Indoor wood boiler

Pierre

We just started our Benjamin 110 wood boiler in our new house work fine at first but then I got really cold outside. -30 Celsius this week my wood boiler can’t can’t bring the system up without the help of the propane backup. My house is 4000 square feet timber frame. I have a 1000 square feet dumping zone in the garage. Also heats my domestic hot water. I’m thinking the heating company installed the wrong size boiler for my house and can’t get me enough btu.

Jamie Hall

The only way to know the answer to that one is for you to do a complete heat loss calculation on the house and compare it to the rating of the boiler. That, at least, will tell you if the boiler -- under optimum conditions -- can handle the load. Then there are questions regarding the kind of wood being used and a host of others. But that would at least get it started.

hot_rod

Only way to know for sure would be a load calc on the home and a known, actual, output of the boiler. Was it intended to heat the home without help from a backup?

Wood type and moisture content comes into play also. Dry hardwood, under 20% is your best shot at optimum output. Wet, soft and or green wood may drop you into the 30% efficiencies. So a 110 output boiler becomes an actual 30

Pierre

Don’t think wood is the issue heating with dry iron wood. This boiler puts out 89000btu according to some very complicated calculations from some sites on the net I need minimum 110000btu for the size of my house. I know there’s alout more factors to calculate but that’s way above my understanding.

Pierre

They set my dump zone at 145 and my hot water tank at 125 if that gives you more info

Pierre

This boiler was the main heat source for my house propane is a backup only.

Pierre

House is slab on grade

Pierre

Pls help

Jamie Hall

Be happy to -- but we need more information. Specifically, heat loss calculation for the building. Without that -- can't say much.

GroundUp

Does the boiler just run forever and never catch up or does it cycle normally and your piping can't deliver the heat fast enough? I have a hard time believing your house takes over 110k per hour at only 4000 sq ft, but without a heat loss calculation it's impossible to know

Zman

Your problem may not be the boiler at all. What type of emitters do you have?
We would need much more info and some pictures of the boiler piping to give a solid answer.

Robert_25

Slab on grade - do you have radiant heat in the concrete? If the installer did not do a good job insulating under the slab, that will make a huge difference in the load.

cutter

I use a 140,000 btu Buderus to heat 2380 square feet, it is hard to maintain 170* or 180* degree water to get the btu's needed to get steady heat to heat a house with wood. After the house cools down after the fire goes out over night I get a one or two degree increase in house temperature per hour depending on outside temperature. I feel you could use a little larger boiler. And as Zman said some pictures would help.