Over the past couple of days I have been having an issue with the boiler and the way I have it hooked into the house.

Here is the deal. I have two zones, zone one, the old part of the house and zone two the new part of the house. The old part is all cast iron radiators, lots of square feet, big leaking windows. The new part is really just one room. It is over a 2-1/2 car garage, new windows, actual insulation in 6" walls. This room is office space for the wife and I. The kitchen is also off this room conected by a short, wide hallway. The kitchen only has a gas fireplace on a switch as its only heat source.

When the Traeger was installed I had them hook the dump zone to the office. Here was my logic, for the most part I am in this room at least 22 hours a day, and in the winter time I don't over heat. More heat = better. Before we moved in, there were not any radiators in this room. We added some aluminum fin baseboard radiators, maybe about 25 feet of them. The installers said this should be plenty of radiator for the size room it is.

Normally this all works pretty well when the weather is stable. Rapid warm ups during the day cause us some trouble, but what causes real trouble are holidays. On holidays, such as yesterday we wanted to use more of the house than just our office, but we didn't really want to pay for heating up the whole thing. So, what we did is closed the door on the landing to the upstairs. Lite a fire in the fireplace to warm up the living room and closed the pocket doors on the dining room so it could be warmed up by heat from the ovens in the kitchen. The dining room is where the thermostat (set at 58 degrees) is.

So, I think that sets the plot. The thermostat thinks it is plenty warm. I should have just gone down and shut off the Traeger, but I didn't. Late in the afternoon I woke up from my post turkey nap on the office sofa to hear water boiling in the pipes. I went down into the basement and the Traeger was sitting at about 250 degrees. She was making quite a bit of noise and I was a little nervous to be around it. To cure the immediate problem, I kicked the thermostat up for about a minute to kick in the pumps from the main part of the house. I am sure the water in the cast iron radiators wasn't above 40 degrees, and it dropped the boiler temperature down under two hundred.

So there are a few facets to this. Number one, the radiators in the office seem insufficient, or inefficient. There is also a gas fireplace in that room, and it is a good thing too because there is no way the room can be heated from the radiators. I think the installers were totally off the mark when they told me it could. Plus, it seems like these units can't seem to put out enough heat to even keep up with an over heat situation.

It seems like I am going to have to add another dump zone somewhere else in the house. I have a garage under the kitchen as well that is minimally heated space. Maybe I could add some radiators along the ceiling of that room.

Or, does this seem workable if I just added some more radiator surface area to the office space? I hate wasting heat when I don't mind being warm.

OK -- Before we start repiping the whole thing that worked well for so many years

lets check a couple things

one -- did the pump for the dump zone actually pump?? hold your hand on the supply -- don't burn now -- carefull
then check the return - -is the return colder -- Now would be the time to invest in an early St Nick gift for yourself and get a cheep non contact thermometer. so you say you woke from napping and hear hissing from the basement -- you should have felt the flame off that radiant in the office. Ill guess it wasn't even warm.

_ Remember my sermons on system balance?

two -- I recall you took out the feed cup reducer so your on full input capacity -- combine that with burning wood pellets vs corn this season you have a rocket with no place to go -- simply idle fire was too hot for the load you gave it yesterday.
to offset this -- and this is where I am going with my timer contraption - yo NEED to get that feed reducer in until the degree day load can no longer be carried by just the two feed cups - then I might still make a hard wood shim and reduce the cup in half rather than run all three wide open -- those two weeks in late January when it too cold to run the public internet is the only time to have all three wide open.
also you can limit the over temp on mild days by simply switching the idle timer from 8 to 16 - wood pellets will do just fine on 16 especially with the multi-fuel pot in it original configuration

let me know if the Duck is in the mud on this -- and click that negative Karma button thingy once or twice-- I can't take the pressure of being a good guy!

The radiators in the office were very hot, and I could hear the boiling water bubbling around inside them.

I don't have a non-contact thermometer, and I do love to buy new toys. Might have to wait until after Christmas at this point though. I have a little side project I will post about at some point that is sucking up all available cash at the moment.

I think the cup reducer is in place. I will check tomorrow morning when the boiler is hungry. But, when it is out it usually it sits on top of the hot water heater. And, it isn't there. So, I assume it is in. ...I think I was burning a few bushel of corn this spring.

I will switch the timer to 16.

I am running the custom bottom feed pot Traeger built for me.

WOW

the strike count is 2 and 1

hummmm

ok I know you don't have an out door reset on the boiler --- did you happen to have it turned up for cold weather -- or are you only making about 150-160 water as necessary this time of year if you had it say at 180 for January work - it could have heat soaked and over run.

Still -- never trouble b4 -- Why now? what is different?

Is there no high limit switch wired into the feed auger motor? What prevents the thing from melting down if an aqua stat fails or a pump fails?

Hey Sting I keep giving you + karma what gives

That generation PB sported a rather obsolete WhiteRodgers Triple aquastat with a PRV for final safety. It did also include a feed screw burn back safty snap switch and one for flame out- but if the Minimal controls are not set to the degree day load -- yes it can get a little warm.

No need to stem the tide -- let the negative Karma roll

If it amuses the masses - its all good.

Sting wrote:


Negative for Sting. How low can you go?