Need the Experts in here!! No Hot Water.

[mga]

part 1
The easy way to fix your problem would be to get a circulator pump to take from the wood boiler to your oil furnace. Probably under 100$ for the pump and a few fittings and copper pipe and labour wouldn't be a crazy amount. That hot water circulates to the oil furnace and heats the domestic water.Everyone around here that have woodboilers have a domestic water coil in them. I don't know why they would make them without one.

true, but once again, there are only 3/4" pipes leading to and from the wood stove. most circulator pumps are designed for 1 1/4" pipes...or there abouts.

also, i was under the impression that the potable hot water was being heated in the oil burner since i see extra pipes leading into it and there isn't a hot water tank nearby...unless the photos don't show it.

so......looks like some design work is needed there. wire up the wood burner circulator to a relay and it's own thermostat. problem is the oil burner must have a heat sensor for the domestic hot water as a stand alone, so the wood burner may not get his potable hot water hot enough.

without a separate hot water tank, his sytem is getting complicated...lol. first thing i'd do is i'd buy a gas hot water tank, or electric, and untie the hot water from the oil burner.

 

[Mike Van]

Maybe pics will help - Here's the setup I have - The first pic shows my Harman SF 260, it's a wood coal add on boiler with NO domestic coil, kind of what you have

The door on the bottom is on an aquastat, when the water hits 170F, it closes. At 150 it will re-open. Up top is another aquastat, when the temp in the Harman hits 140F, it turns on a circulator pump I hope you can see in the rear here

It just pumps the hot water through 1 1/4" pipe between the 2 units. Theres a flow valve to keep it from going out into the house loop. The next pic shows the other end of the 1 1/4" return.

That big red valve, you can open if the powers out, it will let the hot water gravity feed through the pipes & keep the house warm. The door on the stove closes on power out, so you have to run the fire like any woodstove then. There's another hi-temp aquastat for saftey, if the boiler water gets to 190, it turns on the downstairs loop, wheater you need heat or not, to cool the boiler. The last pic just shows the oil boiler, 3 zones off it

I've had this system 10 years, except for cleaning the stovepipe & chimney, and the oil burner, it's been trouble free. It was a lot to figure out at first, but it works well. If the water in the Harman drops below 140F, the circ. shuts off, so the oil isn't heating that extra 30 gal. of water. The oil boiler is basicly unchanged by all this, as long as it sees 140 to 170 degree water running through it, it will not kick on. OPEC can stuff their 3.40 fuel oil for as long as I can pick up a saw. Our hot water still comes off the coil in the oil boiler, but it's heated by the wood fire. We never run out of hot water, never!

 

[mga]

nice set-up!

obviously you've done your homework and made the system work well.

 

[GSP]

Mike Van How many circulating pumps on your system?

 

[Mike Van]

Theres 3 zones for the house, so 3 pumps plus the one that pumps the water between the two boilers = 4. All zones have bypass valves for if the powers out, you can open them part way & the hot water will gravity feed.

 

[GSP]

Theres 3 zones for the house, so 3 pumps plus the one that pumps the water between the two boilers = 4. All zones have bypass valves for if the powers out, you can open them part way & the hot water will gravity feed.

I only have one pump on the boiler and one on my oil furnace.2 zones. Where I live the power goes out a few times a year from ice and snow storms.I don't have a generator so I take the top off the pump and splice an old cord into it and plug it into a dc-ac 1000 watt invertor. The invertor is hooked up to my fathers large deep cyle marine battery from his commercial fishing boat (we land the boat in the fall when the season is done).Then I close the valves leading to the oil as it's shut down.I have to keep an eye on the fire and make sure it doesn't get to big as it will over heat and my boiler seems to get airlooked when that happens.The pice was 80 $ for the invertor.It beats buying a generator for 7 or 8 hundred.The power was already down for 12 hours because of an ice storm 3 weeks ago.

 

[mga]

the "new" way to go is with a CHP ( Combined Heat and Power) unit right in the home:

It heats. It powers. Is it the future of home energy?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1114/p01s02-usec.html

heat your home and generate electricity to power it as well.

 

[mga]

This is a real interesting trend.

Every increase in energy cost drive these kind of ideas more towards feasibility. It may be in the future that centralized electricity production fades from the scene.

the cost is rather high right now, but i imagine it'll drop some.

now, to incorporate that with a wood burner......that wood be heaven.