Oil burner gun question

JOB

Member
I use a wood boiler that is piped together with an
oil boiler to heat my house. Both units are inside
my house side by side. I want to re-plumb and re-
wire the two boilers. I feel I have the plumbing
figured out, might have an extra valve or two.
It's the electrical that I have a question with.

If there is anyone who is willing to share their
burner gun skills and knowledge here is the explanation of what I want to do and the question.
I want to use the controls on the oil boiler to
run the zone valves and the one circulating pump
for the entire system. I want the option of having
the gun fire to keep the house warm when the wood
burns out or just let the house cool down some and
I get a fire going in the morning and get the
house back up to temperature. To prevent the gun
from firing when I don't want it to I have drawn a
switch between the boiler controls and the burner
gun.

The question. Will the controls that supply
power to the circulating pump and zone valves
still work? My thoughts are the cad cell that is
down in the flame area will not see a flame and
after the 10 second or so time period shut power
off to the whole system. The cad cell wires attach
to the F F terminals in the control box. My
thought is to wire up a switch between the F F
terminals and close the switch when I fire with
wood or leave the switch open when I just want to
fire with the oil. Will my wiring idea work? Or is
this post as clear as mud. Or is there a better
way to wire this up?
 
Need a little more information. Do you have seperate thermostats for each zone? Are you using the same circulator pump for each boiler?
The way I see this system operating is: On a call for heat a zone thermostat turns opens a zone valve and turns on the circulator pump. A drop in water temp in the boiler causes the aquastat to turn the burner on and raise the water temp in the system.
You do not want to break the FF terminals as this will cause the burner control to trip out and have to be reset each time you want to run the oil burner. You can break the TT terminals and the burner will not run.
You can get a 2 stage thermostat and let the wood boiler be the first stage of heat and the oil boiler be 2nd stage heat. Wood boiler will heat until fire goes out and a drop in temp in house will turn on oil boiler.
 
Yes there are separate thermostats for each zone. and yes there is one circulating pump for the entire system. The way I have it plumbed now there are two pumps and that system does not work like it should. That's why I would like to re-plumb and re-wire it.

I forgot or did not think about the aquastat being the high and low limit in turning the burner off and on.

"You can break the TT terminals and the burner will not run". I am not sure I understand what you said about breaking the TT terminals. Maybe I should control the power to the high and low limit aquastat to prevent the burner from firing.

So if I go away I can turn the power on the high and low limit aquastat. And if I am home have the power off and if I forget to stoke the fire the gun will not fire and I can build another fire to get the house back to temperature. And for get about my dumb idea of messing with the TT terminals.
 
Don't know the type of burner control you have on your oil burner but a Honeywell 8184G is very common. The two F terminals go to the cad cell as you know but the two T terminals are the 24 volts that control the burner relay. By putting a switch on one wire going to the T terminals the burner will not operate when the switch is open.
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The control I have is a R8182E, the control is built around the aquastat. I can see where there is two wires going to the aquastat. If a switch is put on one of the TT terminals will the circulating pump work and the zone valve open?
 
After looking at a electrical diagram for the R8182E if one of the T wires is broken the pump will not operate with the zone controllers. Looks as if you open the burner high limit switch the pump will operate and the burner will not. Also you can break the wire on terminal B1 going to the burner (120volts) and the burner will not operate but the pump will run. You would not have to switch any other wires.
 
If I understand this correctly I can put a switch between the controls and the gun on the B1 terminal and not have to do anything to the cad cell. Or I can put a switch on one of the wires leaving the aquastat. Would that be on the R terminal or the B terminal? Those are the only two terminals that I have access to.
 
Put your switch on B1 wire going to burner. Thermostat will energize 1K relay and bring pump on through 1K1 relay contact. Cad cell safety may time out and drop out 2K relay after not seeing a flame but the burner will not operate. Will have to reset R8182E when you want the oil burner to operate. Do nothing with R terminal, or TT or FF terminals.
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a95364.jpg
 
I probably have what you posted above, but I do not understand electrical drawings at all. I was hoping to wire this without having the re-set, trip, but maybe that is not possible with the controls I have. I have been wanting to re-plumb and re-wire this for a couple of years but the electrical has been holding me up. Thanks for typing this slow so I could understand what you were saying.

Somewhere I was told I could put a DPST relay in the system but it was not explained how it would work so I did not per sue it. That DPST could be a Honeywell R845A. I do not know what DPST stands for. I should Google that Honeywell number and see if I can make heads or tails out of it. Thanks for the time you spent helping me out.
 
Add a thermostat to the TT circuit on the oil burner relay, set it where you want the minimum temperature of the house to be. When the wood fire dies the house will drop temperature until it reaches where this thermostat is set then fire the oil burner and the oil burner will hold that temp in the house until you relight the fire.

If you do not get domestic hot water from the oil burner set the low limit on the aquastat down to 120-130, this will allow the cirulator to start pushing heat sooner when the wood fire is coming up. Do not change the high limit as this should be the design temperature for the system to keep your house warm on the coldest days.

With this simple set up it will also allow the oil to fire when the weather is really cold and the wood fire cannot keep up with keeping the house warm.

I set the 2nd thermostat on my system about 4 degrees lower than the main thermostat.
 

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