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I just had a keystoker kb-8 boiler put in. the boiler is in my garage with pipe running to a heat exchanger in the plenum of my force hot air furnace in my basement 60 ft away. My installer has a circulator pump running non-stop. should I keep it like this or run it off a thermostat? my garage is run off a thermostat to a modine The hopper on the boiler holds 315 pounds I burnt a whole hopper in a week with temps at high 20'sat night 40-50's during the day does this seem high heating only my well insulated 1800 sq ft house

Might be high consumption. I just installed a KA-6 boiler with hot air coil. The furnace plenum is all of 10 feet from the boiler. I have a circulator wired to the thermostat. I noticed a fair amount of warm air rising from the floor registers when the TT was not calling for heat. Determined it was thermosiphoning of hot water from the boiler to the hot water coil with natural convection allowing warm air to rise to the first floor of the house. Ok for now but I'll have to put a spring valve in for summer burning. With your circulator running all the time, you are moving a lot of heat to that coil constantly even when the blower fan is not running. 120 feet of copper pipe round trip to the plenum radiates a lot of heat. I hope those pipes are insulated. Check the shop heater for thermosiphoning. It could be loosing a lot of heat as well. With your higher boiler water capacity, I would think it shouldn't be a problem to wire the circulator to only run when TT calls for heat. The only caveat would be if the pipes to the plenum run in an unheated space. Always a chance they might freeze between calls for heat. Did your installer pipe the recommended bypass loop?

Welcome.

How large is the garage you are heating? Is the piping underground?

What temperature does the boiler maintain?

Lastly, where are you located?

What are your aqua stat settings and stoker settings?

Carbon12 wrote:What are your aqua stat settings and stoker settings?

And timer setting.

Sorry for lack info my garage is 1280 sq ft with 12 ft ceilings the 60 ft of pipe is under ground it two 1' pexs lines in a 4 inch black pipe filled with foam not cheap 13.00 a foot my aqastat is set 170-180 timer is 5 pins every 15 mins red nut 12 turns from full stroke I live in ny near Binghamton the boiler stays 160-180 I have 5 pins in the timer to keep temp a little so the aquastat doesn't have call for heat so long . that also the aquastat is set at 170-180. I had it at 4 timer pins aquastat 160-180 when the boiler hit 160 the blower and stoker ran for 30 mins to get to 180. seems like along time to me in warm temps. when I bought the boiler the dealer said it should only take 3 tons of coal to heat my house based on my propane usage in the past. At over 300 pounds per week not heating the garage or domestic hot water and warm temps. I think his number might be off a little. I would like to run the boiler like keystoker wants it run but I'm not sure my pipes are below frost level. I don't know if they would freeze between heat calls. my installer said what about thermo shock to the boiler when it calls after a long cool down

Guess it's too late to ensure the lines are below the frost line??? Since the boiler is in a garage I would suggest antifreeze for the system. Your installer can recommend what to use. That way, if the system or elecrticity ever fail you'll be covered. Also, you can then run the Circulator on the thermostat. If your installer plumbed the bypass loop, boiler shock PROBABLY shouldn't be an issue. 100 pounds of coal or more a day during COLD weather would not be unusual. 30 minute run times to heat the boiler water back up not overly excessive since the water is constantly circulating.Are you using the boiler for domestic hot water? How much dead ash is on the grate under an extended full burn?

That KB-8 is 192 k BTU gross and 163 k BTU net.

Sounds kinda big for the space and only supposed to use 3 ton for the season.

Good sized garage with tall ceilings. Some of those modine heaters can throw way over 100,000 BTU's. Probably not well insulated.

6 tons may be a better estimate for both spaces

How much piping in garage and is piping insulated? Keystoker supplying dhw? Going to say 3 ton is way off IMO. I've seen a decrease in coal consumption when having circular run on demand only . How deep is your pex piping?

Any members near Binghamton willing to take a look???

Just saying, that KB-8 will push a bunch of coal even in 1 hour's running time at 192 k btu/ hr.

It sure can!!!

I'm not sure how deep the lines are in the ground but antifreeze is a good idea. my garage is new with r-19 in the walls. the ceiling is not insulated yet. going to insulate before I try and heat it.I think my modine is under sized at 47000 BTU I am heating dhw with the boiler but just for the garage nothing piped to the house but If I run the circulator pump non stop I will add a side arm to my water heater. they told me to heat my house only 3 tons of coal. at this point I hope 6 tons will get me thru the winter.