First Fire in MARK III With New Coils - THEY WORK!!

What you did is exactly what I want to do with my Mark II. Can you give a quick rundown of your plumbing from start to finish?

I was thinking of setting up a temp sensor that would turn on my baseboard circulator if the stove coil water got above a certain temp (210 or whatever) to dump excess heat into the house and eliminate possible overheating.

Now I know where to get the coils. Thanks!

SMITTY wrote:Yep, you got it!

I just let it heat up the boiler until any zones call for heat, including the indirect-fired boiler (which is basically a DHW storage tank heated with an internal coil, which is my 4th zone).

How many gallons of water does your indirect-fired boiler hold? I'm just curious as to what a DHW storage tank would be equal to in your set up with two coils heating the water to those high temps?

medtech wrote: Can you give a quick rundown of your plumbing from start to finish?

What I did was put a T on the boiler drain & ran pipe to a ball-valve shutoff, then to a circulator, then up & into the 2 coils in series in the stove, from there up & into the boiler supply for all zones (which is backwards from normal flow). I opened the thumbscrew on top of the flowchek to allow flow in both directions (when no zones are calling for heat, it flows backwards into the top of the boiler, then the colder water flows out the bottom of the boiler & back into the stove -- as soon as there is a call for heat & a zone valve opens (or circulator kicks on for DHW) , the hot water reverses direction & supplies the zone ( from both the boiler & the coils mixing).

It will help if you look at my pics from the links posted in this thread. It's really very simple -- this way, there is no need for any safety devices because the boiler already has them. Your just adding a "reverse zone", if you will.

Adam,
The indirect tank is a 41 gallon & the boiler itself, I roughly estimate 15 gallons, judging from the 5 minutes it took to refill at an average water flow of about 3gpm (well expansion tank pressure makes the flow go up & down from 2.8 gpm [just before the well pump kicks on] to 3.2 [when it kicks off] -- I get those #'s from the computer on the water softener )

I understand what your saying, thanks.

What happens if the circulator for your baseboard heat zone turns on and the coal stove can't keep up so the boiler kicks in. What will cause the water to flow thru the boiler instead of the coal coil? I guess the coal circulator could kick off if the coil temp drops too low allowing the boiler to heat the water.

Also, what makes the water flow thru both the boiler and the coil when a zone is turned on?

SMITTY wrote:
Adam,
The indirect tank is a 41 gallon & the boiler itself, I roughly estimate 15 gallons, judging from the 5 minutes it took to refill at an average water flow of about 3gpm (well expansion tank pressure makes the flow go up & down from 2.8 gpm [just before the well pump kicks on] to 3.2 [when it kicks off] -- I get those #'s from the computer on the water softener )

Let me see if I understand this correctly. The indirect tank is 41 gallons and the boiler itself is 15 gallons for a total of about 56 gallons being heated to 240 plus degrees from your two coils in your stove?

medtech wrote:What happens if the circulator for your baseboard heat zone turns on and the coal stove can't keep up so the boiler kicks in. What will cause the water to flow thru the boiler instead of the coal coil? I guess the coal circulator could kick off if the coil temp drops too low allowing the boiler to heat the water.

Also, what makes the water flow thru both the boiler and the coil when a zone is turned on?

The boiler is full of water, pretty much like a tank -- just shaped differently. Anything attached to the boiler that carries water goes in a loop -- out one side & back in the other, completely independent of each other, but sharing all that water in the boiler.

The circulator for the coal coils just forces some of that water to go thru the coils, & back into the top of the boiler when nothing else is running. When a zone calls for heat, a zone valve opens & the boiler circulator kicks on, which forces some of the water thru the return (circulator is on the return line, so that forces the water that came out of the coil backwards & into that zone supply --- return on the bottom front, supply on top front of boiler) which forces water thru the zone, which pushes any water coming out of the coils with it.

So basically the boilers circulator is what forces the change in direction of the coil water, due to the way I have this plumbed.

If the coils can't keep up, I turn off a zone until the temp builds back up -- I shut off the oil to the boiler & let it run out of oil, which will trip the safety shutoff & pop the red button up. When I planned to shut down the stove today, I just pressed the red button & unplugged the circulator for the coils & just let it circulate by convection until the coal goes out. When the boiler temp drops, now the boiler will kick on. As soon as I got home today, I shut the ball valve off for the coils, which stops all movement of water thru that circuit.

Adam,
You are correct again! Actually, the boiler is the only unit hitting 249* -- the indirect tank's computer shuts off it's circulator when it's temp hits 128* -- and with 240* water flowing thru the internal coil in the tank, it over shoots that temp to 134*.

That's pretty amazing, the amount of heat they put out. I'll bet when it gets real cold out, the coils won't be able to hit those temps with any zones running -- especially the 2nd floor zone. That's where all the bad insulation & air leaks are. I may leave the oil on in that case, which will still save MANY gallons of oil compared to running the boiler solo.

Thanks Smitty

If you are going to be burning some oil, then you might want to check out this place http://www.massenergy.com. I signed up with them for a 3 year membership for $45.00. The local oil place they assigned to me is .84 less per gallon then the place we normally use for oil. Yesterdays oil price per gallon went up from 3.012 to 3.051, while our local place was 3.89 a gallon. I have not called and set up an account with them yet (it's on my list) but just one order of 150 gallons puts us on the plus side after deducting for the new membership.

Wood'nCoal wrote:Watch those old timbers above that pipe...Don't want any spontaneous combustion from that runaway Harman you have there!

That meltdown was from the water in the pipes being almost 250* !!

The top of the stove is over 36" away from anything above it.