Outdoor wood furnace...

[DrDan]

I have been totally blown away by the ever increasing costs of natural gas. In the last 13 months it has doubled in price and I don't care to wait until is triples or quadruples before I do something about it.

I have a 30' X 50' Greenhouse where we produce hydroponic lettuce; a well insulated 30' X 80' Morton pole building and a 900 sq foot older home. I want to tie them all together with one of the Central Boiler outdoor wood furnaces. I have an endless supply of hardwood (a friend is a tree trimmer and drives by my place daily with logs) so perhaps with a little labor I can cut my heating costs to a low price.

My question is: Has anyone had any experience with these heaters and in particular the one sold by www.centralboiler.com ? From the research I have done, this is the best unit. Perrhaps someone knows better. It will amount to about a $16,000 investment for this changeover, but if it keeps me off the "Big Oil" leash it is worth it. Glad to hear of anyones experiences.

DrDan

 

[Dozernut]

DrDan
$16000 sounds a little high to me, but I do not know how many BTU's or what kind of duct work you will need to run. There is a small business near me that sells these type of wood furnaces. If I remember correctly the most expensive one was 5-6k. I may be off on my prices, but I know you can buy and install these units for far less than 16k.
These are nice units and resemble the Central Boiler units. The larger ones have dual output water valves, so you could heat your house and shop, or another house (I know of one such setup). They have internal blowers to keep the fire burning and this blower is controlled by your thermostat.
I realize you are a distance from me, but you might do well to talk to another dealer for comparison. The business is ZDE, Inc. 618-584-3567. The fellow that runs it is a retired college professor, who taught aviation mechanics. I must caution you, he loves to talk, but he is highly intelligent and knows his business. Maybe you could use him as a sounding board and he might be able to steer you on to some one closer to home.
RB

 

[ejb]

>>I have a 30' X 50' Greenhouse where we produce hydroponic lettuce;

Any idea how much it is costing you just to heat the greenhouse? I hope to put up a greenhouse someday too, but the unknown and potential cost of heating it have always been my main concern...

 

[PhilNH5]

Dr Dan,
Here is a link to Woodheat.org if you haven't already been there.
outdoor boiler controversy
The page discusses the pros and cons of these units. I have always found woodheat.org to be a good site with lots of fair imformation. I looked at the boilers breifly. Especially at the ag fairs. I love the concept. But my oil fired boiler blew this summer and I replaced it with another oil one. Info on that site was a major factor in not persuing the outdoor boiler idea farther.
If you go with the central boiler you might want to consider the dual fuel models. They will switch back and forth between wood aqnd oil. Otherwise you can never go away for an extended time as the fire needs to be fed. Also as the other person mentioned 16K seems high. At the ag fairs all of the dealers were in the 5- 6K range installed. But that was tying into my existing hot water baseboard system.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Phil

 

[Gomez]

DrDan,

My neighbor is also very interested in the outside wood fired boiler. He said the cost would be, as others have said, around $5-6K. Of course, that is for a unit to heat only his house.

As Phil said, dual fuel is an idea to look into. That or keep the propane fired boiler around as a backup.

Good Luck, let us know what happens.

 

[farmerpsv]

DrDan,
ditto everyone else on the price, although i'm a guessing you are including install costs and materials to outfit all your buildings. how are you going to use it? forced air? radiators? hydro? also you may want to change "a little labor" into alota labor. my neighbor has a "Hardy" which he really likes. he just replaced a unit that he used 13 years, he now burns about 30% less wood, they are much more efficient now. still he goes through about 8 to 10 cords a season...in sunny VA. although ads say you can burn logs, he splits all of his wood and cuts it to 26" logs and believes he's getting more BTU's for his buck. i live down the street about a mile. i heat my downstairs with propane, upstairs with heatpump. i spend an average of $350/ month when it's cold, or about $1200 for the winter season, he pays about $300 for the season, not counting his labor. he gets a tractor trailor of the long stuff a saw mill around the corner can't use. i've looked at these things pretty long, my main concern is the wasted BTU's,unlike gas or electric, you of course can't just turn off the fire once you've warmed your area. with three buildings, however, you may do pretty well using up that energy, especially if one is a greenhouse. the best burn time he gets is 12 hours, so it's kinda like having a cow...gotta milk it twice a day.
paul

 

[slowzuki]

Thank-you for the link to that discussion, I was not aware so many poor outdoor furnaces existed! I had assumed stainless was used in all of them.

I think I may reconsider and look for a heating loop on an inside airtight model.

Ken

 

[DavidJ]

I have an 'air over' unit and it works really well here. To echo the rest I would not depend on it as a sole source. I would at least go with a dual fuel unit. It's hard to get out of bed at 3:00 am and go out into the cold to fire the heater. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[gmason]

DrDan, I have a older ~8-10yo unit in the 600gal range. I got this unit from a guy that had used it and had it located right next to his house. He was away one weekend and had a neighbor come over to load it up, some hot coals fell out and ignited the wood stack and eventually the house too. Got most of it before the fire trucks arrived. He /forums/images/graemlins/mad.giftook his tractor and attached a chain to it and drug it into a swamp.

I bought it a year later for $100. I spent about $500 sandblasting and welding it back together. We spent another $1300 in getting it installed, 200' from the house with 2 systems for 2 floors of the house.

I ran 4 1" black poly pipe in a 4" drain pipe non-insulated. 1 for domestic hot water,1 for incoming 1st floor, one for incoming 2nd floor, one for a common return. The 1" pipe was oversized and the single return is enough when both are running at the same time.

My firebox is 24"x30"x39" and I fill it with what ever I have cut. Pine, oak, hick.... My system is not as well insulated as the new ones with just a 1/2" around the boiler. But only in the coldest part of the winter when the temp here doesn't get above freezing during the day and the sun doesn't come out do I have to fill it full more than every 16hrs. I usually fill it about 8pm and then again at 7am on the really cold days. But the lack of efficiency it makes up in being able to burn just about anything. If I can lift it...it goes into it. I only split a few of the biggest pieces to make them easier to pick up. Pine doesn't heat as well as the oak, but I don't have to worry about tar/creosote anyway.

We did have a large woodstove in the basement that we augmented our heat with for 2 years. Then after the second season we had the chimney cleaned and they found a crack in the tile about 8' up the stack. They estimated 5-6k to repair it. And after that the flue size would be too small to run the stove. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

In my opinion and others I know that have these, that if you have access to the wood and don't mind spending some time cutting/stacking/splitting one weekend a year and feeding it a few times a day for 2-3 months then it's doable. If you have to pay for the wood a cord at a time then /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif .

We went from buying 450gal of propane every 9months to about every 16-18 months.