Heatmor question

[Mistyblades]

Bit of a newbie here..
I can never tell when this needs water to start with. I understand theres a indicator flag however its goes up and down all the time.
My main question though is, are these not suppose to be able to handle frigid temperatures? ex: -10 to -25 degrees? Have a hell of a time keeping running during the night hours. Tend to wake up and it is COLD in the house. 1 of 2 things happen. 1 its running fine but its not "keeping" up. Temp in the house just won't rise but everything outside is working the way it should. At least thats how it looks to me. The only thing I've come to is it needs water. However, at 6am -15, i don't see me adding water to it.
OR, its basically out. Theres wood IN it but the fire is either out or non existing.
Is this normal?
Normally, once we go out and mess with it, add paper and such to get it lit up again if that is the issue. Within 12hours were back to having heat in the house.
Any help or knowledge would be greatly appreciated! Thanks everyone in advance!

 

[hupte]

sounds like you're not loading it full enough at night. throw in a couple extra splits of soft wood and let us know how that works.

 

[polkat]

could also be the type of wood being added? There are a lot of places to start. First is the circulator pump pumping? is the bladder (inner tube) above the indicator flag if you cannot feel water you need to add. Keep looking there is a solution if you keep at it good luck

 

[Uncle John]

The flag goes up and down because of heat expansion. You can stick your hand up in the hole and feel the bladder, It should be more or less half full.
It doesn't sound like low water is the problem. More likely wood type or green wood.
When I get a good fire going I am getting warm air from the registers within an hour or so.
If everything is working fine and you are getting warm air out your registers, the heat exchanger might not be big enough. Actually mine doesn't quite keep up when it's below zero and the wind is blowing. But it's only a few degrees.
Is the blower on the owb working properly?
I would think if the fire goes out with wood in there either the blower isn't working or your wood is too green.

 

[skindaddy]

something is wrong i get 24hr burn on mine heating 1500sqft upstairs , 1500 dwnstairs and my garage and hot water, my steel tag dont move unless temp drops way down 100* or less, maybe add 5gal of water in middle of season.
you need to troubleshoot some things.

oh yeah i dont fill to there line i fill it to the top.

 

[fixit1960]

something is wrong i get 24hr burn on mine heating 1500sqft upstairs , 1500 dwnstairs and my garage and hot water, my steel tag dont move unless temp drops way down 100* or less, maybe add 5gal of water in middle of season.
you need to troubleshoot some things.

oh yeah i dont fill to there line i fill it to the top.

I agree with the above. I top mine off when up to temp. Beginning of each season. Or look down into fill pipe and gauge it. Reach through the hole and feel the bladder. Should feel about 1/2 to 3/4 full. I didn't understand the steel tag, level indicator thing. Then it dawned on me that mine had a steel tag tied to a piece of rope that was strung through and over the bladder. Well it disappeared about 10 years ago. I put mine in in 1997. So it has some age on it. Still going strong..

 

[Mistyblades]

Thank you for all the replies! Much appreciated!
hupte, Its is full full at night. Cant get anymore inside.
Polkat, im not sure how to even tell if the circulator is working. What would be a sign its not? Where would you look?
uncle john, what owb? like i stated, it does fine during the day when its "warmer" out but at night, its just not happening and its hot. Fire burning, smoking,temp is hot on the heatmor itself... Just not getting inside the home.

im not sure how to "trouble shoot" I'm completely new to this. Up until Dec. Didn't even know what it was.
We do put green wood in it. We find it burns better and A LOT LONGER! We had some aged wood when we moved in. The person left it. Wasn't much but enough for a week or 2 anyhow. We were out filling it every few hours it seems cause it just lit up. With the green wood its about every 6-8 hours. I normally load her up full bout 11:00-11:30 roughly and by 6:30 7:00 its got VERY little in it. Maybe a stump or 2 burning. Depends of course on how cold/windy and such it is of course.
We also have just been putting logs in. Not split. Which again, we find burns slower.

The bladder has water in it. From what i know feels fine. At this point with the frigid temps i have no prayer of even adding water. The pipe is frozen so I'm REALLY hoping this is NOT the issue. From your replies i don't believe it is.
Just not sure how to fix this issue.

We have the house set at 71..72...
the propane is set to 65. when i wake up and check it at 3am.. its 68..69 in the house and it just keeps dropping. By 5..6am when i wake up to check on it its 65 in the house. The heatmor is hot and burning GREAT! Just not getting into the house. I hope I'm making sense. i thank everyone again for all the help!

 

[cantoo]

Where are you in Michigan? There are lots of guys on here from there, ask for someone local to come take a look at it. I'll bet you have someone within 20 miles of where you live.
As for the green wood, you are getting longer burn times but it's heat output that you want and long burns. Green wood is using that heat to boil the water out of it which is heat that you aren't getting in the house. Dry wood will get the btu's into the water jacket and into your house instead of using it to boil water that goes out the stack.
We're going to need a little more info to help you with your system. Are you getting water circulation? Can you check your pump flow to check that you are getting enough flow? What type of lines do you have from the owb to the house, are they buried, are they insulated and how?
Start with the easy things and confirm they are correct first.

 

[NSMaple1]

No mention yet of any water temps anywhere. No clue what's going on without temp data. Green wood won't make a lot of heat either, it holds a lot of water.

 

[Mistyblades]

cantoo, I'm sorry but how do you check the water circulation? or the pump flow? what is owb? How would you find this information about the lines out. This was here well before we moved in.
What kind of wood would you recommend? I knew about the green would containing water just like how it burns compared to aged?..
The water temp on the heatmor is set to 180. We get HOT SCALDING water in the home. Im not sure if this answer your question.
Please feel free to stupify this because I don't know enough about this to just answer the questions you're all asking me.
Im in capac michigan

 

[crowbuster]

inside the door to the right of what you call the metal flag is a temp gauge. when unit kicks on that gauge shuld be around 140. When it kicks off it shuld read 180. So you have forced air? Check furnace filters, A coil could be dirty. Hard to tell from here in Indiana. Also, in the back of the stove there is a round pipe coming iut the back. This is to cleab out the ashes. Could be full and unit is not getting correct air flow. Just some ideas.

 

[H-Ranch]

We do put green wood in it. We find it burns better and A LOT LONGER! We had some aged wood when we moved in. The person left it.

The seasoned wood you had left from the previous owner may have been cedar/cottonwood/basswood/willow or any other number of very low heating value wood species. Don't judge green wood being better than seasoned wood by this. As others have said, the green wood is the reason you find a firebox full of wood and no fire. I start one fire at the beginning of the season with seasoned wood and never have to relight it even if I go out of town overnight.

What model Heatmor do you have? How big and how well insulated is the house? Are you heating the garage, pole barn, hot tub, and hot water? Is the snow melted above the water lines to the house? Is there a temperature gauge on the Heatmor? If the fan is always running it may never be reaching the 180F setpoint. When it's -15F outside mine will take hours to raise the temperature in the house - more based on the size of the furnace/heat exchanger than the fault of the OWB (outdoor wood burner). If I used the propane I would have the same experience at that ambient temperature.

 

[skindaddy]

where your pipe from burner come into house are they just to hot to hold onto? yes than your circulating pump is working. you said your hot water is scolding inside if its from burner than pump is working . Big question i have is how is your water being heated inside , what type of system does it go through? then where does it go.

doesnt matter if your (hose im assuming) is frozen if your burner needs water it needs water.

lets say your house was up to temp and cozy, the owb should or could sit idle for hours without firing(if nothing called for heat inside) to give you an idea how long it can go without firing with no load.

is there a unfrozen earth path from your house to wood burner?

 

[Uncle John]

Feel the water lines where they go into the furnace, Both the inlet and outlet should be hot. The inlet should be too hot to hold very long.
If thats ok, your exchanger may be too small.

Does the house heat up ok when you use propane?

 

[NSMaple1]

You need to be able to measure pipe temps, if you're going to do any real troubleshooting. In several places.

An IR temp gun can work good for that. They don't work well on shiney surfaces, so you might want to spray a blotch of flat black BBQ paint on first where you're measuring (e.g.copper pipe). Having said that, I'm not real confident in what mine says, but it's a cheapie.

Or you can try a meat thermometer with the probe flat against the pipe, under a scrap bit of pipe insulation.

You would measure temps in & out of the boiler, then each pipe where it comes into the basement, and also all ins & outs of all heat exchangers.

Also don't think we know anything about what is inside the house. Is the OWB (owb = outdoor wood boiler, by the way. i.e. the Heatmor) hooked to an inside boiler? Is the house hot water or hot air heated? Rads or furnace? Missing lots of info - and pics are worth 1000's of words.

 

[Uncle John]

Wish I was closer.

 

[cantoo]

Sounds like you just bought this place and the OWB was there. I would start by trying to find out where the Heatmor came from, best way to do that is to get to know you're nosy neighbours. They will know lots about the Heatmor, where it came from, how long it's been there etc. The Dealer might then be able to give you some info on the Heatmor installation. With any luck he might even point you to the person that did the installation. You can tell what type of water lines you have by taking a picture where they come into the house and post them on here, we should be able to figure it out. Do you have a backup heating system?
I did a quick google search and came up with this. Richard Prime is a Heatmor dealer in Vassar Michigan. 989-871-3022 Might be worth a call to see if he did the sale and install? Do you know the name of original owner< if not ask the nosy neighbours.

 

[Mistyblades]

Okay its warmed up here in Michigan considerably. The Heatmor is doing wonderful! temp in home is 72. It did go down a little last night but not enough to complain. It "Kept up". The only thing i can say is its the cold weather. To me that doesn't make sense because thats what these are for but, the only answer that makes sense to me. IF there was an issue with the heatmor it'd be all the time. i would think.
They use these in Alaska where temps are always frigid. But, the fact it does just perfect when it warms up out.. warming up being 0 to 15 degrees most of the time then with wind chill on top of that.

crowbuster, yes that is basically the temp gauge and how it reads. 98% of the time the temp is 200 or above. Normally it lowers because it needs wood. Fill er back up and she right back 200+
HRanch, Just heating a home. roughly 1600SqFt. Of all the paperwork thats been left for us, nothing says the model WE have. The house is well insulated.
Skindaddy, EVERYTHING is HOT. TOO hot to hang on to. Im assuming the hot water runs through the hot water tank. everything is always hot. The water issue is, The pipes are freezing at these temps and can't get water to run. So i understand what your saying but i have no way of getting water to it at that point. Again though, if its working fine now. My phone says its 25 out, so beautiful. Its at night in -8 plus wind chill. Water shouldn't be an issue.
When its working well during the day the path underground where everything is running from the heatmor to home is melting.
unclejohn, Have home set at 65 if heatmor dies/go out etc.. keeps it at 65 fine. Before we had heatmor running the propane did just fine. Kept it at 68 no issues.
Cantoo, thats exactly whats happened. I really don't have neighbors. Couple miles down from me anyhow. All the driving around I've been doing i haven't yet seen another heatmor,

 

[hupte]

Alaska also has higher insulation codes on their buildings. and their homes are more energy efficient.

sounds like your heatmor unit is just undersized for your application.

 

[KenJax Tree]

cantoo, I'm sorry but how do you check the water circulation? or the pump flow? what is owb? How would you find this information about the lines out. This was here well before we moved in.
What kind of wood would you recommend? I knew about the green would containing water just like how it burns compared to aged?..
The water temp on the heatmor is set to 180. We get HOT SCALDING water in the home. Im not sure if this answer your question.
Please feel free to stupify this because I don't know enough about this to just answer the questions you're all asking me.
Im in capac michigan

capac=cows and pigs and chickens