New E classic install

[jdman18]

I'm taking delivery of my new e classic this weekend.  Any do's and don'ts on how to install components. I will be heating two houses with the boiler. One is a 140 year old farm house that is 2500 sq ft. Two years ago we put new foam installation in the walls and basement. This house also has base board heat and a electric hot water heater. I will be using a sidearm on the hot water and a 50 plate exchanger on the furnace. The other house is a 1950's ranch. It is about 1300 sq ft with a crawl space and a down force furnace and gas hot water heater. we also had foam installation put in. I will be using a sidearm for hot water and 140,000 btu heat exchanger. We have not decide on what outside line to run. It was hard to choke down $12 a  foot for thermopex when I need 250 ft. I found a product called thermoflex for about $7 a foot. Has any one used this product.

I hope to have the boiler running in a few weeks. I have some wood that I have cut and split for my fireplace in my house. What is a good length and diameter to burn in the boiler.

Also have found another product called the Wood Minder. It is a monitor for outdoor wood boilers. It reads your boiler temp and roughly how much is left in the firebox from inside the house. Has anyone use a product like this with e classis.

[MudBud]

Jd, welcome and good luck.  I think you are the first that I know of running 2 houses off of it and real curious to see how it performs.  I have the option as well and may at some point.  Where are you located?  I have seen thermoflex, it should work, just insure you are down deep enough when you install it.

Have not heard about the wood minder but will look into that too.  Any questions please feel free to ask in here, it takes about 1 year to almost fully understand your stove quirks.

Keith

[rondojod]

I live about 50 miles north of Portland and I am heating 3 homes on my e-classis.
One an old farm house not well insulated 411 feet from boiler (1100 sq. ft)
A 1962 10x50 mobile home with additions 85 ft from boiler (930 sq. ft with the additions) and my house is 85 ft from boiler split foyer built in 1974 ( approx. 2400 sq. ft) have no problems heating these houses.
 How dense is the insulation around the pipes? It looks like foam rubber like material in the picture.
The woodminder looks interesting but not sure it would be worth the money as I only tend my boiler morning and night and I can pretty much tell how it is doing just by watching the smoke pipe.
Good luck with your endeavor.

[stumper]

I would suggest that you put underdrain below either type of pex.  Water pulls heat away fast.  I think you would also benefit from additional insulation around either.  Talk to your foam insulator and see what it would cost to add additional foam around the pex.  It should be designed for inground application and able to handle the expected temps. 

Run conduit out to the boiler so you can add additional wire as needed.

I would also suggest wiring an outlet before the oiler.  That way you can turn the boiler off but leave the pump running.

[doctorb]

jdman -  good luck.  

I would suggest that you make sure that the stove is level.  What kind of surface are you placing it on?  If it's on crushed stone, it can settle to the right slightly.  I think I saw a post long ago that said this even happened after placing the stove on a pre-fab concrete pad.  This doesn't effect the E-2300's performance, but, if it's not level, the door tends to slowly swing shut when open for loading, which is a pain and can burn you.  If I were installing mine today I would pay more attention to that.  I currently use a 2X4 to prop open the door during loading.  It's no big deal but the need for this doorstop was preventable during install.  Once you put all the water (450 gallons!!) into a stove weighing almost 3000 pounds, it's a little hard to relevel it.

I would also make sure that I placed a temperature guage in the intake and outflow lines from my basement.  A trip to your basement can immediatly give you feedback on the stove temperature, which is the key data point in determining the current performance status of the stove.  It's easier than walking out to my shed to check on it.  No experience with the woodminder.

I like 18 - 24 inch logs, because, when loaded longitudinally in the stove (parallel with the sides of the stove) they sort of meet in the middle over the opening to the combustion chamber.  I think that I have less log bridging when the stove is loaded this way.

Doctorb

[beenthere]

rondojod
Which Portland? There is one on each coast.  Is it the left or the right? 

[ken999]

Ditto the underdrain for the T-pex.

I'd go with 1 1/4" pex as well. From what I understand, the bigger line moves ALOT more BTU's. It's alot of money to wind up falling short on heat delivered to the houses.

Here's some pic's of my install.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,40760.0.html

Here's an alternative to CB Thermopex.

http://www.pennbrookfarm.com/GARN/GARN5.html


Good luck!

[rondojod]

beenthere

East coast

[jdman18]

Thank you for the input.

I live in the thumb of Michigan.
I plan on placing the boiler next to our work shop. It is about half way between each. we are placing it on the east side out of the wind. I am going to use old silo blocks. They are about 2ft by 1ft by 1in. I also have a lot of brick pavers block that I want to use around the boiler.  As far for the insulated pex pipe I want to run it 4ft down.
Also does any one have wiring diagrams  and what parts to use for one thermostat for both boiler and furnace.

Thanks
Ryan

[woodmills1]

You really can burn any length in an outdoor stove.  that said there are two ways to get longer burns. 

first and best cut your wood full length and leave most unsplit.  advantage is long long hot for long burn, disadvantage longer to get the wood dry and sometimes very hard to load.

second, cut your wood 1 inch short of half the depth of your stove and split most of it at least in half.  advantage    cool weather put in only one piece stacks...frigid weather double stack, one in back one in front   also splits and shorter dry eaiser and faster  disadvantage  more work  burns faster short and split and sometimes when ya need a full charge it can be hard to fill complete.

good luck  and let us know how you like not buying oil, gas or electric   

[thecfarm]

I had a Heatmor installed 3 years ago. I put all my wire in conduit,even though it was the special wire for direct in ground use.The pex pipe was also put inside of 4 inch black drain pipe,the pipe with no holes.Filled up the ends of the 4 inch pipe with expandable foam in a can.Than I buried it all  with sand.I would dig down for the foundation of the boiler.I only dug down 1˝ feet,put in ˝ inch crushed rock,level with the ground,packed it down good,than put in 8 inches of cement.I don't know if you are going through any cement walls.But I used hyd cement mixed kinda thin and a bunch of roofing tar on the outside and has not leaked yet.I also used some expandable foam to help out on that too.I suppose the ground is frozen in MI.You going to get a machine to dig for you? Good luck with the OWB.

[Holmes]

I agree with Ken999 use the larger pipe. You can get more btu's thru a larger pipe with less friction loss, [and use a smaller pump]. You may be able to use a taco 008 or 0010 compared to a 0012  and the smaller pump will use less electricity.  A 1" pipe will carry 90,000 btu's with a 007 pump  a  11/4" pipe will carry 140,000 btu's with a 007 pump.  Holmes

[doctorb]

Ryan-

I am not sure you need to go four feet below ground with your pipe.  Remember that, while you must be concerned about freezing, the pipes will always be exiting the ground and entering the back of your stove, which is the locale that is much more likely to freeze than pipe which is 2-3 feet down.  So it doesn't mattter how deep you bury the pipe, it's going to come through the soil surface at some point.  You just can not avoid the theoretical possibility of freezing up.  In reality, though, by circulating water continuously, coupled with "reverse heat exchange" with your house's backup heat, some heat will always be transfered into the pipes and, with the constant pump flow, they will not freeze up.  The extra foot down may only be making you feel better and may not be worth the expense.  I also agree with the larger pipe diameter.

Doctorb.

[stumper]

I live in Vassalboro so we must have similar weather and frost.  It will be interesting to see if this will handle 3 homes.  I heat one 3200 sq ft home built in the early 90 and supply water for 5 people.  I have no problems heating it but I think 3 may be pushing it. 

That said I would do whatever I could to improve efficency.  Frost in our area can go 4 feet deep easily, more if plowed and driven on.  Use underdrain, extra insulation and 4 plus feet deep.  Will the pipes freeze with less?  No not unless we loose power for a while.  How long were you without power in the ice storm?  I was out for a week (nice to be on a school loop).  I figure with my line at 4 1/2 feet I can run a generator enough to not have things freeze up.    At that depth I am loosing less heat to the ground.

Can you hook directly to your heating systems?  It would be nice not to have losses in a heat exchanger.

Consider the larger pex.  In my case I used the smaller size because I would have had to neck it down at the boiler and it was cheaper.   

Consider using multi speed pumps.  Pick the speed that you need.

Put your wood shed close.  Yes, you need a wood shed.  This boiler like dry wood.  I cut all my wood at about 18 inches and load my wood sideways.  I find I get less bridging and no bridging that has caused a loss of heat.

If you have not already purchased, talk to Rick at Farmer 4 Hire.  Knowledge, service, price all made the trip to New Hamster worth it.  Yea, you still need to pay Gov. Baldi tax buying in New Hamster but you have an extra 30 days to do so.

[Dean186]

Hi jdman,

Congratulations on your OWF purchase and good luck with installing it in a couple weeks.  It took me a couple of months.

The Central Boiler manual recommends a trench depth for ThermoPEX between 10” and 28”.  Stating the following “Historically, lines buried deep (3 to 4 feet) have been found to have a greater number of problems, especially when ground water contacts the water lines.”   It is something to take note of anyway.

Also, don’t underestimate the heat loss in water lines.  It can be significant.  Blue board installed around the water line is an option that several have used including me.   See photo below

Good luck with your install,  Dean

[rondojod]

If you read my previous post you will see that I heat three homes with mine. Last nights temps were around -5 with high gusty winds 25-30 MPH if not higher at times and I had no problems heating. Filled boiler at 9PM and didn't check boiler until 9AM this morning. Also glad to read Dean's post on recommended depth of lines. That is what depth mine are at. Lines do not want to be set in water table.

[Dean186]

Also have found another product called the Wood Minder. It is a monitor for outdoor wood boilers. It reads your boiler temp and roughly how much is left in the firebox from inside the house. Has anyone use a product like this with e classis.

I have temperature gages on my heat exchanger in the basement, but to make it easier to monitor outside boiler water temperature; I use Central Boilers indoor water temperature indicator kit (p/n 5052).  The temperature sensor is located in the supply line as it enters the basement and the digital temperature indicator is mounted upstairs in a convenient location. 

Works great.  Dean

[Dean186]

I agree with Ken999 use the larger pipe. You can get more btu's thru a larger pipe with less friction loss, [and use a smaller pump]. You may be able to use a taco 008 or 0010 compared to a 0012  and the smaller pump will use less electricity.  A 1" pipe will carry 90,000 btu's with a 007 pump  a  11/4" pipe will carry 140,000 btu's with a 007 pump.  Holmes

Hi Holmes,

Would you be so kind as to show the calculations on the above numbers?

Thanks, Dean

[Holmes]

Hi Dean The numbers  I used are standards for hydronic heating. You can make a 1" pipe carry 140,000 btus with a larger pump, instead of pumping 9 gpm (90,000 btu)you find a pump that will deliver 14 gallons per minute (140,000 btu) with the amount of friction loss the piping has.   Holmes

[Dean186]

Hi jdman,

How is the install going?