What Do U Think Abou O/S Combustion Air? Long Post, Sorry

 
KLook
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Other Heating: Wishing it was cold enough for coal here....not really

Post by KLook » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 7:50 am

And if you house is that tight and holds the heat that well, and your equipment does not draw air unless there is a call, a vent is not going to introduce enough cold air to freeze anything. IF you are worried about that, put an electric heater in there set on low and see if it ever comes on. Your techyness is admirable, but just cutting a hole is just letting nature work without some electronic device to fail.

Kevin

My boiler rm never lost much in temp with 2 4 inch holes.


 
imcloud1
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Post by imcloud1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 8:17 am

I think you are misunderstanding, all of my appliances have concentric venting {except the coal stove, which when I currently run I leave the door open}, so there is no need for a room vent, the air is taken from outside and brought directly into the appliances cabinet, these are modulating condensing units so the cold intake air aids in condensation where these appliances get their efficiency ratings...

I have been doing this professionally for many years...

As far as the set back temps, my house is set at 70 degrees all zones for the hours we are home, and 1 hour before we leave it sets back to 55* in that hour the house will not drop a full degree and in the next 10 hours the conditioned space drops an average of 6 degrees, on very cold days my front parlor zone is the only one I ever seen reach 55. Now with the coal I don't use the same program, I set it back to 65 and it hardly uses any coal all day long. But with the boiler and hydro air units, it makes much more sense not to run the house to 70 all day since the boiler and hydro system will heat the house on a 30 degree day from 55-70 in 40 minutes, we are not talking about a natural draft cast iron boiler here, this is a modulating, odr controlled boiler with delta t circulation and variable speed convection air, so if the tstat senses its coming off the setback and needs to make up 15 degrees and the odr is reading 30 degrees outside with an ambient of 55 it will heat the water to the required temp {say 160 degrees}, then the delta t circs will pump the water at a variable rate to maintain a 20 degree difference between the supply and return piping to that zone, and the variable speed fan control will speed or slow down depending on what its program thinks is best....

Sure a 15 degree setback may not make sense for a coal stove or steam boiler system, but in my house I could set it to 2 degrees above freezing and as long as I leave enough time to reach target temp it will use less energy than maintaining 70 all day...
I use prestige t-stats with all the toys, I just installed the "away" "stay" buttons at the exit and entryways.

I'm not trying to debate my central heating system configuration, like I said I do this for a living and specialize in commercial and residential high efficiency IAQ and comfort control systems. I was just wondering what others were doing with outside air..

Although I am curious why someone would think a 55 degree 10-12 hour setback would be silly, this is the first I heard of this. All of my training and years of experience show me that the best ways to save energy is to use what you pay for and lose as little through the envelope as possible. heating my house to 68 all day when no one is there is "silly" and letting a room pull 20 degree air into it all day and night is also "silly"...

I know it is human nature to question things, but why on earth would I cut holes going no where into my house when I can simple pipe them to the intake fans of the burners, by the way by code for the amount of BTU's I need the holes would be much larger than 4"s.. I can not believe what I am reading, put an electric heater? if I ever did that to a customers house I'm sure I wouldn't be in business long, lol... Its a simple answer to a simple question, drill the hole pipe it to the burner...
Last edited by imcloud1 on Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
Rigar
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Coal Size/Type: anthracite rice

Post by Rigar » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 8:40 am

a 55 degree set back allows the house to potentially reach 55 degrees...which apparenty one part of your house did...(on a 23 degree day)...and this happened (as per your post) within a. 10 hr time period. (that zone demanded heat for 13 minutes)
...sure -if you were on vacation thats one thing-
but everyday you are allowing house temps (and all its contents) to cool.
it doesnt matter what you heat it all back up with...the load is the same (required btu)
...ex...if your setback was say...62...that zone may have fired sooner-but not for as long.
im certainly not debating you or your systems intelligence....but heat is heat.
have you recorded demands thru out the day with a higher set back temp ?

for what its worth (and im not bragging about my home)...but if I turned my tt down to 55 when the house was at 70....(on. a 23 degree day)...it would take a heck of alot longer than 10 hours for ANY part of it to reach 55 degrees....period

....either way....freeze protection on critical piping (or the entire boiler room ) shouldnt be that difficult of a job...

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 8:41 am

imcloud1 wrote:Is that an autofeeder?
it is not really 'auto' since I have to throw the switch on the shop vac to fill the barrel and then turn it off. It does auto feed from there into the hopper of the stove.

i understand and do not disagree with your strategy of the set back temp and it's benefits for fast reacting systems that use 'expensive' fuel. I would do that myself if my propane furnace was my primary. What has to be considered in the savings and also the comfort is the heat sinking of the structure and contents. as an example, having my coal stoker in the basement and keeping the 'stat at a constant 69* uses more fuel (even thought it is 'cheap') than a set back strategy, however having the hardwood and or tile floors on the first floor toasty warm for my bare feet is "priceless" :)

 
imcloud1
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Post by imcloud1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:01 am

Rigar wrote:a 55 degree set back allows the house to potentially reach 55 degrees...which apparenty one part of your house did...(on a 23 degree day)...and this happened (as per your post) within a. 10 hr time period. (that zone demanded heat for 13 minutes)
...sure -if you were on vacation thats one thing-
but everyday you are allowing house temps (and all its contents) to cool.
it doesnt matter what you heat it all back up with...the load is the same (required btu)
...ex...if your setback was say...62...that zone may have fired sooner-but not for as long.
im certainly not debating you or your systems intelligence....but heat is heat.
have you recorded demands thru out the day with a higher set back temp ?

for what its worth (and im not bragging about my home)...but if I turned my tt down to 55 when the house was at 70....(on. a 23 degree day)...it would take a heck of alot longer than 10 hours for ANY part of it to reach 55 degrees....period

....either way....freeze protection on critical piping (or the entire boiler room ) shouldnt be that difficult of a job...
My front parlor is by far the hardest room in my home to heat, it has 20+ ft ceilings, its 600 sq ft huge windows, just a nightmare from an energy stand point, although very impressive to walk into not easy to heat or cool.... I should have mentioned this is also the only zone we set to 66 degrees {most of the time, sometimes if we are having a party or I know there will be a lot of in and out traffic I will set it to 70... But yes its the only one that ever gets down to the setback....

Now as for comparisons, yes I have compared setbacks in both my house and a controlled environment, it makes more sense to set back than not... I compared 3 days on and 3 days off {the degree day listings were within 18 over the 3 days!!!} I did it on a week the forecast looked very stable {it was a mid december week when the house was only a year or so old}, and the data logger showed over 700 minutes difference per week {with my fresh air exchangers shut down, they introduce too much variation}, that is substantial, that is actually how I came up with the 55 degree temp, I tested it and the system recovered 15 degrees on a design day in less than an hour which is what I wanted. The 23 degree day I showed over 10 minutes of call was also the high for the day, the morning temps were very close to my design day temp, and normally we will not run at all...

Now if you have an old house with a steam boiler, and you are only gone for 8 hours, it won't help much, but my house is tight, my heat is FAST, and we are gone for 10-12 hours 5 days a week... Plus my business is efficiency, how would it look if I didn't practice what I preach? I have installed residential systems that cost more than a new G-class, most customers spending that type of money are educated and want to see something with their own eyes before committing to something like that. Hence my next project which is a 12 well geothermal system {its going to heat my pools and garage as well as heat and cool the entire house, but just the wells are $40K and I can not take them with me when the kids move out and we sell the house, so I am not in a big rush to do it.
Last edited by imcloud1 on Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
imcloud1
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Post by imcloud1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:12 am

titleist1 wrote:
imcloud1 wrote:Is that an autofeeder?
it is not really 'auto' since I have to throw the switch on the shop vac to fill the barrel and then turn it off. It does auto feed from there into the hopper of the stove.

i understand and do not disagree with your strategy of the set back temp and it's benefits for fast reacting systems that use 'expensive' fuel. I would do that myself if my propane furnace was my primary. What has to be considered in the savings and also the comfort is the heat sinking of the structure and contents. as an example, having my coal stoker in the basement and keeping the 'stat at a constant 69* uses more fuel (even thought it is 'cheap') than a set back strategy, however having the hardwood and or tile floors on the first floor toasty warm for my bare feet is "priceless" :)
I like that feed system, you can probably make it automatic if you used a cad eye and a light, put the cad eye on one side of the barrel and the et light on the other, when the coal drops below that level the cad will read see the light and close a circuit that you wire a switching relay to and pull the vac on, then when it sees no light the circuit will open and shut the vacuum {but may not be good if you are sleeping and heat a vacuum or you run out of coal outside and it runs the vac all day, lol... I tend to over thin things sorry... I like it a lot, very nice job.. I buy the coal in bags, and store it inside so its no as good an idea as me, but it is very nice...

You would be surprised how long the stuff in your home holds heat, I have thermal imagers and have played around a lot, mattresses for example, they hold body heat for a long time in a 70 degree ambient... If my house was a normal furnace, steam, or even radiant {baseboard, panels, or in-floor} then my recovery time would most likely double or triple making my set back around 7 hours vs 10, and the boiler will most likely cycle multiple times on the recovery cycle. With my system and the ODR adjusting the boiler temps, my system will run 1 time to recover, the boiler will modulate and run the entire cycle or close to it. So instead of my boiler running once all day for say 35 minutes, it will start up a bunch of times all day long, this is not what you want, you want as little cycles as possible, this will make your equipment last longer and use less energy....

for the record, I leave the house and it is 70 and I come home and it is 70, the couch is warm, the floors are warm, as far as I know it ran all day, but obviously I know it didn't... When we run the coal system I don't use a huge setback, because the fuel is cheap and it doesn't recover very fast.. plus its a single system zone paneled into duct work built for my hydro system so its not as balanced as it would be if I ran a designated air delivery system, and the stove I have isnt the best design, the LL furnace is much more "furnace" like and in turn blows hard and hotter, but since my coal stove in in conditioned space its no big loss, if It was in a basement that you wouldn't normally heat then you would want something insulated with a heat exchanger that efficiently removes the heat from the furnace and delivers it to the conditioned space...

 
Rigar
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Coal Size/Type: anthracite rice

Post by Rigar » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:28 am

...ur front parlor sounds almost identical to our 'great room'...but I will admit the ceilings are only 16 feet high...
approx 550 square feet and windows out the yahzoo!
...i feel your pane (pun intended) :lol:

...i cant help but think there is something slightly wrong with ur data on ur 6 day test.
are you saying your system fired 700 minutes( over 3 days) with no setbacks MORE than it did with 15 degree set backs??....thats on average almost 4 hrs a day more runtime??
with your setback data that would bring your house from 55 all the way back to 70. over 5 times...?
...your doors open?? :lol:
...my house is old (but completely remodeled)...no boiler (wasnt in the budget-bought a Mercedes instead! :lol:

...I am curious tho...what is the payback time of a system that costs 70 grand??
...im no stranger to wealthy customers....and know some ppl don't really care about cost(few and far between).


 
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SMITTY
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Post by SMITTY » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:40 am

No payback - that setup is for people who can afford not to have any. :roll: The things I could do with that much cash .... :shock:

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:49 am

i first thought of the feed system using a dust collector system a couple years ago when I saw Coalkirks leaf blower set up getting coal to his indoor storage bin. Then Wiz came up with the shop vac coal sucker with his inside bin and I plagiarized from there. he has a 'turbo' unit with two shop vacs! last year I used the shop vac pulling coal from 5 gallon buckets in the basement holding the feed tube by hand as proof of concept. this year I have a bin outside that holds close to two tons. it works pretty well so far, but I worry about the coal freezing in very cold weather since rice coal holds moisture.

don't know how well the eye would work with the coal dust in the barrel, some testing and tuning would be needed. I am happy with the current level of 'automation'. so far I have reached my goal of not carrying any bags or buckets of coal.....loader at coal supplier onto trailer, tractor loader from trailer to coal bin, coal vac from coal bin to barrel and gravity from barrel to hopper! I have to manually empty the ashes so that is when I will turn on the shop vac. it stops pulling coal in if the barrel fills up too far.

I envy your 2x6 walls and I believe it plays a big factor in your place holding heat so well. IMO it is a huge improvement over 2x4 wrt insulation value. I rehabbed a house a couple years ago that had 2x6 walls and after we insulated and put in the upgraded windows I was able to use torch heater on a 20 gallon propane tank to heat it while I was doing the drywall and other interior work. I used an oil filled electric rad over night and it kept temps from falling too far. this was a house at the south jersey shore thru the winter months where the wind was always howling. if I was to build new construction I would either spec a dual 2 x 4 wall that had offset studs to give extra insulation & avoid thermal bridging or I would have a normal 2x4 wall with 2 x 2 strapping running horizontal to allow extra insulation & minimize thermal bridging. in our area 2 x 4 is plenty, further north 2 x 6 would probably prove to be cost effective.

 
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SMITTY
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Post by SMITTY » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:52 am

How do you get the vac to work while being able to get the coal out of the vac? If the bottom were open on a shop vac, you'd have no suction ... :gee:

 
Rigar
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Post by Rigar » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:53 am

SMITTY wrote:No payback - that setup is for people who can afford not to have any. :roll: The things I could do with that much cash .... :shock:
....like Dcrane !....and those asian massages he brags about !!

 
imcloud1
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Post by imcloud1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 9:55 am

Rigar wrote:...ur front parlor sounds almost identical to our 'great room'...but I will admit the ceilings are only 16 feet high...
approx 550 square feet and windows out the yahzoo!
...i feel your pane (pun intended) :lol:

...i cant help but think there is something slightly wrong with ur data on ur 6 day test.
are you saying your system fired 700 minutes( over 3 days) with no setbacks MORE than it did with 15 degree set backs??....thats on average almost 4 hrs a day more runtime??
with your setback data that would bring your house from 55 all the way back to 70. over 5 times...?
...your doors open?? :lol:
...my house is old (but completely remodeled)...no boiler (wasnt in the budget-bought a Mercedes instead! :lol:

...I am curious tho...what is the payback time of a system that costs 70 grand??
...im no stranger to wealthy customers....and know some ppl don't really care about cost(few and far between).
Sorry that is 700 minutes per week, still substantial when you factor in $3.77 per gallon of lp...

As far as the return on a $70k heating system..

For example a $92,000 system I installed in a 9800 sq foot new construction 2 years ago, which was radiant heat {supply temps average 94 degrees}, geothermal water to water/ water to air system with solar feed {essentially electric heat}. And when comparing this system to a normal efficiency natural draft boiler {oil fired} at the price of oil at the time, they would profit after a 30 year mortgage {even after paying interest}. Especially since the geo systems when done correctly need very little upkeep...

so rigar you have no boiler at all, just coal? what part of the country do you live in? I have a customer that runs 2 reading lehighs {one in the master bedroom and one in the main living area} and he only has them for heat, that is it, his house is very old, and I believe it is around 3000 sq feet... He uses an electric water heater, he already had one coal stove when his boiler {7 section weil mclain oil fired, lol} failed so instead of replacing the boiler he just added another coal stove... He uses a couple ton a year, but I don't think I could sleep with the power venter and the coal stove fan going all night, it is literally 5 feet from his bed... The oil was costing him $5000 a year to heat the home and he said it was always cold, now it costs less and its warm... It would never work for me, I leave for a couple months in the winter once and a while, so the house has to be automatic...
Last edited by imcloud1 on Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 10:01 am

SMITTY wrote:How do you get the vac to work while being able to get the coal out of the vac? If the bottom were open on a shop vac, you'd have no suction ... :gee:
the coal doesn't go into the vac, it drops into the barrel while the coal dust goes into the vac and is trapped by the filter bags usually used for drywall dust. works like a solids separator on a dust collection system.

don't want to hijack thread...here is a link to a thread on it.....
Another Coal Sucker...

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 10:05 am

imcloud1 wrote:when you factor in $3.77 per gallon of lp
that there is some pricey lp!!! our area it is less than $2 / gal if you own your 1000 gal tank and can shop around. the suppliers really gouge you on price when you lease your tank from them.

 
imcloud1
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Post by imcloud1 » Mon. Nov. 04, 2013 10:12 am

nope that is my own 500 gallon in ground tank!!!! Problem is we are in the woods and there are not many companies that deliver here, my last delivery was in the middle of the winter last year... I have a customer paying over $5.00 {leases the tank and only uses it for hot water so doesn't use much}... The cheapest I ever found it was $2.20 and I wish I had a 1000 gallon tank at that time, I should have installed a larger tank or multiples, but I didn't for some reason. My dhw is lp, my generators run on lp, my stove, 1 boiler, and my gas inserts.... One of the things I would change if I had to do it again, now I have sprinkers and it would be a nightmare to add it now, wouldn't matter much...

I pay more for coal too, $350 a ton delivered and I have to buy at least 2 ton at a time.... I have friends in pa that pay almost half of that...


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