Waste Oil Heater Forum - Your definitive source for burning waste oil for heat.
Waste Oil Heater => Waste Motor Oil => Topic started by: doug on October 30, 2010, 01:51:22 pm
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Made the first step today. Picked up a EnerRoyal fuel oil furnace with a tank. The burner is a Beckett AFG. Going to convert it into a siphon system. Next step will be to buy a nozzle kit.
doug
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Good luck Doug! Let us know how it turns out for you.
Russ
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Order parts Monday for my project. A preheater block kit, relays and temp controllers. Wow, today Wednesday I received my preheater block kit in the mail. Thanks ckBurner that's great service. To top that yesterday UPS dropped off the relays from Mc Master Carr. More great service.
Glad to do business with these two companies.
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Sounds like you've got some work to do now. Have fun and be safe!
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Got the temp controllers in the mail today. Got a regulator from a friend yesterday. Still scrounging.
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try to take several pictures !!!
i also bought some parts from ck burners, trying to get all my parts together. if you need a retention head i just got one on ebay, i thought it was a good deal???
http://cgi.ebay.com/Clean-Burn-Retention-Head-Slide-Over-/200543450729?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb1523669
Got some before, got some after pix. Just don't know how to post them.
So far it's been very simple to assemble no big problems. ckBurners are great to deal with. The Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend I was assembling the heater block and needed some information. So I sent an email to ckBurners thinking I'd be first on there list Monday to get a reply. To my surprize they replied that afternoon.
Had a junk stainless steel microwave laying in the scrap pile, so I've made my own retention head. Also had made a retention like the style you bought, but I wasn't happy with the way it came out.
Finally picked up a burner control with 15 second safety switch.
Just need to wire up the heater controls and I'll be good to go. May try to and test fire it this weekend without using the block heater before I go any farther.
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Not much to show. Everything ready to assemble. Retention head, flame detector and heater block. Then a ruff assembly with the regulator and air soleniod to see if I like the way things look.
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Getting closer. Got the burner assembled and did an open air test fire. Was pleased with what I saw happening. Quick start, good flame and would shut off and refire well.
Now it's installed in the furnace and the furnace is setting on a cart so it can be moved around. Moved the furnace out side Sunday and ran it for 20 minutes.
Next step is setting the furnace in the garage and running a flue pipe.
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Well it's been about a year since I started my wmo project. So I thought it was time to give an update on the project.
It still sits on the cart and with the flue ran out a window. My garage has a gramble (barn type) roof and I just don't want to run that much flue pipe inside or outside for it. So I can't decide on a perment location for it in the garage.
Ran only a 100 gallons through it last winter. With 6 lbs air pressure it fired every time. No smoke. Very clean burning with only a little light gray ash deposits in the burn chamber.
I'm very pleased with this design and how it burns.
Currently working a boiler to install the wmo burner into to supply heat from a shed to warm the house and garage.
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Sounds good doug. I would love to find a boiler myself. Keeping an eye on craigslist this winter. They dont show up too often though.
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Hi Doug
i also am running a Ck burner assembly it works great. but i do have a carbon problem between the electrodes
causing a bridge, then it wont fire. it doesnt happen often, have you run in to this problem, other than that it burns clean and put out a pile of heat.
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Steve,
I haven't had any problems with my burner so theres been no need to pull it out. So today I took a mirror and flashlight to look at the burner tip. Theres no carbon build up on the electrodes and the tip look fairly clean. Good luck in finding out what causes your carbon build up. Maybe something in your oil.
Doug
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i wonder if it has somthing to do with the position of my retension head, what temp are you running on your PiD
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My nozzle is even with the retention head. Pid is set at 180f. My system is set up as Craig (cKburners) describe in there instructions.
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Doug,
how did you know which parts to buy? Is there a book or just cruising here?
I have about 400 gallons of WVO, and will be picking up 200 gallons of used oil soon (this guy said he can get me a lot of oil)!
I have several friends that are machinists and am going to the scrap yard tomorrow- looking for aluminum bar stock to make a CKburner style pre-heater___ looking for a Beckettt- AFG..with 9" pipe?
I have a woodsaver II wood burning stove that I am going to use. this is a wood burning (large long steel box) heater with a galvanized heat transfer box (surrounding the burnbox), thermostat, fan and its hooked to my heater duct work! I'm going to take the door off and have another one built to mount a burner on. This heater also has a set of water pipes that aren't plumbed that on the outside of the burn box but inside the transfer box! I am also researching using this as a boiler set-up so I have two heat sources in one package...household heated water as well.
This stove is about 25+years old and still solid.
Newbie----advice needed!
thanks
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BTRAPR,
I could never find a how to book. I spent a lot of time surfing the net for information about heating with waste oil.
"Waste Oil Heating Forum" is one of the sites I found. Other sites that where very helpful to me. The first one is
"http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24280" this shows how he converted fuel oil burner to burn waste oil. He also gave out some part numbers that he used in his conversion. The other site is
"http://www.ckburners.com/". I got my heater block, nozzle and heater cartridge for him. There's a lot of information on this page about converting to a waste oil burner. I suggest buying this kit. It will help reduce your learning curve on what works and doesn't. Craig will also help answer question. An other site with lots of information is "altfuelfurnace".
Good luck with your project and please keep us updated on your progress.
doug
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Yes, the yahoo group altfuelfurnace is a nice resource that seems pretty active. I was hoping some of the folks on that forum would venture over here as the yahoo layout is sort of confusing. It's certainly worth checking out though.
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been heating house and garage since mid november with the waste oil/boiler set up. topped the tank off today with approximately 200 gal. the hour meter reads 391 hours that the burner has run. so when the burner is running it's burning close to a half gallon an hour.
doug
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That's awesome Doug. I'd say you have a successful build.
If you have more pictures to post, but are having troubles getting them re-sized and posted, just let me know and I can do it for you.
Thanks for the update.
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russ,
i haven't taken any pics of my new set up. just waiting to see how well it works before i show it. may be this week i'll try and get some pics.
doug
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from january 2006 till the spring of 2011 we heated with a corn boiler. insulated underground pipes and heat exchangers were in place. just remove the corn boiler and set the shed back in it's place.
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this is our waste oil boiler shed. found this used 10' x 10' shed on craigslist. after putting insulation, drywall, a coat of primer and it was ready for the boiler.
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an inside view of the waste oil conversion boiler shed. a buderus g115 4 section boiler was an other craigslist find. the thomas 2650 air compressor came from ebay.
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timer counts hours the unit runs.
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burner unit. now has a soleniod valve in the fuel line.
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barometric damper.
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water temp and pressure gauge.
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temp in shed stays 75* or high with burner running.
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metering pump came from http://www.centralohioheaters.com/Parts.html . no need for a constant level tank now.
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450 gallon fuel tank stays warm inside the shed.
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no smoke during start up or while running. the burner was running in all of these pics.
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Wow, wow, wow! Nice setup Doug.
Can you tell me a little more about the metering pump? What type of setup is that?
It looks to me like the oil comes out of the tank into some kind of box with a pump on it. The pump almost looks like one on the side of a burner? And then goes through some filters and to the boiler?
Thanks for the pictures. Very nice.
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russ,
it's a shenandoah variable speed metering pump. i got off ebay. from a company called central ohio heaters. there is some good information at there web site. http://www.centralohioheaters.com/Parts.html they sell all kinds of waste oil burning equipment and customer satisfaction is very important to them. at the time i bought the metering pump it was cheaper to buy it thur ebay than thur thier web site :o.
russ, good eye on the pump it is a suntec a2ra-7710 pump. it has no internal relief valve.
the oil comes from the tank into a 140 micron filter, the pump is the mentioned above powered by a 90 volt variable motor and controller. there are two gauges on the assembly. the first is a vacuum gauge checking the draw into the pump. lets you know if the first filter is getting too dirty. the second gauge measures the pressure at the final filter and nozzle which normally shows 1-2lbs of pressure. this would let you know if the filter or nozzle is getting dirty. the last filter is a spin on automotive filter that is rated a 40 microns. it does have a pressure relief valve that opens at 11lbs. i have found a spin on filter that doesn't have a relief valve and when this one gets drirty i'll put that one on.
doug
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Thanks for the info. I will have to look into that as I just picked up a boiler myself today. After seeing your pictures I just had to do it ;D
More info to come...
What brand boiler are you using? It looks new, or pretty new if not.
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doug is your oil draining out of the very bottom of your tank ?
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Russ,
It's a Buderus and it's 6 to 7 years old. It was in storage about half of that time.
Looking forward to your boiler project. Is it going to be an indoor or a shed boiler set up?
doug
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Koolkris,
The supply line is connected to the bottom of the tank with a riser inside the tank so the oil isn't drawn off the bottom.
I found this on altfuelfurnace and made something like it.
The second one is mine.
doug
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ok thats a good way to go !!! doug i sent u a pm
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One other change from corn to waste motor oil was to change the heating loop from an open system to a close low pressure loop system. The water supply to the loop is a shut off valve, check valve and pressure valve.
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Hi Doug,
The boiler will be in the garage, but I will be piping the hot water in the house also. Will just be heating the 4' crawl space below the house. I will just let the heat find its own way up and see how that works.
You mentioned going from an open system to low pressure closed. With the boiler I will be setting up, do I HAVE to make it closed? My thought was to maybe use a couple of 55 gallon barrels for thermal storage. Will the circulator pump stay primed as long as the in and out of the 55 gallon barrel is below the water level. I dont know much about the water part of it, so there is some learning to do yet.
Thanks for the info...
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Russ,
Your garage will benifit from the heat the boiler puts off. My friend/plumber that was very helpful with my project talked about installing pex pipe underneath the subflooring in a house and what a great way it was to heat. But the flooring needed to be hardwood or tile for good transfer.
You can go open or closed. I choose to go with the closed system because of less maintainace. An open system loses a lot of water thur evaporation. There are benifits to a closed system.
doug
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Hi Doug,
Just wondering, what retention head did you use on your burner?
I hear the stock ones arent the best and sounds like the Kagi ones are the way to go. Not sure how much they are though.
Russ
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Russ,
Made mine from an old stainless steel microwave oven that I'd picked up to take the magnets out of. I used the Kagi rentention head as a pattern to make it.
doug
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Looks like you did a good job on it. I ordered a Kagi on Friday. I dont know if I have the skills to build it myself. Thanks for the info.
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Looks like you did a good job on it. I ordered a Kagi on Friday. I dont know if I have the skills to build it myself. Thanks for the info.
Russ,
There are times where you, me and others don't give ourselves enough credit as to what we can do. This really was fairly easy to make. I almost bought one myself but for the money they ask for one I thought I'd could try to see what I could do myself.
doug
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Cleaning the Buderus is pretty easy. Remove two bolts and the door will swing open and then you can lift the door it off the hinges.
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Five by eight inch exhaust pipe for a heat tube to help burn off oil.
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My two transfer pumps. They come in handy when picking up oil from the trucking company.
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I set three barrels in the shed for 3 or more days to warm them up to temp before pumping the into the supply tank. Then I would hand pump them into the supply tank. I now have a pressure set up to force the oil from the barrel to the tank. I only use 2 1/2 lbs pressure and takes 6 mins. to empty a 55 gallon drum. It's been warm enough lately that the 2nd pic I'm using the pressure set up to empty a barrel off of my pick up.
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I use a thermometer with a remote temp sender that I have mounted in the shed to help keep an eye what's happening in the boiler from the comfort of my living room.
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A little update to the '11/'12 heating season. It took 865 gallons thur the season and to bring the tank back up to the starting level where it was last fall. Minus about 30 gallon of water drained from the tank. That puts me roughly 835 gallons used thur the season. If you use a conservative number of 144,000 BTU'S per gallon of waste oil that equal out to 120,240,000 BTU'S. If you use 92,000 BTU's for a gallon LP which is a little high we saved ourselfs roughfully 1,306 gallons of LP. It was a very mild winter. The waste oil boiler ran for a total of 1813 hours. That averages 2.17 gallons per hour of fuel. I was very pleased with the system.
Also learned that more is not always better. Reduced the volume from the metering pump and that reduced ash and soot build up in the boiler chamber. Too much make up air caused smoke from the chimney. Less compressed air pressure under 10psi made for a better burn.
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This year we added our domestic hot water to the boiler loop. Removed the 35 plus year old water heater and replaced it with newer 50 gallon unit. Added the sidearm tube and shell heat exchanger and an anti scalding mixing valve.
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Doug, your project just keeps getting better. Nice work!
So the side arm is an exchanger to heat the water going into the water heater, correct? Once the water is heated, the water heater is responsible for keeping the water hot, right? Or does the water circulate some how through the heater to keep it warm?
I would imagine that heating up the water initially is where a lot of the energy is used, so bringing in hot water instead of cold into the heater is where the savings is?
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I hope this will explain how the sidearm works. http://www.seattlehotwater.com/1/images/side-arm-animated.gif
The water temp in the boiler loop run between 155* to 170* and is constently cirurlating. As boiler loop water pass thur the heater exchanger it warms the water in the exchanger that is supplied from water heater,the warmed water then rises up into the water heater tank moving the cooler water back into the lower tank and then the cooler water is drawn back up thur the exchanger. I hope that explaination makes some sense.
Our heat exchanger is plumbed different than in the animation. The upper supply is from the boiler and the lower continues to the furnace then back to the boiler.
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Hi Doug,
Do you know what size nozzle you are using? Probably the one that came with your CK kit, I am guessing. That is what I am running also. I just dont know what one came with my CK kit.
I want to order some to have on hand, but dont know which one to get. The CK one seems to be performing well in my boiler.
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Russ,
Funny you should ask about getting extra nozzles. That's just what I did last week. The nozzle that came with my kit is a .65. I seem to have more ash build up in the boiler than I think I should have so I also order a .50 nozzle to see if that will improve the ash build up.
I don't have any complaints about the ckBurnner kit. Mine has worked good in the forced air furnace and now in the boiler. It's a great way to get burning waste oil. Russ I'm hoping to see an update on your project.
doug
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Thanks for the info Doug. I have about 10 hours on my burner so far this year. I will run it a while longer and then take a peek in there to see what it looks like.
Yea, no complaints here either. Lights so much easier than my old pressure system. A little white smoke at ignition, nice and clean after that.
If you switch nozzles, let us know if that helps with your ash situation.
After I burn a few more gallons, I will get some pictures and update my post. Colder weather on the way. Will be using up my stock this year I am sure.
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For the season we strung some lights on the shed.
May I wish you all a warm waste oil seasons greeting from my family to you and your families.
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Now that is the fanciest waste oil heater shed I think I have ever seen! Not that I have seen too many in my day, but yours is looking festive.
I hope you get to buy yourself something good for Christmas with all of that money in fuel you have saved ;).
Enjoy the holidays!
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Hello Doug,
I was just wondering what temp your boiler runs? I think it is common to be around 180F, but not for sure on that.
Also, does your circulator pump run continuously, always providing hot water to your house?
Thanks,
Russ
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Russ,
In mild condition like we are currently having I have the water temp set at 170*f just to conserve fuel. Later this month and into Jan and Feb I will increase temp to 180*f.
Yes, the circulating pump runs continuously. There's all ways hot water circulating thur the heat exchanger in the furnace causing a gravity flow of warm air up into the living space of the house. So there's no blast of cold air when the blower does kicks on. The aqua stat signals the burner when to fire.
doug
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Hi Doug
i also am running a Ck burner assembly it works great. but i do have a carbon problem between the electrodes
causing a bridge, then it wont fire. it doesnt happen often, have you run in to this problem, other than that it burns clean and put out a pile of heat.
Steve
The last month I've developed some on again off again carbon tracking issues. I was thinking it might be a weak transformer. After watching it I noticed the part of the electriode under the transformer was shorting out. I've got a piece of 3/16th rubber under the electriode end to insulate it from shorting out right now. If I continue to have problems I will replace the transformer.
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Disassembled and cleaned my delavan siphon nozzle today. It wasn't very dirty but, I believe it was causing some problems.
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Here's what happens when you run an electrode too close to the nozzle tip.
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So did that happen after you cleaned the nozzle and put it back in?
Are you still running the original nozzle you got with your CK kit? These nozzles really seem to be durable. Cleaning looks easy enough.
Thanks for the update.
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The nozzle was a .5 that I was using to try to conserve fuel. I wasn't getting enough heat out of that nozzle. My electriodes tips were worn short and needed replacing. The new electriode porcelain on one was out of round and didn't fit well, but I got it to work. Later the electriode was shorting under the transformer on to the air line tube. When I stuck a piece of rubber between the electriode and the air tube it caused the electriode tip to move closer the the nozzle. I didn't realize that the tip had moved. I'm now back to using the .65 nozzle that had come orginally with the ckBurner kit.
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I replaced my homemade retention head with a Kagi retention head(the people at Kagi were very friendly and helpfull, I enjoyed talking with Wendy. They boxed it up while I was still on the phone with them) http://www.kagiburner.com/partsservicespecials.html. My homemade one was starting to warp causing a spray problem and a build up in the chamber liner in the boiler that would cause a flame out. After discussing my problems with Craig at ckBurners he suggested increasing the diameter of the chamber liner from 5" to 7"or 8". Now I have a 1/16" x 8" x 8" stainless steel chamber liner in the boiler. Everything seem to be working great again.
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Thats an interesting picture. So does the flame shoot inside the tube? Is that ash buildup inside the tube? It looks almost closed off. I am not really familiar with that style of boiler.
Is your Kagi installed now?
Thanks for sharing.
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The boiler is a Buderus. It is considered a wet base boiler. Meaning that there is a water jacket all around the burn chamber. The walls of my boiler don't get hot enough to burn off any unburnt oil/fireflies. This will cause oil to pool on the floor of the boiler. The flame does shoot down the chamber liner tube and will glow red hot to burn off any of the unburnt oil/fireflies from the nozzle spray. There is no build up in the chamber liner of any kind now with the current set up.
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Hello Doug,
I was just wondering if you could give us more detail on how you have your plumbing on the 55 gallon drum? Do you have a long pipe screwed into the cap? I see rubber hose leading from the 55 to your storage tank, but how is it inside the 55?
Hand pumping is getting tiring. Need to figure out something different.
Thanks!
Russ
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Russ,
Cranking that hand pump does get old. The rubber hose is attached to a 3/4" x 5" pipe nipple. The nipple is then screwed in to a 2" x 3/4" reducing bushing. Then a piece of 3/4" pipe the length of the barrel was then welded to the bottom of the reducing bushing. I hope that makes some sense. Let me know if I can help you more.
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Russ,
Cranking that hand pump does get old. The rubber hose is attached to a 3/4" x 5" pipe nipple. The nipple is then screwed in to a 2" x 3/4" reducing bushing. Then a piece of 3/4" pipe the length of the barrel was then welded to the bottom of the reducing bushing. About 2lbs air pressure is plenty. I hope that makes some sense. Let me know if I can help you more.
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Thanks for the info. Yes, I think that makes sense. I have several 15 gallon barrels and a few 55's, but they are all plastic. In researching this, it looks like the steel ones like you have are 2" NPT, but the plastic ones are more of a course thread. I guess they refer to them as a buttress. I have some ideas I will try.
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Some of the plastic barrels I've collected over the years have had bungs like these that you could use the 3/4" knock out.
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=34134
Or Granger offers this adaptor.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/ACTION-PUMP-Bung-Adapter-6PFN6
I really don't like using 55gal. plastic drums. I do collect oil in some 15gal. drum and I use the hand pump to empty those.
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Yea, some of mine have the knock out. I will see what I can figure out with that.
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An update to the 2012/2013 heating season. Total hours the burner fired was 2957 hours and used a total of 950 gallons of oil for the season. That's 3.11 gph. I turn up the heat in the boiler this year. Last years use was 2.17 gph.
It's getting time to think heating again.
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With over 6000 hours run time on the burner I had some trouble today. When the aquastat would call for heat the digital temp controller came on, but the temp only raised to 120*. Replaced the heat cartridge and now everything is working again. Also got to clean the nozzle while it was down.
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Not too bad of a fix. Did the old cartridge come out allright?
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Once you get the blast tube off it's easy to get at. The cartridge just pulled out.
Just checked the burner out and it's back doing what it did before. Tomarrow I'll have to find a relay and change that.
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A little update on my 2013/2014 heating season. Here in Southern Michigan it was the coldest winter I ever knew living here all my life and it seemed like spring was long in getting here also. This season the burner ran for 3547 hours an used a new high of burning 1100 gallons. Hoping for a milder up coming season.
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Get your free heat where ever you can. Scored 550 gallons of free fuel oil this weekend. All I had to do was pump it from their tank. Looks like some of next season we'll be heating with fuel oil.
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Hello Doug. Good to hear from you again!
Wow, nice score! It isnt quite cool as burning oil, but I guess free heat is free heat ;)
Hope all is well!
Russ
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Russ,
It's getting tougher to find the volume of waste oil that I use. The fuel oil will help me get a head on the amount waste oil I'll have on hand. Burners got 11,000 hours and has been clicking them off with no problems.
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Doug you have the almost exact setup that I'm trying to build. Very nice! You were already ahead of the game reusing probably a lot of the existing Wood boiler system. I couldn't tell from you pics your suppy and return lines. You probaby have the buried insulated 1" pex lines going from your boiler to your house. I priced 50' and it will be close to $500. Do you have any more pics of you setup (expansion tank, aquastats, valves, ect)? Thanks
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How about an update on the 2016/2017 heating season? Thanks Doug!
James
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james,
my set up is a blend of a lot of other peoples hard work. the buried 1" is from a shelled corn fed boiler (similar to a wood boiler). supply lines are on top with the expansion tank and air bleeder valve, supply on lower side. I have 2 more air bleeder in the basement where the line has high spots and one bleeder in the shop at the heat exchanger. sorry I don't have any more pictures of the set up.
one thing I would do different would be to raise the boiler higher off the floor at least 8" or more. that would make it easier to clean.
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How about an update on the 2016/2017 heating season? Thanks Doug!
James
14201 hours of run time on the system and still going strong.
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Good to hear Doug! I am just a curious person by nature and have lots of questions. ;D Just tell me when you've had enough with my questions! ;) Speaking of how many hours yours has produced heat, what kind of hour meter do you have installed? I assume it only clicks off when the burner is called for with the relay? Thanks
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timer was an ebay find. when the burner runs so does the clock.
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I have a few analog hour meters from some generators that was updated. I could use those but would not start at 0 unless I could figure out how to roll them back to 0. Thanks Doug
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Doug I thought I read that your system is a closed system. Do you have a water line trenched to your boiler to add water when it needs or a ( I know they make automatic valves to refill)? Do you only have one zone? Do you use your boiler to heat your water tank too? How many pumps and what brand size, ect. (for example Taco 007). Thanks
Doug, I just went back through some of your thread and found the answers to some of my questions.
1) is the boiler pipes and water suppy trenched below frost line?
2) do you have a mixer installed ( I have read that especially with cast iron boilers the return needs to be mixed with a little of the supply to prevent boiler shock)? Thanks
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the boiler pipes are buried 4' deep with a foot of sand surrounding them for protection. water supply is connected feed pipe coming in to basement. once the system is charged there is no place for water loss of any volume, it is closed system.
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Thanks for the reply Doug! So in a closed system you really do not need to add water.
2) do you have a mixer installed ( I have read that especially with cast iron boilers the return needs to be mixed with a little of the supply to prevent boiler shock)?
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I didn't say that.
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ok, still learning about the different devices ona boiler system! Thanks Doug.
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I think Super was just asking the question about mixing the water to prevent boiler shock from too cold of water coming back in. I have heard that before, but dont know if there is any truth to it. I have a small water heater inline that helps with thermal storage and probably would help with boiler shock, but my return line never gets that cold. I would imagine if you had a larger heat exchanger, or several, or a sidearm on your water heater, it could bring the temp down. A friend of mine has a sidearm on his water heater and he says that running the hot water in the house can drop the boiler temp in a hurry.
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Yes Russ, I have read that if you have 180* leaving your boiler you should not have more than 10* ( have read varying temps from 10*- 20* so...) difference in your return. With a mixer /bypass it take some of that 180* water leaving the boiler and t's off like a zone but feeds back to the return to the boiler so it tempers the return water so you don't get "Boiler Thermal Shock". Like I said I'm far from an expert and I am still learning and don't want anyone to have a short life for their boiler.
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water supply trenched below frost line
2) do you have a mixer installed ( I have read that especially with cast iron boilers the return needs to be mixed with a little of the supply to prevent boiler shock)?
you have me confused. you asked about my domestic water supplying the boiler system. then you ask about boiler shock with a mixer valve in the supply line. no mention of the mixer being in boiler supply line.
I have no temperature gauge in the return line to the boiler.
I say this with all kindness "it is possible to over think a project".
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Doug I was asking 2 different questions. :D
1) about water suppy for adding to the system when needed and
2) mixer for boiler shock prevention installed in the (boiler out supply to your house)
I only have a crawl space like Russ. I was trying figure out if I needed to run a water line (below frost line) out to my shed or I found out by asking you which I never thought of that I could just add water as needed right in my crawl space and not have to run it to my shed.
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I have another question. What would happen if your system stopped working for some reason or you ran out of oil or you didn't want to leave it unattended while on vacation. Is your system well insulated to avoid freezing? Do you have to have alternative heat in your shed? Would your heat exchanger back feed heat back to your boiler in the shed?
Thanks James
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my neighbor hand dug his water lines from the boiler to his house. I don't think they're over 2 feet deep. I'm sure he insulated them well.
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I have another question. What would happen if your system stopped working for some reason or you ran out of oil or you didn't want to leave it unattended while on vacation. Is your system well insulated to avoid freezing? Do you have to have alternative heat in your shed? Would your heat exchanger back feed heat back to your boiler in the shed?
Thanks James
I had that issue on cold night. I'm sure that when you get your system up and running and when that happens to you, you will be able to figure it out.
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Thanks Doug! I guess I'm a perfectionist. I have had trouble over the years starting or completing projects because if I can't work out all the little details in my head first it doesn't make sense to even start. My dad alwals says do something even if it's wrong. Appreciate the help!
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If you are running water in situations where it could freeze, would it just be a good idea to use antifreeze to avoid any freeze up problems? If your pump is running 24x7, yes, I would think the exchanger would keep the water warm from your other heat source preventing a freeze up.
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Well there you go Russ. I don't know a lot about these closed loop systems but that certainly sounds like a good idea running anti-freeze.