Experience with outdoor woodburners?

[Corm]

Henry, I'm curious, why do you have to drain the boiler when you leave the house? If you have antifreeze in it, why can't you just leave it full?

Corm

 

[Henry]

I only put anti-freeze into the in-house pipes, and none in the Boiler. I've got a series of shut-off valves and a filler pipe that allows me to do this pretty easily. I just drain out about 1/2 of the water from the in-house pipes, then pour-in the anti-freeze. Then I run the re-circ. pump (which can bypass the boiler) to get a good consistent mixture for the in-house pipes. The in-house piping only holds approx 5 gallons total.


With a 300 gallon boiler, I'd have to add over 150 gallons of Anti-Freeze (which is big $$$$). Because of the high cost and some concern over hurting the boiler (with anti-freeze), I've chosen to just drain the thing .....

Any ideas on how to use an outdoor wood burner on a part-time basis would be greatly appreciated !!

Henry

 

[heehaw]

Don; the only stoves you mention that i've heard of are the hardy and the taylor; how did prices compare between these and the others; there are a lot of hardy stoves in this area, a little further north there are more taylors; they both "look" about the same size.
heehaw

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Heehaw,
I don't have the information here (at work). I'll try to get it posted over the weekend. The Mahoning is made in PA, and I just saw one for sale in the local paper for $5000.00...Stay tuned.

 

[Don_Wisnie]

OK,
Here is some of the info;

TAYLOR T750HMF - multi fuel 2 zones $6995 +$600 for the alternate unit. This is a 165,000 btu unit.
T1000 wood 3 zones $6435 250,000btu
T100MF (multi) 3 zone $8995 250,000btu +$600
website www.taylormfg.com

CENTRAL BOILER Classic SCL5648SB Titanium series $5975 thru 2/15, then $6300. Mx btu 500,000
Classic SCL5636SB Titanium $4875,then $5300 Max btu 350,000
website www.centralboiler.com

MAHONING multi fuel models model200 $4995 150,000btu
model300 $6150 225,000btu
model400 $7525 3000,btu
these prices include the burner...without deduct appr $1000
website; www.mahoningoutdoorfurnace.com

There is a lot of information out there, and anyone pursuing a outdoor woodburner has their work cut out for them, doing comparisons........GOOD LUCK ! Let us know what you buy.

 

[heehaw]

i looked at the hardy this week end at the farm show; $4900 installed; for a 2500 sq ft house; a friend had one put in 10 years ago; they were $2000-2500 then; thats a pretty good price increase; i don't know of many things that have doubled in price in the last 10 years?? but the heater sure looks good; this is the type of unit that heats water, and you put a heat exchanger in your existing duct work; it also heats your water for household use. one thing i didn't check, if that price was for homes with existing duct work; i know the one put in 10 years ago, did not have duct work??? and they had a complete heating and air system put in at the same time; i need to check further on this one;
heehaw

 

[gmason]

Well I've just completed hooking-up my 8 yr old taylor stove and have a few questions from other taylor owners. One, what setting do you put the flu damper on? I've had two occasions where if I open the damper 1/4 open that in a few hours the airflow really fires up the wood and the temp nears boiling. I've checked the seals on the woodend door and the fan. I even sealed the area where the fan attaches to the door. I think I'm sucking air from the cleanout end where the 2" pipe drops down to drip out the black muck. Should there be a cap or something on that pipe to keep the air from feeding back into the firebox?? The only way to keep it at the correct temp 160 is to all but close the damper. But then when the fan kicks on the smoke all comes out of that 2" drain pipe and really smokes the shed to death.
thanks
gary

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I own two central boiler units. I use one to heat my log home and the other to heat my motel and managers home. One generates 500,000 BTU'S for my home and the other 800,000 BTU's for the motel. I have been using the one for my home for six years and could not be more satisfied. I spent two years researching wood burning furnaces which included the Hardy went to the Taylor factory and talked to the owners. However once I saw the Central Boiler there was no compairson to the aforementioned units. Augers and grates are made to break and with the Central Boiler ther is just the fire box and a long handle shovel will remove the ashes just as easy as cranking them out of an auger then shoveling them up. I run my boilers at 180 degrees. It is interesting to hear people say what about a back up system if the power goes off. What do they do with there oil furnace or do they have one that doesn't use electric in this same instance? If you have large areas to heat then I think central boiler has the only units big enough to do the job. My friend has one hooked up to his car wash and is heating 6000 gallons of water a day to 130 degrees using pallets for wood. It was 30 degrees below zero last night so you see we are heating in an inviroment which is different than a lot of places. I would add that it is important that a person using a wood boiler has good dry wood. This will cut down on the smoke as well as reducing the consumption of wood any where from 30 to 50%.

 

[Vermonster]

I've got a (relatively) little 250,000/btu/hr Homesteader stove that I feed lots of (relatively) green wood to heat approximately 4,300 square feet. This is only my second season with it. So far it's been working quite well. Everyone that I've spoken to 'round these parts tells me that green in these things lasts longer than seasoned wood. Your post says different. I'm hesitant to try seasoned--if it burns faster than green I'd end up out of wood in the middle of next winter. Have you tried green wood?

 

[cowboydoc]

My experience has been that seasoned wood burns longer and with less smoke and ashes than green wood. It also burns hotter. Again that's just my two cents and observation. I rarely burn green wood but when I do it's a pain to get it started and keep it burning.