Ottertail Country

Ottertail Country
Ottertail South

September 7, 2008

Oh, happy day.......

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Saturday saw a trip to Marshfield Menards to get the proper fittings for attaching PEX plastic tubing to the furnace plumbing. Also got the remainder of the fittings that I needed and a new faucet for the bathroom and a shower control for that leaker we have now.... more plumbing work, just what I wanted. We had a rain shower Saturday which produced a first rate, double rainbow. They don't photograph well, so I did a couple of zoom shots, you get the idea of how bright it was. After the Marshfield run came a trip to Prentice Hardware for a pump, some spiral conduit and a couple more PEX fittings. Then I finished the prep work for the copper pipe soldering that was going to take place Sunday.




At 7:45 Sunday morning a knock on the door heralded the arrival of Ken Parpart. If you recall, this is the same guy that just put in the electric panel. That took ten and a half months to happen, the soldering I asked about on Wednesday, done on Sunday!!! Ken must like soldering better than putting in panels...... but I kid the Parpart.... We spent about 3 hours getting the pipes, fittings and valves all cleaned, fluxed and soldered. Any leaks? No comment. We pressure tested with air one last time, no leaks, Ken left. As he left, he commented that cold water is smaller than air, really hot water is bigger than air, good luck. I called Booghost and inquired about the proper way to fill system and get the air out. We discussed a few options and then I went about hooking a hose from the laundry spigot to the bottom of the boiler. Ran a bunch of water in there until it started coming out the drain cock just above the boiler. So I closed down all the drains except for the one at the return end of the main floor heat loop. Then I started feeding water into the boiler at full pressure and let the air get pushed out the drain. Drat, water dripping onto the top of the furnace! A dreaded leak!! Quick, drain the boiler til the water is below that point!!! Bummer... I almost quit and went upstairs, instead I looked at how to fix the leak. It was, of course, just above a check valve that wanted to hold the water in the pipe. At last the water dropped enough and I was able to re-heat the joint, add some solder and it held.




Ok, back to filling. I closed down all the drains except for the one at the return end of the main floor heat loop. Then I started feeding water into the boiler at full pressure and let the air get pushed out the drain. I hooked a hose to the drain cock so I could collect the effluent in a 5 gallon bucket. After much spitting, gurgling the water ran pretty much free of air pockets, so I closed the drain and the infeed line. I repeated this on the line the feeds the kitchen heat exchanger by the chimney, and then I did the final drain of air at the drain cock just above the boiler. During this process I had allowed about 10PSI pressure to build in the system. Now it was time to test some of the components, so I disconnected the wires that went to the actual burner unit. I turned up the thermostat upstairs, tripped the furnace breaker on and listened to the furnace pump start and the zone valve open. So far, so good. I turned off the furnace, reconnected the burner and turned the breaker back on. Then I hit the reset on the burner and "Fire in the hole!!!" We had ignition and the boiler gradually built up to 190° and the burner kicked off. The pump and zone valve were still powered on because the thermostat was still calling for heat. After a while the burner started again and re-established max temp. So I went and turned down the thermostat and the pump and zone valve powered off. I was done!! I cleaned up the furnace room a little and then wondered, "What do I need to do now?". I realized that there was nothing more I "had" to do today and I'm now feeling completely drained, emotionally and physically. I have been anticipating this day with both impatience and dread. This is all new territory for me, and now it's finally working. Lucy, you will be warm when you visit, even if the wood furnace is not hooked up yet. Now I need to find out why it's not here yet. But first I'm going to sit and stare for a day or two............

I gotta go veg, Carlo
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6 comments:

yram said...

beautiful rainbow!

Anonymous said...

Good job.
Good luck with the wood boiler.
Boo

Anonymous said...

Gene, Don't know how you know so much?? What a big job. The rainbow picture is magnificent. Loved all the pictures you took on you plane trip,.

Lucy

Anonymous said...

Glad you understand everything you wrote about that mechanical stuff!! Beautiful rainbow!

Kristi

Carlo said...

Well, once I decided to do this project, it was obvious that I could (would) not pay someone to come here and do the work. Therefore I needed to acquire the necessary information to do it myself. I looked at a lot of websites dealing with this junk, I talked to Boo on the phone a few times and consulted with a couple of other people that have these stoves. Each new phase was started with "What the heck???", then the research until it seemed do-able... repeat until done.

Carlo said...

Kristi, it sounds like Kent and Liz may be coming up the last weekend in September. I may as well wait until then to do the water heater portion of this thing if Kent is willing to help. Maybe we can fire up the grill that weekend.....

The boiler is supposed to ship to Haynes on Sept. 18, so I hope it doesn't rain too much before then. We need to get a truck through the field here to unload the boiler. We really need the rain, though....