when we installed the boiler in october.
Its been running, fairly well, until i started ripping plaster and sheetrock out for a sprayfoam insulation install. On more then half the exterior walls. Drafts provided a noticable cross breeze inside the house today. Brrrrrrrr.
Good news is my plumber has a 3 speed 0013 i can borrow for the weekend if mine doesnt show up.

 

[Oxford]

You know, I'm always amazed at the things people leave out when they ask for troubleshooting help. You know, things like "I have no insulation or wall coverings on half the exterior walls of my house- you can feel the breeze on your face- and my boiler won't keep up. Anyone got any ideas why ?" Surely you're joking.

Why have you not already borrowed the plumber's pump for a test?

 

[Timbercreek]

Thought i had mentioned it, must have been one of my posts that just sat in the browser, never made it.
Anyway, the heat response has always been slow, but it was keeping up.
The electric bills was where i really figured it out. The zones had to run continuosly to heat the house.
Now that im tearing walls down, it really reared its ugly head.
Anywho, 4" of wonderful sprayfoam insulation today.
Gotta go chock the boiler for the guys.
And hunt the mail lady at 1130

 

[NSMaple1]

You know, I'm always amazed at the things people leave out when they ask for troubleshooting help. You know, things like "I have no insulation or wall coverings on half the exterior walls of my house- you can feel the breeze on your face- and my boiler won't keep up. Anyone got any ideas why ?" Surely you're joking.

Why have you not already borrowed the plumber's pump for a test?

True - but the temps that were posted going in & out of everything indicates another problem that is beyond no insulation. Sure looks like a system design issue in there somewhere - not just for delivering heat into the house, but also for maintaining necessary design flow through the boiler. If the underground was junk, or this was in the planning stage, 1-1/4" pipe would be the way to go. But since it sounds like it's good stuff in there (although undersized), upsizing the pump to try to compensate seems like the next thing to go at. It will cost in more kwh to run the bigger pump, but still ahead of installing all new underground pipe. Although, if you could sell the 1" to someone, you wouldn't be much in the hole by the time you got new 1-1/4" in there, if you've got the means to dig it up. Something to think about for the off season depending how the new pump works out.

 

[Timbercreek]

The pump issue came about like this, bought a used boiler, pump was already mounted to it. Never thought to look at it or its specs.
Not thinking, he had a little house in vermont with the boiler 20' away in his wood shed.
I am very glad i found this issue. And thank you to all those who participated.
This was a stupid oversight, not stupid planning.


Maple, worse yet, ive already had the 1" dug up back to the house. He had it 8" deep in the middle of the driveway. I dropped it deeper (3')and in a straightline to where i moved the boiler to.
Also sanded it nice nice top and bottom

 

[Timbercreek]

Pumps installed. Barely a wisper out of it, and its not even turned the right way.
Motor is straight up due to flange orientation. Need to grab pipe wrenches and rotate the flanges.
Anywho, temps are Alot closer together. Boiler is actually showing 180f on the front,
Rear clipons saying 64c out 60c in.
And the guys are halfway done sprayfoaming as well.
Outta be able to heat this old farmhouse with a candle when its done!!!

 

[NSMaple1]

Interested in seeing a complete set of temps again, at the HX too, with the new pump in and after running for a while.

 

[Timbercreek]

Already better.
Just went over with the pipe wrenches to turn it 90
And when i opened the door it was 70c out 70c in. Front of boiler holding at 180f
Pump was hot as ****. Glad i turned it.
Guess the motors are liquid cooled??

 

[NSMaple1]

The pump will get hot anyway, about the same as the water temp is. They aren't really liquid cooled, but they are lubed inside by the water going through. The orientation has more to do with avoiding little air bubbles hanging out & building up around the important spinning bits inside, I think.

 

[Oxford]

I get that energy costs are an issue, more for some than for others, but in this case I think it's largely a case of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Running the correct pump pulling an extra 2 amps of 110 24 hours a day is going to cost something like thirty cents a day, or about sixty bucks over a 180 day heating season, versus being cold in your own house. Not for me, thanks. I'll pony up the three dimes.

If you absolutely insist on trying to cycle pumps, do yourself a favor: purchase and read "Pumping Away" by Dan Holohan. Don't try to cycle your main system pump. Your boiler cannot modulate its flame and all kinds of bad will result.

I too would be interested in seeing an updated set of temperatures, ideally all in the same units- and I don't care if they're C or F, just make them all the same. If the OP is able to post such a data set, complete, in one post, he will win a prize as the first person on AS who has ever been able to do so. I am not holding my breath.

 

[Timbercreek]

Well, the foam guys finished at noon, house was 50. Its 56 now and the heat is still running. Whats weird is it sounds like i hear air in the oil burner loops.
Oil burner is alot hotter. Running 150 instead of 110-110 on its gauge

 

[Oxford]

Oh, boy.

Instead of posting about what's "weird" why don't you look at the oil boiler and see if it's firing. Or, perish the thought, if you think you hear air you could, I don't know, open a bleeder and see if there actually is air present?

 

[Timbercreek]

Oxford,
Here u go.
Heat ex wood 40in 35out c
Oil in 34 out 40. Gauge inside oil fur 52c
Owb out 66 in 70c front gauge 74c 165f

 

[Oxford]

Oxford,
Heat ex wood 40in 35out c
Oil in 34 out 40. Gauge inside oil fur 52c
Owb out 66 in 70c front gauge 74c 165f

You get a prize, but none of that makes any sense. Your OWB outlet is cooler than your inlet. Your OWB inlet is 35 degrees hotter than the outlet of the wood side of your heat exchanger. Your oil boiler is evidently firing on oil, since the oil side of your system is hotter than the exchanger discharge. Are you sure there is no other fluid flow path than through the exchanger? Because if there isn't, you've got some magical things happening.

 

[Oxford]

Or, all of your thermometers are junk. Take one of them off and put it on the line at the boiler- see what it reads compared to the boiler controller.

 

[Timbercreek]

So right now the oil burner loops through the exchanger 24/7 on a 007. Should i swap that out to the 0010?? Zone pumps are 007x6

 

[Oxford]

No, you should get one damn thing figured out at a time, starting with the flow from your wood boiler to and from the exchanger. Get all of those temperatures straightened out and start from some sanity.

 

[Timbercreek]

156 out 145in owb
Hx wood 136in 119out
Hx oil in 128 out 131
All farenheit ir temp gun mastercool brand. This is the highest values i could get per each location, trying copper,brass,stainless

 

[Timbercreek]

I think the thermometer issue is part of my problem.
So the back of owb is a small insulated box. It gets 150f.
So it cooks everything in there to boiler temp. So the gauges in there read hotter, as does the aquastat, shortchanging me on a few degrees of hot water.
If i leave it open, those gauges fall several degrees

 

[NSMaple1]

The guages still shouldn't read hotter than what the boiler is. Unless there is smoke stack or smoke outlet in there too, adding heat?

Have you sprayed flat black paint where you are reading your temps with the gun? If not you won't get good readings. The temps are still wonky looking. Suspect number one, is the wood boiler out vs. HX wood in: 156 vs. 136. Using thermopex, and assuming it isn't compromised, those temps should be within a couple of dgerees of each other. What those temps mean is the supply line from the OWB to your house is losing 20°. That is much into the bad side of big. But, if they aren't accurate, then we really don't know.

If you can get a digital thermometer with a probe, verify it is correct maybe by using boiling water, and then spend some time at each point under a long steady state period of heating, and get temps with the probe directly on the pipe/fitting, under a piece of pipe insulation, you should get better readings. Some of them just don't make sense, most pointed out in post 34 - has to be some inaccuracies in the temps.

Or, if your house is now warm enough and the oil is not firing, you could just go along with it....