Help with OWB, is my pump right?

[Timbercreek]

Yesterday i cranked the aquastat to 190.
Boiler pretty much ran wide open all day. Temps about 170 on the owb front gauge.
Getting 150 degree water in the oil furnace.
Shoddy gauges on back of owb said 72c out 70c in.
What i noticed is that the aquastat im messing with is right next to the upper flue. Def going to see hot temps there.
Curious to see what happens when its not 4 degrees out anymore.
Did some research on the heatmor aquastats, and i guess some of the older stoves(mine is old) have needed aquastat replacements.
I also noticed my outer door air flap(antiblowback) wasnt sealing 100% and i added about a 1/8" spring tension to it by adjusting the nut.
So maybe that was leaking some of the draft fans pressure and not helping it roar.

 

[NSMaple1]

The fact remains though, that unless you have enough flow through the boiler, you can crank up the aquastat all you want (not recommended, by the way), and the water leaving the boiler at the bottom will still not be as hot as it should be. Whether it is 'hot enough' or not is another issue.

 

[Timbercreek]

Brought ir gun out to boiler, front gauge says 165, ir gun says 166 right next to it. Top of door says 200, bottom say 160.
Went to the back, aquastat area says 166 with aquastat set to 190!
Best temp i got out of water jacket was 190 on top. 200 on front door top.
Line out saying 164, line in saying 150.7
I was able to instigate a soft boil running aquastat to 200. Turned it back down to 185/190ish.
Id say mixing is fairly good, just not enough baseboard in the house.

 

[Timbercreek]

Note front gauge said 180 when i hit the soft boil. I say soft at it wasnt crazy, just some water coming up out of the relief

 

[NSMaple1]

You do not want any kind of boil, 'soft' or not. That is the hazard of cranking up your aquastat. Big risk of ruining your boiler, if the water level happens to drop a bit when you aren't looking. And it's a fine line between a 'soft boil', and things getting out of control - like a piece of dirt in that air flap you mentioned, for example. Somewhere inside the boiler, it is over 212°.

You really need to get more water flowing through the boiler - I suspect Heatmor would strike any kind of warranty coverage (if there is any), if a claim was ever made, if they knew how it was being run.

Call Heatmor & get their input how it's operating.

 

[hanniedog]

150 degree water in the oil burner isn't going to do squat. It needs to be close to 180 to do work properly.

 

[Timbercreek]

Thank you hannie.
Ive been trying to say temps arent high enough all along.
Maple, i understand the risks of boiling over the boiler, and being a outdoor boiler in sure its happened before.
You guys do realize this owb is open loop and has a 1.5" pipe going out the roof right? When i say relief i dont mean a high pressure relief, i mean the rubber ball that sits on top to somewhat keep air out has let water out. Wich doesnt really bother me, considering i topped the boiler off yesterday morning and i knew it was full to the top. When its full, water pours down the roof. And i also forgot to close the bladder when i filled it, so expanding hot water has no where to go.

I plan on calling heatmor tommorow when its not a holiday.
Hung sheetrock in 2 rooms today, up to 54, haha

 

[Timbercreek]

Also plan on rereading my manual today and seeing what the troubleshooting flow chart says. The install was done to the letter.

Oh, and there is no warranty. Its a 2002 boiler i bought used in vermont. U should see the thing. Im not scared to monkey with it as it looks like the old duffer that had it monkied with every dam thing.
The screw on the aquastat dial looks touched. But it does line up to the hole in disc, just as the high limit is.
Wish i had boiler drains and not plugs in my spare ports on back of boiler, that 0010 would already be on there to test your theory maple.

 

[Timbercreek]

Aquastat is a honeywell 6006a

 

[NSMaple1]

If your loop isn't putting 8gpm through the boiler ( per the manual I found), then the install was not done to the letter.

You are in effect over heating the top of the boiler and not getting enough heat to the bottom of it. Another boiler with a different design which draws supply from the top might not be as hampered by inadequate flow as the Heatmor design.

 

[Timbercreek]

Well, the manual i have doesnt mention any pump specs, and like i said that was a huge oversight. We were like pump? Ya we got that. It was spose to be a trial and see thing, but my plumber is so dam busy he got me.up and running and ran off to the next job leaving me to figure it out.
Worked fine...till it got frigid and i ripped the old walls out.

Doesnt help that i had to delete the 2nd floor baseboard to get the plaster out.
Should be back in this week.
But it did force me to look at the system.
I suppose if it hits 50 i could let boiler cool and plumb in a 0010 loop circuit

 

[mohick]

Is there anything on this P O S you haven't F$%^ed with all at the same time ??? you wouldn't have any idea if you fixed anything or not

 

[Timbercreek]

Ive put most of it back the way it was.
Haha im impatient. Want it fixed now.
I put the oil loop pump back the way it was so the flow was in a x accross exchanger.
The stove itself really isnt bad, its the plumbing i inerited thats a mess. And my plumber has already straightened out the worst of it.

Glad i could entertain you guys.

 

[NSMaple1]

To be fair, its easy to miss pumping specs in the manual, or at least the one I found. It mentions 3-10 GPM in one place, but in the troubleshooting section says it needs to be 8gpm to avoid temperature layering. That would be something to put the questions to Heatmor about, it should be something they should emphasize rather strongly in the install directions rather than passingly mention it, and somewhat conflictingly at that.

 

[Timbercreek]

Ah, so thats where u found it. I was going to scrounge that manual looking for it.
Read it 3 times before we hooked it up.

Im curious if the pump is the issue myself, as the aquastat thing makes the stove work, but im still not getting the heat i want in the house.
But then again, firing the oil furnace off isnt impressive either in the house!!
It runs and runs with little effect on house warmth. Thinking the mainer didnt put enough baseboard in.

To give some background, last winter after the husband repo'd the wood boiler, she burned $700 worth of oil a month and still couldnt get the house over 66 degrees.
Yet said they never had a problem when the central boiler was going.
Part of the plumbing we changed was the husband had 16' of slantfin hooked to the return line of the owb in the basement.
Im thinking the constant heat output from the basement radiated upward! Haha

 

[hanniedog]

If running the oil burner alone what does it heat the water to?

 

[Timbercreek]

170f

 

[Timbercreek]

Just got off the phone with heatmor.
2 things:
A the aquastat is bad
B the plate exchanger should be a 80 minimum!!!
He said that 0013 is plenty of pump.
Also plate exchanger is plumbed wrong.
Shouldnt be a Seperate circuit, should be in series on return line, each zone circulates and heats its own water.
Delete the 007 that loops it now

 

[lefturnfreek]

Brought ir gun out to boiler, front gauge says 165, ir gun says 166 right next to it. Top of door says 200, bottom say 160.
Went to the back, aquastat area says 166 with aquastat set to 190!
Best temp i got out of water jacket was 190 on top. 200 on front door top.
Line out saying 164, line in saying 150.7
I was able to instigate a soft boil running aquastat to 200. Turned it back down to 185/190ish.
Id say mixing is fairly good, just not enough baseboard in the house.

I'd seriously say your lines are backwards.

If the stat is set to 190 and you have 190ish water at the top but only get 164 out, no wonder you have no heat.

 

[NSMaple1]

Don't think the lines are backwards - that's the way Heatmor is designed to run, pull from the bottom. Which makes flow through the boiler very important, and a different aquastat won't change the flow.

Also plate exchanger is plumbed wrong.
Shouldnt be a Seperate circuit, should be in series on return line, each zone circulates and heats its own water.
Delete the 007 that loops it now

I have no idea what that means, sounds like stuff that wasn't previously talked about here.

Did you specifically ask them about the 8gpm in the manual?

I would like to see Heatmor read this thread, then give input.