Boilers - Home Heating Steam and Hot Water Systems - Efficency

Hi,
Why do i have a high and low setting on my peerless boiler's aquastat if i have a seperate hot water heater? can i just set it to the high setting and turn off the low setting. (if i did that would the boiler just go on when there is a call for heat? and when would it shut off?)

I also noticed that when the thermastat calls for heat the ciculator will turn on and the boiler temp will start to drop, when it reaches its low setting the boiler will fire up but the circulator will still run I thought it would shut off until the boiler reaches temp and then kick back on. Am i wrong?


Also would it be better if i installed a outdoor reset instead of keeping the water temp always at 180deg which is where it is set at right now. When the temp outside is in the 30's do i really need to keep the boiler temp at 180deg?

Have you ever heard of setting up an outdoor reset with a variable speed circulator


Thanks

Thank you

I will start at the last question & work backward. With an outdoor reset, one usually uses constant circulation, at least so with infloor radiant. For other than radiant, there is not a big advantage to outdoor reset. On baseboard, you are not going to get any significant amout of heat below about 150-160º water temp.
The circ should drop out if the boiler gets below the low limit setting. What aquastat do you have?

Hi Grady,
I have the 8124 (Honeywell)
I forgot to mention that i have baseboard fin
thanks

The 8124 can be easily modified by cutting a wire to make the boiler cold start. I do not suggest any pin boiler, such as your Peerless, be set up as a cold start system. You could turn down the settings somewhat. The low could be set for 130 - 140º & the high for 160 -170º. If you find you don't get enough heat, it is easy enough to turn them back up.

Grady, Peerless saids that the boiler came as a cold start with the L8148A
but the installers threw the 8124 on because the L8148A was defective.

By the way which wire would i have to cut in order to change to cold start?
(does it really save on oil) if i should decide

Thanks for all your help Grady I am sure i will be posting soon again. :)

L8148's work fine in the lab but in the real world, they tend to cause boilers to get dirty a whole lot faster. I don't remember exactly which wire but I think it is a blue one.