Outdoor wood boilers/furnances

[Diamondpilot]

A rick or face cord is about 1/3 of a full cord, so 25-30 ricks or face cords would be 8.5-10 full cords. That does not seem so bad to heat a 2500-2800 sq ft home.

I myself have a Central Boiler and I thoroughly enjoy it. I own 343 acres of mostly woods so there is no issue obtaining my wood. Also enjoy putting the firewood up for the season, it is exercise and therapy for me.

Do your homework, properly sized, set up, fed good wood, and operated, they are very effecient. I have had mine for 7 years now and still find it quite enjoyable, PLUS I just love not handing over money to the man for my heat!

You are right about sizing them properly. One guys is too big in my eyes but I am no expert. As for wood I am going off of you can fit 2 ricks or 1 cord in a full size long bed 1 ton heaped. They each use around 15 truck loads of wood a year. The heating season here is Mid-October to Mid-April.

As for saving money I do not see it at all. Units were about $6000 installed and set up with heat exchangers in the furnaces and radiant floor heat on the lower levels. They each cut about 1/3 to 1/2 of the wood themselves but then just run out of time and energy and end up buying it. At $120 a Cord around here for decent wood, $100 for junk, it adds up also. Plus one neighbor jacked up his back doing it and was out of work for 8 month. That plus the doctors bills he racked up even with insurance he could heat his house for 100 years with the windows open and probably just be breaking even but he still thinks he is saving money.:confused2:

My home was built in 1997 and has good windows and good insulation. I spent about $2000 a few years ago installing 2 better doors and adding 12" more of insulation to my attic. I heat my house for $1500 to $1800 per year on propane at 70 deg during the day and it drops to 65 deg at night.

I can sit in the house and watch football while I hear them out there cutting wood and stoking the fires 3 times a day. Don't get me wrong, we have a open brick fireplace and I cut about 1 to 1.5 cords of wood to burn in it for for atmosphere and a little heat for the lady.

Chris

 

[leonz]

Hello,

I know nothing about outdoor wood furnaces/boilers. I'm interested in the kind that heats water and then is pump through a heat exchanger in the existing air handler.

Anyone know of a good website that has a basic guide to these units? I know there's a lot of mom and pop shops that make them. I'm only interested in high quality professional outfits that are low polluters.

Thank you for any help!

About your inquiry regarding outdoor water stoves,


you can save money by installing a an interior wood
and coal boiler in an insulated or un insulated shed
and use the Tarm heat storage tanks.

New York State has enacted a ban on new OWB
sales of new untested units not in inventory.


The Harmon wood and coal boilers are certified and
you can simply put them in a small pole barn and store
wood and coal away from your home.

I have found that the prices for an outdoor boiler for
residential heating were more expensive installed than
installing a small shed and the Harmon 360 and the
heat storage tanks which would allow you to burn a
very small amount of wood and coal to heat very large
volume of water as you are heating water to 180 degrees
while you are burning to heat up the 1,100 gallons plus
of water.

The other issue is idling with the automatic damper shut down.

The smoke plume is very heavy at all times until the boilers automatic
damper opens up again and admits air into the fire box.

If you have neighbors close by and have good relations with them
you will be better off building a shed/garage and installing a Harmon
to heat water fot your air to water heat exchanger.

 

[BeezFun]

Hello,

I know nothing about outdoor wood furnaces/boilers.

I know one thing about them, when you live downwind from someone who has them, they stink. And they make your eyes burn. And when idiots burn green wood and even treated lumber, the black stains from whatever toxic crap is in there gets all over the roof. Before I invested money in the same technology used by Neanderthals, I'd look into insulating your house, or solar heat. I've been in ski towns in colorado in the winter when you almost couldn't go outside at night because of all the smoke from the fireplaces, it just sits in those low basins at the bottom of the mountains and makes the air unbreathable.

 

[flyingcow]

Hearth.com is a great site. But not real favorable towards OWB.

I have a Tarm installed next door in my unattached garage. stack all my wood on pallets, move with FEL. Very minimal handling. I also have a 820gal tank of water in my basement. In the middle of winter I start 1 fire a day. Takes all of 10 minutes. Boiler fires up, reheats my storage tank, the house pulls the heat back out of the tank for the next 24 hours. The boiler emits no smoke when burning, very efficient. The cost of an E-classic(EPA compliant) was about $12,000. My indoor boiler with storage was the same money.

The E-Classic salesman said 1 cord of wood = 100 gals of oil.
A modern gassifiction boiler. 1 cord of wood = 150(sometimes175) gals of oil.
I used to burn about 1000 gals of oil, i now use 6.5 cords of wood. This also figures heating my DHW in the summer.

Portage and Main makes an OWB that is a gasser. Also Econoburn has an outdoor model if you want a unit for outside.

Take your time looking, but also start getting your wood split and stacked, should be seasoned no matter what you're burning it in.

 

[hr3]

I know nothing about outdoor wood furnaces/boilers. I'm interested in the kind that heats water and then is pump through a heat exchanger in the existing air handler.

Anyone know of a good website that has a basic guide to these units? I know there's a lot of mom and pop shops that make them. I'm only interested in high quality professional outfits that are low polluters.

If you have warm air system why not stay with warm air,, I have a warm air add on wood furnace,, heats 4000 sf. about 74 all winter on 4 cord of wood,,

 

[Storm56]

I built my home in 2007. The home is 2300 sq ft with a 900 sq ft attached garage. My shop was built in 2005 and is 4400 sq ft with 14 ft ceilings. When building I used very high insulation values, blown in insulation in the walls that has an R23 value and R44 in the ceilings. I heat my home to 72 degrees, do not turn down the thermostat at night, attached garage to 65 degrees, shop to 50-55 degrees, heat my hot water and hot tub all with about 12-14 cord of wood a year. Keeps my basement warm and dry too. We do go south for about 6 weeks so it is not running then. I start it in late Sept and usually run it till mid May.

If that is not effecient, then show me what is. If I tried that with fossil fuels I am certain my bill would be well over $3,500. As stated I enjoy getting my wood supply and it saves me a gym membership too!

If OWB's are PROPERLY run and maintained, and by that I mean using properly seasoned WOOD and feeding them properly, they smoke little more than a regular wood burner. I do not burn garbage or any processed wood, CLEAN DRY WOOD ONLY. When the draft is closed on my unit there is barely a wisp coming from the stack and with good dry wood in the firebox there is not an excessive amount of smoke when the draft is open.

They are not for everyone for sure. In the proper location, set up and run properly they are no worse than a conventional burner. Certainly there are slob owners that throw everything under the sun including tires in them and give us responsible owners a bad name.

I stand by my statement that they can be very effecient and not create excessive smoke when properly used.

 

[jmanatee2]

To jmanatee2, what brand do you have and was it expensive to put in.

I have a Jensen 100,000 BTU model it takes 24" logs which is nice

 

[CentralNC]

My brother has a water stove in his shop next to the house. He heats the house (2 story - 2500 sq ft) and hot water using the stove. He also heats his shop. He fills it up 2x / day. It has a blower attached to a thermometer that stokes the fire when the temperture drops. His interior thermostat handles the air exchanger over the warm coils.

He has a Hicks water stove built in Mt. Airy. This is their website Hicks WaterStoves "Index". We were considering one for our new house, but I did not have it installed. I am hoping to find a used one for my shop.

He calculated the payback and it was about 4 yrs to break even. We grew up heating with only a wood stove, so we were used to cutting wood. I would not consider a water stove unless you know that you will be able to get a good supply of wood and don't mind cutting it yourself. I actually enjoy cutting and splitting wood on a cool Fall afternoon.

 

[moojamboo]

Outdoor wood boiler / furnaces

We have a central boiler eclassic 2400 in northern Vermont, and I love it. It is a gasification unit, it burns the wood, and then burns the smoke in a separate chamber, getting as high as 1200, 1300 degrees. At that level you are getting very high efficiency with low pollutants, when burning dry wood.

Plumbed into my baseboard heating, run from outside to my house with thermopex, and handles on domestic hot water as well when running (October through April-ish). If I chose to, I could stock the firebox up for days at a time...but as a tractor owner / wood cutter / person who enjoys the process of burning wood I choose to visit it once a day to "check in on her", see hows she doing, fiddle with the wood, be outside. Do I have to do this? No, but...I enjoy it. If I wanted, I could go 36-48 hours between fills easy in a Vermont January.

I get log length wood delivered early spring, cut it to 24 inch pieces, and have this years, and next years wood already cut, split, and stacked. 12,13 cord a year, $1500 in wood gives me 73 degrees every day, everywhere in the house...my oil bill WAS about $4500 per year to heat my house to 66 degrees. So for me I am saving $3000 a year after installation, and I enjoy using a renewable resource from Vermont to heat my house in Vermont. (Also, back of my mind worst case scenario if my wife and I loose our jobs and money becomes a serious issue I COULD clear-cut my land to keep my family warm. Can't do that with oil/propane, and where I live nat gas not an option. I can't even get cable...)

While you CAN burn green wood (and garbage, and I even heard dead chicken carcases in one instance), that is doing a disservice to the OWB and giving the rest of us OWN owners a bad name. I burn seasoned wood (stacked for at least 18 months), and when the gasification burn kicks in, all you see over the chimney is a thermal plume. Does it smoke a little more when new wood is put in, sure...but not for long, and just as much as when I put new wood in my fireplace. Are their idiots that have OWB's that use it incorrectly? Sure, but just because people speed doesn't mean you outlaw cars.

Yes it involves cutting and splitting wood, but I enjoy that, being outside, the exercise of stacking wood, using my tractor and Norse winch, chansaw...if you don't like that stuff, go buy a condo and use natural gas. Also, why are you on this forum?

Its a beast. I would never hesitate to do it again. I am sure there are lots of quality brands and options out there, but the idea of heating wood in large format to heat my house and domestic hot water works for me.

 

[aczlan]

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