Outdoor Wood Boiler, what do you have, any problems with it?

[flyingcow]

blucoondawg----build a small out building. put an indoor gasser in it. these "true" gasser's don't smoke, nothing!. They are very efficient. An E-Classic, which we have to buy in Maine, is EPA compliant, but not as efficient as an indoor gasser. I do business with an E-Classic dealer.

I was told by this dealer(E-Classic) a cord of well seasoned wood = 100 gals of oil. The gasser's? 1 cord of well seasoned = 150 gals of oil. Closer to 175 once you have it a while. My Tarm is in a garage next door, plus I have 820 gals of storage in my basement. In the summer, i heat my DHW on 1 burn every 4 to 5 days. i have 3 teenagers. Very satisfied. The cost of an E-Classic is about the same as my Tarm and storage tank. Why cut and split more wood than needed. FWIW, my neighbor and good friend has an E-Classic, I wouldn't get one. My .02's

 

[flyingcow]

Also, i stack my wood on pallets right off of the splitter. Handle the wood with my FEL.

 

[flyingcow]

Oh, also...google GARN. these are nice units. Big as a small submarine, but nice units. As pointed out before go to heath.com

 

[jefwyn]

How much wood is that in cord measure? I don't know anything about this kind of wood burner so don't know how long your wood is. Mine stove is only 14" so i imagine a face cord for my stove would be much smaller amount then what you are talking about.

30 face cord, would be 10 cords

 

[blucoondawg]

How much wood is that in cord measure? I don't know anything about this kind of wood burner so don't know how long your wood is. Mine stove is only 14" so i imagine a face cord for my stove would be much smaller amount then what you are talking about.

A face cord by my standards and any I have ever heard of is a pile of wood 4ft high 8ft long and cut in 16" pieces, if you cut yours to 14" then your pile would be slightly less than a full face cord. An actual cord or full cord or logger cord, whatever you want to call it is what flyingcow describes, 4ftx4ftx8ft long logs, if everything works out perfect when cutting and stacking the full cord one is supposed to have 3 face cords if it were to ever work out perfectly which it never does, generally you end up with closer to 2.5 face cord out of a full cord. The amount jefwyn is describing 25 to 30 face cord would be around 10 to 12 full cords in my experience.

 

[blucoondawg]

not to hijack the thread, but had a quick question for the op- you say that you currently have an add-on furnace in the basement, this is what I was considering getting. Besides the chimney issue and the allergy issue, are there any other reasons you would be against them? Is there really noticeable levels of smoke in the house from it? Maybe I should be considering an outdoor boiler, they are just pricey, and I think I would be more likely to get the wife to fill the furnace in the basement than to go out in the cold to fill the boiler

I am not really against the indoor forced air wood stove, they work fine and some say they are better than the owb because they are in the house so you are gaining the residual heat off the stove itself which if sitting outside that heat is lost if it is not captured by the insulation of the owb unit. Mine smokes some from time to time, if it isn't burning good and hot and I open the door it will trickle smoke out the door, I don't know what causes this maybe my draft isn't as good as it once was with my chimney issues, also it will smoke a little when starting a fire, until the flue gets warmed up and starts to draft good. I love the heat it produces, you can feel the difference between a good warm wood heat like that and normal forced air heat from a gas furnace. I say if that's the way you want to go and you have a good chimney there is definitely nothing wrong with it, however your wife may prefer going outside to fire up as compared with hauling out ashes and cleaning up sawdust and wood chips off the floor and the occasional mouse and many spiders and other bugs that have a tendency to come inside with the wood, also I find having the stove in the basement causes quite a bit of dust, every time you empty the ash pan you end up with a cloud no matter how careful you are and it eventually ends up on your tv screens and end tables and everywhere else your wife probably tries to keep clean.

 

[blucoondawg]

blucoondawg----build a small out building. put an indoor gasser in it. these "true" gasser's don't smoke, nothing!. They are very efficient. An E-Classic, which we have to buy in Maine, is EPA compliant, but not as efficient as an indoor gasser. I do business with an E-Classic dealer.

I was told by this dealer(E-Classic) a cord of well seasoned wood = 100 gals of oil. The gasser's? 1 cord of well seasoned = 150 gals of oil. Closer to 175 once you have it a while. My Tarm is in a garage next door, plus I have 820 gals of storage in my basement. In the summer, i heat my DHW on 1 burn every 4 to 5 days. i have 3 teenagers. Very satisfied. The cost of an E-Classic is about the same as my Tarm and storage tank. Why cut and split more wood than needed. FWIW, my neighbor and good friend has an E-Classic, I wouldn't get one. My .02's

I never knew they had setups like this where you heat a large tank of water then let your fire go out, it seems hard for me to believe that tank of water would stay hot enough to heat your home for as long as they say without the fire burning, I'm sure it works but I haven't ever seen anything like that. I looked at the Garn website, they are an interesting unit but anything with all that tubing for the exhaust to travel through could be a problem if your wood isn't completely dry, I would think it could gunk up like the owb gasser a guy I know has

 

[flyingcow]

I never knew they had setups like this where you heat a large tank of water then let your fire go out, it seems hard for me to believe that tank of water would stay hot enough to heat your home for as long as they say without the fire burning, I'm sure it works but I haven't ever seen anything like that. I looked at the Garn website, they are an interesting unit but anything with all that tubing for the exhaust to travel through could be a problem if your wood isn't completely dry, I would think it could gunk up like the owb gasser a guy I know has

Go to Hearth.com - Information on Fireplaces, Wood Stoves, Pellet Stoves, etc. and click into the "Boiler Room". spend some time there. very good group. same polite group as at here. chat,ask questions, etc. Will not be a waste of your time. My 820gal's of storage, in simplest term, is a battery that store's btu's. The GARN is a proven and nice set up. But not for everybody. And you don't need to have storage, the gasser's perform well without it. Go to hearth, i use the same user name.

 

[cqaigy2]

should only use the true cord measurement. 4x4x8=128cu/ft in a cord. If it's 14 inch wood, just do the math.

This was actually a question to a previous poster how much wood their face cord measurement represented, and an example of how different a face cord could be. Thank you for the equation of 4'x4'x8' equaling a cord measure of wood.

 

[cqaigy2]

30 face cord, would be 10 cords

Thanks, that puts it into perspective. 10 cord would be a lot for around here, but seems more in line to colder climates i've lived in.