My Industrial Cabin Build

[747driver]

Great to see Aye working and herding the goats in her young life. Seems as though she is a natural !

 

[EddieWalker]

How does the new dog get along with the other one? Do they both hang out with the goats?

 

[WoodChuckDad]

When I built this house I planned three heat systems. We have 3,000 feet of pex tubing in the slab and a Rheem Combi Boiler. We have the MR Cool Minisplits. And we have a Jotul Rangeley wood stove. I installed the pex tubing in three zones. Basicly zone 1 is the 3 bedroom far side of the house. it's actually Lauren's room, lauren's office and Jefanna's office. Zone 2 is the main room (living room, kitchen, dining area). Zone 3 is the master bedroom side of the house. Mechanical room is located in the master bedroom side of the house. And Lauren's room is on the opposite corner of the house. Even with the 9k btu mini split she feels cold. Her door stays shut all the time, because she has two rabbits in there and the condenser is mounted about 9feet up the wall (room has 13.5 foot ceilings. the other two rooms over there (the two offices) have 8 foot ceilings and are toasty warm with the mini splits.
I finally gave in and tried to fire up the CH system of the boiler. I only have the zone 1 connected to the system.
My first issue was I bought a fancy smart thermostat with wireless remote sensor....I could never figure out how to properly wire it to the boiler. so I abandoned that and got a dumb thermostat that looks like an old style dial type. I still could never get the boiler to fire for CH. DHW has worked fine for us since around April. I did troubleshooting on it checking and rechecking the way I had it wired in. The concept is simple the thermostat has two wires that connect to the T-T block on the circuit board. 4.6 volts thru that block. When the tempiurature drops below your setting the circuit is connected, and the system is supposed to start heating. I turned it all the way up and nothing ever happened. So finally I got frustrated and last night around 10 I disconnected the thermostat and jumped the T-T heat input block and it fired up immediately. I left it jumped and ran it all night just to see how long it took the floor to warm up. Woke up this morning and it was 79 degrees in Lauren's room. I turned it off at 7:30 and her office was 81 degrees. So I know it works , I just need to figure out how to regulate it properly so the floor stays around 70 and if they need to they can augment with the mini splits over there. Right now the house feels icky hot. my work area in the main room is 77 degrees......those 4 lines in zone 1 cross thru the main room so it has heated the slab up in some spots in here as well.....much of the slab area in main room was already warm from me running wood stove all day yesterday. I am definitely not putting a fire in the stove this morning. I guess this is success. I just need to learn to control it.

 

[airbiscuit]

So, does that mean you still haven't figured out the thermostat? When it does work, how wide do you expect the room temperature swing to be?

 

[Gator6x4]

When I built this house I planned three heat systems. We have 3,000 feet of pex tubing in the slab and a Rheem Combi Boiler. We have the MR Cool Minisplits. And we have a Jotul Rangeley wood stove. I installed the pex tubing in three zones. Basicly zone 1 is the 3 bedroom far side of the house. it's actually Lauren's room, lauren's office and Jefanna's office. Zone 2 is the main room (living room, kitchen, dining area). Zone 3 is the master bedroom side of the house. Mechanical room is located in the master bedroom side of the house. And Lauren's room is on the opposite corner of the house. Even with the 9k btu mini split she feels cold. Her door stays shut all the time, because she has two rabbits in there and the condenser is mounted about 9feet up the wall (room has 13.5 foot ceilings. the other two rooms over there (the two offices) have 8 foot ceilings and are toasty warm with the mini splits.
I finally gave in and tried to fire up the CH system of the boiler. I only have the zone 1 connected to the system.
My first issue was I bought a fancy smart thermostat with wireless remote sensor....I could never figure out how to properly wire it to the boiler. so I abandoned that and got a dumb thermostat that looks like an old style dial type. I still could never get the boiler to fire for CH. DHW has worked fine for us since around April. I did troubleshooting on it checking and rechecking the way I had it wired in. The concept is simple the thermostat has two wires that connect to the T-T block on the circuit board. 4.6 volts thru that block. When the tempiurature drops below your setting the circuit is connected, and the system is supposed to start heating. I turned it all the way up and nothing ever happened. So finally I got frustrated and last night around 10 I disconnected the thermostat and jumped the T-T heat input block and it fired up immediately. I left it jumped and ran it all night just to see how long it took the floor to warm up. Woke up this morning and it was 79 degrees in Lauren's room. I turned it off at 7:30 and her office was 81 degrees. So I know it works , I just need to figure out how to regulate it properly so the floor stays around 70 and if they need to they can augment with the mini splits over there. Right now the house feels icky hot. my work area in the main room is 77 degrees......those 4 lines in zone 1 cross thru the main room so it has heated the slab up in some spots in here as well.....much of the slab area in main room was already warm from me running wood stove all day yesterday. I am definitely not putting a fire in the stove this morning. I guess this is success. I just need to learn to control it.

I would not be straight wiring the furnace. You might damage the furnace and burn the house down. I would call in a tech to look at the thermostat hook up. something is wrong. The furnace needs to cycle on/off to keep it from damaging the heat exchanger when heating.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Correct. I have not figured out the thermostat. I think the one I was using was defective. It never

Closed the circuit.

The first one I bought was a smart thermostat with a c wire connector and I couldn’t figure that one out for the boiler connection. I plan to get a functioning thermostat first then figure a more sophisticated solution down the road

 

[EddieWalker]

You need to reach out to Sigarms and ask him for advice. He was very helpful when I had an issue with my thermostat a few years ago. Some thermostats are better then others!!!!

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I would not be straight wiring the furnace. You might damage the furnace and burn the house down. I would call in a tech to look at the thermostat hook up. something is wrong. The furnace needs to cycle on/off to keep it from damaging the heat exchanger when heating.

It cycled on and off. Probably a safety feature built in. It would run for 15 minutes then Cycle off for 5-10 minutes. I’m gonna find another thermostat to put on it. What I did was jump the two ends of the wire to the heat demand (T-T)The issue there is a thermostat. I’m not planning on using it like that. It was more a proof of concept that everything else is correct and to get an idea of how quick the temp swings are.

 

[Gator6x4]

I don't know that much about the floor radiant heat. A neighbor has it and he advised each room has it's own T-Stat. Each room has it's own circulation pump. The master control board where all the connections are made he advised looks like an electricians nightmare.

He advised it is nice heat if you leave it set on a temperature that is comfortable day and night. He advised it is not a turn the t-stat down to 61 at night an back to 72 in the morning does not work well because the lag time of restoring the room to 72 degrees is fairly lengthily.

 

[murphy1244]

Each room has it's own circulation pump?? Gator you sure about that?