About 4:00 we thought we heard a car door but when looking out no one. About 6:00 when I went to check the OWB the door was open 2" and steam pouring out the fill, I guess it blew the door latch. I closed the door and looked in the back at the controls and they are partly melted, and some of the insulation around there is melted but the area there was too hot for further looking so I killed the power and put a bucket on the stack. It's to snow heavy tomorrow so it'll be a few days till I really get to check it out. Oil furnace for now. :(
That is not good. Your signature line says Portage and Main? I looked at them too.
Fill it with water ASAP to protect it from warping. There's a good chance it melted the controls and wiring but that's all fixable.
Thats no good, i would think you could save it. A lot would depend on how long it was out of water and how hot it got.
I'm getting ready to order this so i can monitor and also set it up to alert me (by cell phone) if temperature gets too high. If i place this in the house, it should hopefully be able to get an accurate reading on water temp if it is getting to high? Plus i can always pull it up to see where its at anytime. I think it would be money well spent on such a large long term investment as a OWB,
Here it is, wifi thermometer that has app for phone
FireBoard Labs (https://www.fireboard.com/)
I looked a little more now that it cooled down and one of the plastic pipes that feeds into the outbuilding/mancave melted so I can't try to fill and check yet. We are in a snowstorm so just need to wait awhile before I know how bad it is. If the firebox/boiler survived it will be salvable.
Some are tougher than others. I once burned a firebox half full of bark and debris in the summer forgetting that I had the tank mostly drained for repair. I melted the thermostat and a foot of the upper pex hose off the back. Replaced that, filled it and I was good to go but that furnace was an old style non gasser.
Now that I'm done moving this snow I pulled all the insulation off the back and around the pipe fittings. Only one pex pipe melted but the others feel loose in the Shark Bite fittings so early this week a plumber friend is to stop and cap everything so we can do a low pressure (10 psi) air test for leaks rather than putting 100 gal of water in it. If no leaks than I'll get a new controller and replumb. I'll update after the test.
Hope it's not dead only wounded.
mine has boiled plenty mostly when I'm gone and wifey puts too much wood in but never run out of h2o
Personally I wouldn't pressurize over 5 psi on a tank that isn't designed for pressure. Hope you get it running.
I will second the warning about pressure. I built my first one out of used material and scared myself with a bad popping noise and bowed everything out using 5 to 10 psi. I think I ended up using about 2 psi after to test welds but I don't have a clear memory about it. I do remember that I went to a fair bit of trouble to get the smokestack square and after the air test it wasnt.
5 - 10 psi doesn't sound like much until you multiply it by the surface area of the entire inside of the water jacket.
Then you're talking about 10's of thousands of pounds of force.
Get an accurate regulator, stick to 2 psi max and use soapy water, leaks will readily show up.
Condition upgraded to wounded! Following advice from several on here we tested today at 2-3 PSI and couldn't find any leaks so now it's replumb the pex lines, get a new controller and hope that's it. I'll run it for awhile on just water before changing to an antifreeze mixture.
Good to hear! 👍
Quote from: gspren on March 28, 2018, 02:52:16 PM
Condition upgraded to wounded! Following advice from several on here we tested today at 2-3 PSI and couldn't find any leaks so now it's replumb the pex lines, get a new controller and hope that's it. I'll run it for awhile on just water before changing to an antifreeze mixture.
How are things going now? Did ya get 'er up and running again?
Quote from: mitchstockdale on April 04, 2018, 11:31:11 AM
How are things going now? Did ya get 'er up and running again?
The plumber is going to replace the melted Pex this week and I'll check it out again next week. Right now we are at our Delaware house for R&R.
For the price of the plumber just knocking on your door, you could have purchased the pipe, crimping tool and clamps.....and some cold beers too.
Quote from: DelawhereJoe on April 05, 2018, 08:59:41 AM
For the price of the plumber just knocking on your door, you could have purchased the pipe, crimping tool and clamps.....and some cold beers too.
The plumber and I are friends and he lives within one mile. If I need a fitting it's 20+ miles to get.