Outdoor Wood Fired Boilers

[boustany]

This is a dupe of a countrybynet post. There's more traffic here, so ....

Any experiences, comments etc., about outdoor wood fired boilers? Where I go deer hunting in northwest Michigan it seems lots of folk use them for heating.

They ain't cheap (C $10,000 or so) so I want to know as much as possible before going ahead. Wood shouldn't be a problem because I've got about 30 acres of woodlot and blow downs alone should keep the fires warm.

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

Outdoor Furnace

 

[SPIKER]

there are lots of them go to any country fair and get probably 5 different manufactures info. usually get them for less than 5K around here. (old price as may be a bit more now with high steel costs?) you HAVE to add all the expensive stuff though such as "in-floor radiant heat pipes, radaitors ect." if it is already water heated those are non-issues though.

Also involved is Pumps, Pipging to and form, as well as digging hole for piping to & from it, Pad to set it on, ect.

keep in mind those items...

Mark M

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[dmp437]

Outstanding writeup >HERE< about somebody (in Ontario!) with an outdoor furnace. I had been considering one but ended up going with an inddor wood furnace and am very happy.

 

[dbelisle]

I installed one for a farmer about ten years ago.

He heats his house, barn and all the hot water for the Milk parlor with it. The unit has saved him a ton on money.

They are not trouble free though.

The boilers don't last all that long . He had to replace his after about seven years .

and the unit he has is atmospheric , so it had to be installed at the highest point in the system.

They are smokey. He only fills it once a day , but they take a lot of wood . The previous post had a good link of someone that has one.

If you have to heat a lot of hot water they do a great job, but there is tradeoffs.

 

[Henry]

I've got a Taylor Wood Stove at my place in central Pennsylvania. We have a seasonal dwelling, so I don't have experience with living with a wood stove for an entire winter season (however, several of my relatives do).

The ongoing cost of heating is definitely cheap with a good wood lot (e.g. sweat equity only). Generally, I feed it with new wood about 3 times a day....... which gives me an excuse to go outside and get some fresh air!! I usually give it a good cleaning with the chimney brushes about twice a year (it's very easy). From a technical perspective, people will tell you that wood stove are not energy efficient... However, if you don't mind the wood chopping, I think it's a great deal.

***************** Words of Warning *************

Make sure you study the prevailing winds and place your wood stove down-wind from your home!! Wood Stoves are smokey, so don't create a situation where you'll make the CEO unhappy....

**************************************************

We heat the house and heat the domestic hot water with the wood stove. It's actually two seperate plumbing systems.

For the domestic hot water, there is a copper coil that runs inside the water jacket and believe it or not, only holds about a gallon of water, but consistently turns 60 degree well water into near boiling hot water for the shower, etc!

*********** Second Word of Warning **************

Tell your guests that your hot water could scald them....

Atleast at my house the hot water is really hot!! If your've got a good well you can take a hot shower for an hour and never run short of hot water.... nice !

**********************************************

The heating system is a copper pipe loop of radiators inside the house and fed via a pump from the wood stove. I drain the wood stove in the winter and have rigged up the plumbing to allow me to easily replace the water in the radiators with pink anti-freeze to prevent freezing.

My relatives who use them year-round also love them, but also burn lots of wood. They burn 10+ cords in the winter time, so owning a wood splitter and really good chain saws are necessary.

Overall, I sort of enjoy the extra work of maintining a wood burner.... I keeps you young!

Henry