Rob R. wrote:The amount of water stored in the boiler has little effect on steady state operation. Thermal storage takes out the temperature swings when large loads come and go, like a large flywheel...but you still need enough power to get the flywheel back up to speed. Imagine trying to heat your house with a 120 gallon electric water heater.
Well, there are maddening gaps in the narrative, if you know what I mean.
Water is definitely circulating. I can hear and feel it running through the pipes. The return water is less hot than the water coming from the circulator.
He says the supply is almost too hot to touch, so what is the return? 120? 130? He says the water is circulating, but won't say if it's continuous or whether the boiler is being limit high shutoff.
My guess, fwiw, is that he's running continuously, and that the radiation/btuh can't keep up with the heat loss of the dwelling. I'm insulated and I'm running about 47kbtuh loss at these temps, if he's uninsulated even with a smaller dwelling he could be easily seeing 70-80k per hour.
In fact, running the heat loss calc for a leaky house yeilds ~71kbtuh at 0deg f. It would be nice to know if in fact the circulators are running constantly, what the outside temp is, whether the boiler is hitting the high limit.....
Cause if the boiler is hitting the high limit, the suggestion to turn up the boiler temp is the only one that will increase heat to his dwelling. Unless he makes a run to Home Depot and picks up a few rolls of fiberglass insulation for the attic.