Install is Done

[jcappe]

Finished the install on my Woodmaster 4400 last week! Did a quick fire to make sure everything was working and I'm ready for winter.

 

[MNfarmer]

looks awesome!! nice job

 

[coostv]

I have never seen an arrangement like yours.

Do you have an anti-scald valve in the water line leaving the water heater? With the way you have it setup, you are essentially preheating the water on the way in so the water heater has to work for a shorter amount of time?

Just curious as I have only seen the sidearm heat exchanger in action.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[jcappe]

Chris,

I don't have a anti scald valve. I need to figure something out to try and control the temp if possible because I have small kids and it scares me to not have anything to protect from burning themselves.

 

[Rassmo]

Your system is very similar to my setup with my Woodmaster 4400. This will be my 3rd season using the OWB. I also have the heat exchanger for the water heater. I'm not sure just what the temp of water is going into the water heater with this setup but I'm guessing that with 170 degree water from OWB and approximately 50 degree water coming in from water supply it would split the difference and would be 110 degrees into water heater and 110 degrees returning to OWB. I do know that if I happen to be outside by the OWB when the wife is filling the bathtub you can really see the OWB temp dropping on the digital temp reading. Maybe someone can correct me if my calculations on the temperatures is miscalculated.
I see your from Iowa. Any chance you got the Woodmaster from Whittemore Truck & Trailer. I'm in NW Iowa and that's where I purchased mine.

 

[Rassmo]

With the Woodmaster and expecially with the heat exchanger for the water heater your gonna need a LOT of wood. I have over 16 cords stacked ready to burn for the season. May not need quite that much but don't wanna run out like I did the 1st season. There are pictures of my setup and wood supply at this post.
http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=78094

Good luck with your OWB. I'm sure you'll like it.:greenchainsaw:

 

[coostv]

Chris,

I don't have a anti scald valve. I need to figure something out to try and control the temp if possible because I have small kids and it scares me to not have anything to protect from burning themselves.

As Rassmo stated you may be okay, but I would add one as a safety precaution.

You can get one from Menards or any of the "big box" stores for around $75-80. It is a fairly simple install, out from the water heater in one end, out to the house on the other, and cold coming in the side to mix the temp you set on the valve itself (if adjustable).

Chris

 

[jcappe]

Coostv,
Thanks for the tip on where to get them. We'll see if I need one of not, just worries me like other parents we watch the kids in the tub and all but it doesn't take long for them to reach up and grab the wrong handle.


Rassmo,

I'm from EC Iowa 20 miles west of Iowa City. I bought the OWB at Rabe Hardware in Blairstown. Great people to work with. Your setup looks real nice. Shocked at the 16 cords though, how big of house are you heating? I'm kind of in the same boat as you as far as the wood goes but I have to drive about 15 minutes to get to my ground. Good luck in the bowstand!

 

[coostv]

Coostv,
Thanks for the tip on where to get them. We'll see if I need one of not, just worries me like other parents we watch the kids in the tub and all but it doesn't take long for them to reach up and grab the wrong handle.

I hear you there, I have 4 kids myself.

Good Luck, oh and BTW nice set up!

Chris

 

[Sawmill]

I have the same setup using a Woodmaster 4400 and the plate exchanger for the water heater. You can shut your water heater off and still have all the hot water you need. If you have small kids I would intall a tempering valve because our water gets so hot you cannot hold your hand in it. Our water heater has been shut off since I install the plate exchanger. I run a hot water line outside and it works great to wash grease laden equitment down. I think the water temp is almost the same as what the furnace is set at. I am in nothern lower Mich and last winter we had a couple of mounth that the temp did not get much above 0 and we kept the house around 75 and the pole barn and garage around 50. Total sq foot being heated was about 1700 sq ft and I used between 6 and 7 full cord of oak firewood.

 

[chainsaw1]

Your system is very similar to my setup with my Woodmaster 4400. This will be my 3rd season using the OWB. I also have the heat exchanger for the water heater. I'm not sure just what the temp of water is going into the water heater with this setup but I'm guessing that with 170 degree water from OWB and approximately 50 degree water coming in from water supply it would split the difference and would be 110 degrees into water heater and 110 degrees returning to OWB. I do know that if I happen to be outside by the OWB when the wife is filling the bathtub you can really see the OWB temp dropping on the digital temp reading. Maybe someone can correct me if my calculations on the temperatures is miscalculated.
I see your from Iowa. Any chance you got the Woodmaster from Whittemore Truck & Trailer. I'm in NW Iowa and that's where I purchased mine.

I have mine set up almost like yours but i bypassed my waterheater altogether and just use the heatexchanger, the temp that mine puts out is 147 deg. when my Woodmaster is running between 170-180 i love it though you never run out of hot water and your water heater is shut right off so you are not keeping the water warm when you are not useing any water.
You can get some mixing valves that just hook to your supply line under you sink so they are very easy to hook up and not that much $$.

 

[ktm rider]

I never heard them called ait scald valves. I do know they are called tempering valves around my are.

 

[coostv]

I never heard them called ait scald valves. I do know they are called tempering valves around my are.

Anti-Scald, Tempering, Thermostatic Mixing, Valve. I will change the name every time I speak of them. There are variations, but they essentially all do the same thing. Mix cold with hot to limit output temp.

 

[HUSKYMAN]

Thats the same as my setup and I see no need to a mixing valve. By using the water heater tank you are adding an extra buffer and dropping the water temp quite a few degrees. My controls in both baths have stops on them to keep the handle from going all the way to full hot also.

Basically the only way a child could scald themselves is to put their hand under the faucet and hold it to full hot for at least a minute or two. I keep the water heater lit, but its turned down and almost never fires. I always use the hot water in the winter, so I am always putting hot water back into the water heater keeping the temp up.

 

[Rassmo]

I heat a fairly drafty older 1500 sqare foot house to about 75 degrees through the winter and the heat exchanger for the hot water. Last year was a pretty cold winter and I used at least 14 cords of wood. Mostly oak. I do think I probably have a good amount of heat loss into the ground with the lines traveling 165 feet. The 1 inch water lines were individually wrapped with fairly thin insulating wrap and inside a 4 inch corugated plastic pipe buried 18 inches underground. I know I have snow melt on the surface so there must be a significant amount of heat loss. Wish I would have had a temp guage installed on the line in the house.

 

[Scootermsp]

Double

I heat a fairly drafty older 1500 sqare foot house to about 75 degrees through the winter and the heat exchanger for the hot water. Last year was a pretty cold winter and I used at least 14 cords of wood. Mostly oak. I do think I probably have a good amount of heat loss into the ground with the lines traveling 165 feet. The 1 inch water lines were individually wrapped with fairly thin insulating wrap and inside a 4 inch corugated plastic pipe buried 18 inches underground. I know I have snow melt on the surface so there must be a significant amount of heat loss. Wish I would have had a temp guage installed on the line in the house.

Sounds like you are burning double the wood you should be. Might want to suck it up at some point and spend $2000 for thermoPex or a similar product. You should not lose even 1 degree on a 165' run

 

[oneoldbanjo]

Your installation looks great......a little too tidy outside but that will change when you get a mountain of wood stacked around it. I also have a concrete pad in front of the OWB like you do and it makes it really nice. I also removed the glass cover from the light on the front of the furnace and put a small piece of sheet metal I cut from a tin can in the front half of the glass. This keeps the light out of your eyes at night. The light is good for helping you see what your are doing in front of the furnace - but doesn't help you see inside at all. I have been thinking I need to find a weatherproof spot light on a flexible arm that I can use to replace the porch light fixture they installed on the furnace - this will help to see inside the furnace after dark when there is little or no fire inside. Building a fire at night is tough as it is really dark inside the OWB.

If you have kids.....you do need the tempering valve. I have both the plate exchanger and the sidearm and I have found that the water is so hot that I shut off the sidearm most of the time. With my water heater elements turned off the water is still waaaaay too hot and I have to warn guests to be careful. I do not know exactly what the water temperature is....but it is painful. The water coming into the water heater is so hot that the water will stay hot for days and just normal use keeps enough hot water in the tank that you will never run out even with your normal heating source turned off.

The heat exchanger and sidearm and piping make so much heat in the basement that I added insulation over my pipes to keep the house cooler. Our house is very well insulated and the heat coming off those pipes would rise up the basement steps and get our house too warm on some days just from convection.

 

[jcappe]

Thanks Banjo, the wood pile is off to the opposite side of the burner, trust me it won't be to tidy in about another 3 weeks when it's fired up.

Thanks for the input on the advise on the tempering valve.

Talking about your piping and all giving off extra heat, we have a sunroom on the west side of our house that is always cooler than the rest of the house so I ran two runs of Pex through the joist to see if it would help heat that room a bit. When we fired it up to check everything out I was pleasantly suprised that I could actually feel the warm spots in the floor. It will be even better when I get the basement finished and there is insulation and sheetrock to hold in the heat.

 

[PhinPhan]

I will getting my Woodmaster 4400 install completed tomorrow and was wondering does everyone that uses the plate or side arm, does your water go into the exchanger in the furnace first then heat up the domestic hot water on the way back to the OWB? Would this elminate the need for a anti-scald valve since the water would have lost some of it's heat, or would it loose to much heat to heat the domestic hot water?

 

[oneoldbanjo]

PhinPhan: My installation has both a sidearm and a heat exchanger plate, but the plate makes the water so hot I just keep the sidearm turned off. My sytem takes the water into the plate first, then flows to the bottom of the sidearm, then out of the top of the sidearm to the heat exchanger in the furnace. I got both the plate and sidearm as I felt the plate would warm the supply water coming into the water heater - but would not keep the water warm once inside - so I got the sidearm as well. It turns out the water coming from the plate is so hot that it never cools down below "hot" once inside the water heater (at least not with normal daily use).

I would recommend just getting the plate to start......I believe it will give you all the hot water you ever need. I suppose if you didn't use any hot water for a few days the water in the heater may cool down if you turn off the normal heat source - but we have never been away long enough for that to happen. I really don't know that it would make a whole lot of difference if you went to the water heater or the plate first. If I take my hand and put on the inlet and outlet pipes for the plate or the heat exchanger in the furnace - I really can't feel much difference in the temperatures going in or out. I will put a thermometer on them someday and find out - but that won't help you for your installation tomorrow.