Thanks Slick, the more I think about I think that is what happended as well. Ran low on wood which caused the water temp to drop and with the water, house and garage all calling for heat it just took it a while to catch up. 
Newbie question
- Thread starter Bluefan
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
Ok so finally figured out what was going on. The last couple of weeks the furnace has not been running well. The water temp kept dipping below 140 on a consistent basis. Started to think that prior post was correct and we were going over on BTU's. So yesterday let the furnace burn itself out. Clean all the harden ashes off the side and cleaned them all out. Thought wow we got this now. Worked for 1.5 hours to relight (thought at the time that this was wierd). Went back inside to build water temp. Was 140 when I went back inside. 1 hour later go out and the water temp was doen to 115. You have to be kidding me. Not much of a fire again. So took the blower out and there it was rock hard ash in front of the blower flap. Got all of that removed and thought please let this work. Went back in side to let it try and build some water temp. 30 minutes later came out and water temp was back up to 180. I guess you need air for a good fire. This morning whole firebox had burnt more even. Hopefully this does it but it looks good for now. Thanks again to all those who had responded.
tmanmi
ArboristSite Lurker
Have you ever cleaned the chamber above the fire box that the smoke goes through to the chimney/stack? You will want to pull the plate off the back of the furnace and run the tool that should have come with the furnace through it to clean it out. The chimney/stack can also plug if you burn any green wood. Went through hell with getting a Heatmor to burn last winter, the chimney/stack was almost plugged shut.
I only run my water temp on my Hawken at 160 on 140 off. Boiler kept up just fine last night, 14 hr burn time. Only filled the fire box half full towards the back (manual says to do it this way) My furnace blower fan ran almost constantly last night, due to the really cold weather. If i would have paid attention to the weather closer a couple days in advance i would have turned the water up to 180. But i will say with the water temp at 140 to 160 the heat is more constant instead of being hot - cold - hot - cold.
Glad you got it fixed. Seems like a smaller water amount for that size sq footage rating.
Glad you got it fixed. Seems like a smaller water amount for that size sq footage rating.
One thing I learned when checking out OWB last year was not to believe the BTUs manufacturers put on their furnaces. Or especially the sq ft they claim it will heat. An undersized furnace can heat a house fine, you might have to load it 3-4 times a day when it gets cold out though.
SInce talking to my dealer and working through everything (cleaning out the blower, cleaning out spot in the back of stove and burning some of the coals out of it) it is working great. The other night it was 10 degrees and due to insufficient wood (had only put 3 pieces in to get throught the day with temps in the 20's) it pulled the water temp from 130 to 180 in about 45 minutes with furnace running in the house. Seems to be fixed. Thanks to all who replied with their ideas/suggestions. Amazing thing about fire is that you need air.
beerman6
Addicted to ArboristSite
Glad you got it fingered out!
