Outdoor woodfired boilers?

[ultrarunner]

I don't see how they can outlaw wood heaters, many folks in rural areas would freeze to death if they couldn't burn wood.

It's already happened in parts of California... and even those that have em have to check each day so know if there is a wood burning ban in place... no joke.

 

[dodge85rc]

As somebody who has one, here is my experience. I have a central boiler 6048, 500,000 BTU. I do not need to split anything. Depending on the diameter of the wood, and type, I cut in 3-3.5 ft lengths and heave it in. It helps that I am 25. This unit will take a bigger piece of wood in the firebox than I can physically lift. I fill twice a day because I am **** about it and it seems to burn less wood that way. If I filled it plumb full I could go a full day easily. Best investment I ever made. This is my second winter with it and it is already about 1/2 paid for by what we are not using from propane. I currently only heat my home with it and eventually will be heating my shop with it, if I ever get in insulated. I have about $10k into it, pipe, pumps and everything. I also have 400+ acres to get wood off of, for free. I went through about 16-18 cord last winter and expect to go through about the same, although I haven't quite figured out a system to keep track of it acurately. I am also currently using my 4wheeler and a home made trailer to haul everything and it takes a long time to haul that much wood when you are maybe taking 1/4 cord at a time! Working on building some bigger equipment to be more efficient.

 

[Dogballs]

Dodge, 16-18 full cord? That's a lot of wood.

 

[LD1]

As somebody who has one, here is my experience. I have a central boiler 6048, 500,000 BTU. I do not need to split anything. Depending on the diameter of the wood, and type, I cut in 3-3.5 ft lengths and heave it in. It helps that I am 25. This unit will take a bigger piece of wood in the firebox than I can physically lift. I fill twice a day because I am **** about it and it seems to burn less wood that way. If I filled it plumb full I could go a full day easily. Best investment I ever made. This is my second winter with it and it is already about 1/2 paid for by what we are not using from propane. I currently only heat my home with it and eventually will be heating my shop with it, if I ever get in insulated. I have about $10k into it, pipe, pumps and everything. I also have 400+ acres to get wood off of, for free. I went through about 16-18 cord last winter and expect to go through about the same, although I haven't quite figured out a system to keep track of it acurately. I am also currently using my 4wheeler and a home made trailer to haul everything and it takes a long time to haul that much wood when you are maybe taking 1/4 cord at a time! Working on building some bigger equipment to be more efficient.

Here's my train of thought on what you are doing.

A geothermal unit (or even an air to air heat pump) would heat your house for considerabally less than your propane. A geothermal would probabally make your electric bill go up by 100-150 per month, wich is about 600-1000 per heating season. At an inital cost of only about 5k more than the boiler. and if you still wanted to cut the wood each winter, 8-9cords a winter would easily sell for enough to heat your house for the entire winter. And without having to ever worry about about fixing a fire again. But if you want to heat another building that would be another issue.

 

[dodge85rc]

Dodge, 16-18 full cord? That's a lot of wood.

If my math is correct. Which it isn't a lot of times

 

[dodge85rc]

. But if you want to heat another building that would be another issue.

Eventually I will be heating both house and shop + either my brother in laws house next door or a garage here.

 

[LD1]

Multiple buildings is probabally the only case in whick I'd consider a boiler. But I'd probabally still opt to place the boiler in the shop and use the radiant heat for it and the water for the house. that way, instead of having to go outside fo fix the fire, it would be in the shop, where I spend most of my time anyway.

 

[dodge85rc]

Multiple buildings is probabally the only case in whick I'd consider a boiler. But I'd probabally still opt to place the boiler in the shop and use the radiant heat for it and the water for the house.

That was my original plan, however my insurance company said they were going to drop my policy all together if I did that, since it isn't rated for indoor use. I wanted to keep it indoors to help with heat loss. Only thing is though, its so well insulated it isn't an issue. The thing has a 400 gallon water capacity and in the dead of winter, -20 below snow will sit and accumulate on top of the roof of the unit.

Wood is messy, I wouldn't want to have to deal with all that mess inside anywhere, especially at the volume I go through. Size wise, it is way overkill for what I am using, or even plan to use, but they had them on sale and I figured bigger is always better.

 

[arrow]

Guys, Thanks for the information. I suspected they would use more wood than what I have available. I do not have an abundant supply of free firewood, I have to buy mine and at $280/cord for dry stuff kinda hurts the wallet a bit. I may just stick with what I have and have log length wood delivered to my house where I can buck it up, split it and stack it to dry. My younger bro gets a log truck and an attached trailer full and he said it delievered nearly 14 cord of logs at $1,200.00. Granted he has to buck it up and split and stack it but thats not even a hundred buck a cord. Perhaps this is the lesser of all evils...

Around RI, a logging truck full of 7 to 8 cords cost $800-$1000 or just about twice as much more than you're paying

 

[arrow]

As somebody who has one, here is my experience. I have a central boiler 6048, 500,000 BTU. I do not need to split anything. Depending on the diameter of the wood, and type, I cut in 3-3.5 ft lengths and heave it in. It helps that I am 25. This unit will take a bigger piece of wood in the firebox than I can physically lift. I fill twice a day because I am **** about it and it seems to burn less wood that way. If I filled it plumb full I could go a full day easily. Best investment I ever made. This is my second winter with it and it is already about 1/2 paid for by what we are not using from propane. I currently only heat my home with it and eventually will be heating my shop with it, if I ever get in insulated. I have about $10k into it, pipe, pumps and everything. I also have 400+ acres to get wood off of, for free. I went through about 16-18 cord last winter and expect to go through about the same, although I haven't quite figured out a system to keep track of it acurately. I am also currently using my 4wheeler and a home made trailer to haul everything and it takes a long time to haul that much wood when you are maybe taking 1/4 cord at a time! Working on building some bigger equipment to be more efficient.

If I can give one piece of advice here as I am sorry I did not heed what I am about to tell you. You are young and at the beginning of life. If you enjoy working wood as I have for the last 45 years buy everything you need now in one shot. The sooner you get it, the sooner it will be paid for. When I was your age, a logging winch was under a thousand dollars. Now they are $2000-2500 depending on the winch. It was stupid of me not to buy what I needed in order to save a buck. You are burning a great deal of wood and if you continue, you are going to get tired of "piece mealing" it in short order if you already haven't done so.. Buy at least a 40 to 50 hp tractor or more that has a fel and 4wd. Get yourself a logging winch such as a Farmi or Norseman, put chains on your tractor. Get something to pick up logs with for the fel, (grapple or fork) and this labor will be a joy.

 

[SpringHollow]

Arrow,

That is sound advice. Buy what you can afford to now. I have never regretted having what i needed to do a job.

Ken

 

[FortClatsop]

I studied the outdoor wood boiler several years back. It wasn't going to work for me for a lot of reasons. Eventually I changed out my oil burner unit for a natural gas one. I have a 59 year old boiler that was oil fired until late 2008. It was supplied by a 675 gallon underground tank of the same age (can you say time bomb?). Oil was 1.17 in October 2003 when I got the place. The gas company had wanted $3500 just to get a line to the house. When oil hit 4.25 I almost had a stroke. Fortunately I only used 313 gallons a year....because I burn four cords in a wood stove and part of the 1900 sq ft house is electric heat. I have a fairly involved fan and thermostat system to move the air around.

The gas company was a little more creative and hungry by summer 2008. I did the trench and buried the casing and they hooked me up for free. The boiler burner was only $1200. It's really no more efficient than the oil unit. It is a whole lot quieter, doesn't give off the burned oil smell and the gas company averages out the bill. I looked at new high efficiency boilers but they were quite spendy and no one could say for sure that they would recover their costs in energy savings before they would die. What the heating guys really wanted to do was rip it all out and put in a high efficiency natural gas forced air system. I have looked at the cost of eliminating the electric and tying it into the rest of the system. For now the payback isn't there.

I realize that natural gas is not an option for a lot of folks. I thought I was stuck with oil until I got rid of my cast iron behemoth. The burner change conversation was almost an accident.

 

[dodge85rc]

If I can give one piece of advice here as I am sorry I did not heed what I am about to tell you. You are young and at the beginning of life. If you enjoy working wood as I have for the last 45 years buy everything you need now in one shot. The sooner you get it, the sooner it will be paid for. When I was your age, a logging winch was under a thousand dollars. Now they are $2000-2500 depending on the winch. It was stupid of me not to buy what I needed in order to save a buck. You are burning a great deal of wood and if you continue, you are going to get tired of "piece mealing" it in short order if you already haven't done so.. Buy at least a 40 to 50 hp tractor or more that has a fel and 4wd. Get yourself a logging winch such as a Farmi or Norseman, put chains on your tractor. Get something to pick up logs with for the fel, (grapple or fork) and this labor will be a joy.

I definitly agree with you there. I wish I could buy everything I need however that is not the case. I am working on building some options for wood transport that will significantly decrease the ammount of time I spend hauling it out of the woods. I am building a trailer that will haul about a full cord at a time and am working on a small tractor to pull it around with. This is only 2nd year doing it, so I am trying to refine the process as much as possible. One thing I want to try this summer when I get the tractor finished is build a grapple for the back end or a hook of some kind, to skid the logs to a common spot after they are limbed and then process them there before going back home with them. That way I won't be tripping around in the woods trying to cut around the underbrush and stuff.

 

[arrow]

Dan

I am on a 110 acre lot. In the 33 years of living here, 30 acres have provided me with the average 5 cords a year needed to heat my home from Oct thru April. (1800 sq ft) If you are using 3 times that amount, then you need 90 acres for the same length of time. I drag my stems near my house and process them there. I have limited my travel to under 1/4 mile because I have a 20 hp tractor. I drag the crowns to my "slash" area, cut out the wood I want, pile that onto the tractor and then push the slash to the big slash pile with the fel. I keep the woods clean as a tractor has a much tougher time going over slash than a skidder. You are going to need several "landings" or processing areas with that expanse of gathering area and you are correct for getting out as much wood as you can in one shot. Create the "slash" landing close to the stem landing or at least in an area on the way to the stem landing. A tree that is 16" in diameter measured 4' from the ground will give you about a half of cord of wood harvesting the crown out to 4" diameter logs. A smaller or crowded crown growth will net less of course, A 55-75 hp tractor will skid out 3 of these stems at 25'-30' or about 3/4 cord at a time give or take. As you do not need to split your wood, I do not know if you've put a limit to your diameter for easier handling. If that is the case,you would need 6 10" trees to make a cord. If the trees are dead with no canopy, you'll need more stems by almost double. If you would like, I'll take some pics of my "processing method" if it explains it better. Not counting the crown harvest, I touch my wood only once and that is to split and stack it at the same time. Ok... maybe that's twice. As a former logger, believe me when I tell you the homeowner wood gatherer is having to deal with way more variables than the commercial gatherer namely because the homeowner does not have the same equipment or purpose as the commercial guy. There are still "tricks" the homeowner can use to keep the operation efficient.

Lou

 

[dodge85rc]

Dan

I am on a 110 acre lot. In the 33 years of living here, 30 acres have provided me with the average 5 cords a year needed to heat my home from Oct thru April. (1800 sq ft) If you are using 3 times that amount, then you need 90 acres for the same length of time. I drag my stems near my house and process them there. I have limited my travel to under 1/4 mile because I have a 20 hp tractor. I drag the crowns to my "slash" area, cut out the wood I want, pile that onto the tractor and then push the slash to the big slash pile with the fel. I keep the woods clean as a tractor has a much tougher time going over slash than a skidder. You are going to need several "landings" or processing areas with that expanse of gathering area and you are correct for getting out as much wood as you can in one shot. Create the "slash" landing close to the stem landing or at least in an area on the way to the stem landing. A tree that is 16" in diameter measured 4' from the ground will give you about a half of cord of wood harvesting the crown out to 4" diameter logs. A smaller or crowded crown growth will net less of course, A 55-75 hp tractor will skid out 3 of these stems at 25'-30' or about 3/4 cord at a time give or take. As you do not need to split your wood, I do not know if you've put a limit to your diameter for easier handling. If that is the case,you would need 6 10" trees to make a cord. If the trees are dead with no canopy, you'll need more stems by almost double. If you would like, I'll take some pics of my "processing method" if it explains it better. Not counting the crown harvest, I touch my wood only once and that is to split and stack it at the same time. Ok... maybe that's twice. As a former logger, believe me when I tell you the homeowner wood gatherer is having to deal with way more variables than the commercial gatherer namely because the homeowner does not have the same equipment or purpose as the commercial guy. There are still "tricks" the homeowner can use to keep the operation efficient.

Lou

I get what you are saying. I try to stay between 8-22" diameter trees. My chain saw has a 20" bar on it so anything bigger than 22" starts to get tricky. It kind of depends on what I see and where I see it. I have not followed any pattern as to where and how much I will take out of a certain area. I have primarliy been trying to utilize standing dead timber as it is already dry for the most part and often times many of the limbs have already fallen off or fall off during the felling, so that is the main reason i go through so much, is it isn't high quality to begin with. I also am a big deer hunter and so as not to disturb the deer trails, since I've been using my 4wheeler w/ trailer, I can hop in and out of areas easily. A tree here, tree there... Not the most efficient way to do it either, but I enjoy being out in the woods and doing the work. Although that won't be the case once I start to utilize my tractor. I won't be able to fit on the 4wheeler trails or maneuver as well in the woods. I plan on skidding to a common area 1/2 mile away from the house as that is where I do most of the logging near an open gravel pit so I have a wide open space to work with to process the logs. At this point by the time I load the logs in the outdoor stove, I handle them 3, sometimes 4 times. Sometimes if I am working in close area, I will take and stack them after I cut them if it is getting late so that I have a nice neat pile when I pull up with the trailer because I can get the first load or so out quicker.

 

[arrow]

You and I Dan sound alot alike. I also deer hunt and also started only with the dead wood which actually lasted quite awhile. You are currently using 3 times the amount of wood as I. As you get older and more decrepid, you are going to want to reduce this number. By the time you are my age, who knows what will be out there as far as heating technology. Burning wood might go the way of the horse drawn carriage and used only for frivolity.
Good luck to you.
Lou

 

[dodge85rc]

You and I Dan sound alot alike. I also deer hunt and also started only with the dead wood which actually lasted quite awhile. You are currently using 3 times the amount of wood as I. As you get older and more decrepid, you are going to want to reduce this number. By the time you are my age, who knows what will be out there as far as heating technology. Burning wood might go the way of the horse drawn carriage and used only for frivolity.
Good luck to you.
Lou

By the time I get old and decrepid from working with all this wood, I hope to have kids old enough physically, but young enough age wise, to listen to me when I tell them to do it

 

[Hookblock]

As somebody who has one, here is my experience. I have a central boiler 6048, 500,000 BTU. I do not need to split anything. Depending on the diameter of the wood, and type, I cut in 3-3.5 ft lengths and heave it in. It helps that I am 25. This unit will take a bigger piece of wood in the firebox than I can physically lift. I fill twice a day because I am **** about it and it seems to burn less wood that way. If I filled it plumb full I could go a full day easily. Best investment I ever made. This is my second winter with it and it is already about 1/2 paid for by what we are not using from propane. I currently only heat my home with it and eventually will be heating my shop with it, if I ever get in insulated. I have about $10k into it, pipe, pumps and everything. I also have 400+ acres to get wood off of, for free. I went through about 16-18 cord last winter and expect to go through about the same, although I haven't quite figured out a system to keep track of it acurately. I am also currently using my 4wheeler and a home made trailer to haul everything and it takes a long time to haul that much wood when you are maybe taking 1/4 cord at a time! Working on building some bigger equipment to be more efficient.

I tried that route one winter, 3'x 10-18'' dia. didn't like it. My boiler is smaller a CL-40 so the opening might be smaller, harder to handle the bigger pieces in the opening I think. I now cut at 18'' and split everything down to 6'' dia. It dries better in less time, I have a 1 year rotation. So now I can get 2 rows deep in the fire box and tightly packed, I fill it about every 4 days (average). The house is 2000sq ft and I have no idea how much wood I burn per year and I get LP about every 4 years. This is my current wood hauler.

 

[Creekside Quarters]

I am also thinking about one of these outdoor wood burners. Our house is pretty new (2 yrs) old and we have a high efficiency Lennox heat pump. It heats well, just trying to reduce our heating bills. Does anyone know how or where i could find some info on tying one of these outdoor units into our existing heating system?
We would have access to free firewood, so that wouldn't be a problem.
Thanks for the help.
Dave.

 

[Hookblock]

I am also thinking about one of these outdoor wood burners. Our house is pretty new (2 yrs) old and we have a high efficiency Lennox heat pump. It heats well, just trying to reduce our heating bills. Does anyone know how or where i could find some info on tying one of these outdoor units into our existing heating system?
We would have access to free firewood, so that wouldn't be a problem.
Thanks for the help.
Dave.

Central Boiler Parts And Accessories Catalog Central Boiler - Outdoor Wood Furnace for Home Heating

I don't know what boiler you are looking at but CB has a parts cataloge that has a way to tie there system into just about any system.