New EPA wood stoves.

[westcliffe01]

Do you have a buddy who is producing corn ? If you have access to affordable corn, a corn stove would be the way to go. Those of us living in sub divisions who have to buy corn at the local feed lot, that no longer makes sense. I can't see you being near a wood pellet plant, so that may not be an option either. Those stoves are direct vent so install is pretty simple and they have hoppers that hold fuel for sometimes more than a day at a time. So they are fairly easy to live with from a fueling point of view, but they do need the mineral deposits (clinker) removed daily which is not a big deal.

When I bought my corn stove, fuel was $1.98/bushel (~60lb). I could heat for a month in the dead of winter with 60 bushels ($120) with no splitting or stacking. Within 3 months of buying corn went all the way up to $10/bushel although it has come down since. So my fancy corn stove sits in the garage and I burn wood... Expensive lesson.

 

[brokenknee]

Do you have a buddy who is producing corn ? If you have access to affordable corn, a corn stove would be the way to go. Those of us living in sub divisions who have to buy corn at the local feed lot, that no longer makes sense. I can't see you being near a wood pellet plant, so that may not be an option either. Those stoves are direct vent so install is pretty simple and they have hoppers that hold fuel for sometimes more than a day at a time. So they are fairly easy to live with from a fueling point of view, but they do need the mineral deposits (clinker) removed daily which is not a big deal.

When I bought my corn stove, fuel was $1.98/bushel (~60lb). I could heat for a month in the dead of winter with 60 bushels ($120) with no splitting or stacking. Within 3 months of buying corn went all the way up to $10/bushel although it has come down since. So my fancy corn stove sits in the garage and I burn wood... Expensive lesson.

I think they are still getting 5 or 6 bucks a bushel here. Doesn't make sense to burn it at that price, better off selling the corn at the elevator and using the money to pay for other forms of heat.

I was looking at a pellet stove to even out the heat. Pellets go for $180 to $200 a ton. Using the online heat calculator there wouldn't be that much savings 25 cents on the dollar. compare to 75 cents on the dollar for wood and that is factoring in purchasing the wood.

One good thing is I am not in a hurry to get anything done. I currently have a wood furnace, just looking for a more efficient option. One that does not use as much wood and something I would only need to feed once or twice a day. Three times would be OK, but less is better.

Indoor boiler is not an option since I do not have a basement. Currently the wood furnace is located in a separate room on the other side of the attached garage. HMM, then again maybe the boiler could be located there?

Wife really likes the wood heat, I think mainly because I do not care if we keep the house at 76 or 78 degrees F.

 

[Clyde]

The major problem with the outdoor boilers is that the boiler heat delivery rate and the home heat demand are not matched. Typically the boilers are terribly over sized for heating homes. They were really designed to heat greenhouses and farm buildings which are large and generally poorly insulated.

I think you have already figured out that the up front cost is high. If the home heat demand is not matched to the boiler, it will be in permanent smolder mode which is going to turn your firewood into creosote and awful smelly cold smoke.

You will burn a LOT less wood in a good catalytic wood stove than an outdoor boiler and the money you save on the equipment will buy several years worth of wood. You can probably buy and install a Blaze king and build a nice woodshed and stock it with wood and still have spent less money than an outdoor boiler and your back will thank you forever...

In my previous home, I had an indoor woodburner installed in 1977. I used it every winter until the insurance inspector came through and told me that I would have to pay an additional $120.00 per year in my homeowners insurance as they considered indoor woodburners hazardous. Chimney fires, and supposed house fires was their reason I was given. I checked with all of the all of the insurance agencys in my area and the across the board, all of the insurers were charging a similar surcharge. Added to the fact that I was on the road with my employer, I was often gone for a few days at a time, the fire went out, and then the gas furnace kicked in. My savings, if any, at that point were neglible so I had it removed.

I am finally retired and bought 40 acres of land, built my own house, and was seriously thinking of going back to wood primarily with a propane furnace as a backup. I probably didn't do the proper research and look at all of the woodboiler manufacturers and stuck only with the dealers within a 25 mile radius. I ended up with the E-Classic gassification outdoor wood boiler. I now heat a 4,800 sq ft home, in floor hydronic 4 stall garage, and naturally the basement, plus a well insulated 4,000 sq ft Morton shed. I burn approx 15 full cord a year and the thermostat in the house is set at 72 degrees and the outbuilding at 55 degrees. The wood burned is right off my 40 acres, primarily red oak, so other than labor and fuel to harvest the wood, it is no cost for me.

I love the outdoor woodboiler that has a 20 year warranty on the firebox, there is no mess to cleanup everyday, no smell from the burning wood inside or outside, totally self contained, and the mtce is truly minimal. I clean out the ashes and clean out the gassification chamber once a month and that takes all of 30 minutes. Total cost to me for the woodboiler and a involved installation came to 14 grand. I also heat the domestic hot water with it.

No one in this thread has mentioned increased insurance rates due to the indoor woodfurnace and I'm starting to wonder if I was a victim to them. Nothing has ever been made that is built for everyone's specific needs or price range. All I'm saying is that this specific boiler has fit me needs to a "T"

Gary

 

[brokenknee]

In my previous home, I had an indoor woodburner installed in 1977. I used it every winter until the insurance inspector came through and told me that I would have to pay an additional $120.00 per year in my homeowners insurance as they considered indoor woodburners hazardous. Chimney fires, and supposed house fires was their reason I was given. I checked with all of the all of the insurance agencys in my area and the across the board, all of the insurers were charging a similar surcharge. Added to the fact that I was on the road with my employer, I was often gone for a few days at a time, the fire went out, and then the gas furnace kicked in. My savings, if any, at that point were neglible so I had it removed.

I am finally retired and bought 40 acres of land, built my own house, and was seriously thinking of going back to wood primarily with a propane furnace as a backup. I probably didn't do the proper research and look at all of the woodboiler manufacturers and stuck only with the dealers within a 25 mile radius. I ended up with the E-Classic gassification outdoor wood boiler. I now heat a 4,800 sq ft home, in floor hydronic 4 stall garage, and naturally the basement, plus a well insulated 4,000 sq ft Morton shed. I burn approx 15 full cord a year and the thermostat in the house is set at 72 degrees and the outbuilding at 55 degrees. The wood burned is right off my 40 acres, primarily red oak, so other than labor and fuel to harvest the wood, it is no cost for me.

I love the outdoor woodboiler that has a 20 year warranty on the firebox, there is no mess to cleanup everyday, no smell from the burning wood inside or outside, totally self contained, and the mtce is truly minimal. I clean out the ashes and clean out the gassification chamber once a month and that takes all of 30 minutes. Total cost to me for the woodboiler and a involved installation came to 14 grand. I also heat the domestic hot water with it.

No one in this thread has mentioned increased insurance rates due to the indoor woodfurnace and I'm starting to wonder if I was a victim to them. Nothing has ever been made that is built for everyone's specific needs or price range. All I'm saying is that this specific boiler has fit me needs to a "T"

Gary

I pay $50 bucks a year to burn wood. I couldn't use it until I replaced the tin on the celling the previous owner took down for what ever reason. Fifty bucks is not a big deal when you factor in the savings of other forms off heat. I did talk with another neighbor and he pays $75.

I assume you do not pay any additional on your homeowners for the outdoor boiler? I guess I should also consider the insurance company will most likely raise that rate or not cover me at all.

edit: do you have a problem if the wood is not fully seasoned?

 

[Ken45101]

Wood Bricks - Better Than Cordwood

If your going to end up buying fuel, how about these biomass bricks?
I've never tried them, but may in the future for those days when I'm away from home all day.

From other discussions I have seen, they are about twice the cost per BTU as cordwood. Convenient? Yes. Economical? Probably not.

Ken

 

[Clyde]

[ do you have a problem if the wood is not fully seasoned?[/QUOTE]

In reply to your question about seasoned wood - most of the firewood I collect is in the winter. I saw it into 20" blocks, split it, stack it and let the summer months do the drying. I don't know if you can call that fully seasoned but it works for me. I usually have a few cord of green firewood from the summer months and I always toss in a few chunks of that with the dryer firewood with no apparent problems other than the monthly cleanout. I load it twice a day.....6am and 6pm, and even in the coldest wintry days, it has not failed me.


As for the insurance companies.....if they didn't specifically ask if you had an indoor woodburner, or they didn't come to do an inspection, you can plead ignorance the 1st time I would think.

Good Luck and enjoy the cheap heat - Gary

 

[Clyde]

[ do you have a problem if the wood is not fully seasoned?

Sorry man! I reread your post and you asked if I had to pay additional costs to the insurance co with an outside woodboiler. NO! The boiler is setup 200 feet from the house or outbuildings and that created no concerns with them. I think their main concerns are chimney fires due to creosote buildup. In my way of thinking, with a burner inside the house or garage and you throttle down the burner in the evening, the newer ones are so efficient that you never get the "stack temperature" high enough to keep the chimney dry and clean. No different than one outside in that perspective but if you do have a chimney fire, at least outside you aren't hurting anything with the hot embers falling on your roof!

Gary

 

[flyingcow]

flyingcow, when you let the fire burn for four days do you have a problem with the fire going out? What about the stink that westcliffe01 mentioned.

My fires go out within hours of starting. The ones in the summer go out within 4 hours. Thats all it takes to recharge my storage tank. this drives my 820gals of water up to about 165ish. Once the tank gets down to 115ish i will start another fire. The gasser works best if it burns wide open. When i start a fire is when my tank is low enough to do a full burn. Very, very little idling.

Same with winter. I started a fire at 6pm, and this recharged my storage for about 24 hours. Shouldn't have to restart a fire until 5 or 6ish tonight. When you hit the -20/-40'sf you may have to do a fire about 9am, thats if my wife is home. I am a little undersized with my storage. Eventually i want to go to all radiant floor vs Basebaord(which I have now). BB needs 160-180 degree water vs radiant, which uses 120-140. Better use of the tank. In the shoulder seasons i can go 2 or 3 days on a fire.

Starting a fire is all of a 5 minute job. Throw in kindlin'/paper light. Fill wheelbarrow up with wood. By the time I get back into boiler room the kindlin' is cracklin and fill boiler with wood and walk away for approx 24 hours. In the deep of winter I refill boiler approx 3 1/2 hours later. Just depends on the heat demands.

No smell to speak of. Occasionally you get i wiff, but thats it.

 

[flyingcow]

The boiler that I'm am thinking about is way to big for my home, but was thinking about the heating of a future shed. Just wondering if I would have problems before the shed is built.

This is where storage would fit nicely. You design a storage tank for you to get a day or two of heat out of one burn. But as I said before, you don't need storage, but it's a nice add on. You can install a boiler and plumb it to put a storage tank in at a later date. You will need to do smaller burns with an oversized boiler, but thats just a quick learning curve. Try posting on hearth again, under the boiler room section. I'll bump it a couple times if no response. usually thers all kinds of activity in the boiler room. There are some knowledgeable people in that section. I just drive truck for a living, I know just enough about boilers to really screw something up.

 

[flyingcow]

s stated earlier I can purchase hard wood for either $65 a cord (10 cord load) or $70 cord (5 cord load). I want the hard wood for the longer burn times (at night and when away at work) I have forty acres of poplar and pine that I will cut. Have some hard wood but really do not want to cut that at this time.

If your going the gasser route, i would buy 2 yrs of wood. Process it and than you're ahead of the game. Really, no matter what you burn it in, seasoned a yr is always a plus. It's just that initial push the first yr

 

[flyingcow]

When I bought my corn stove, fuel was $1.98/bushel (~60lb). I could heat for a month in the dead of winter with 60 bushels ($120) with no splitting or stacking. Within 3 months of buying corn went all the way up to $10/bushel although it has come down since. So my fancy corn stove sits in the garage and I burn wood... Expensive lesson.

You can thank the subsidized corn ethanol for that. My main business is picking up milk at dairy farms. My farmers have been almost crippled from high grain/corn prices. this is primarily due to this.

 

[flyingcow]

You could always look at putting storage in now? If thats what you want to do eventually. Build a big fire once a day, charge the tank for 24 hours. Just a thought. The guys in the "boiler room" can help size a tank for your needs.


Also, usually an insurance company is going to have a small fit if you have a wood boiler attached/installed in a garage. I built a "boiler room" in the corner of my unattached garage. I had my garage reclassified as a "wood storage facility". I cannot store any flammable liquids or cars,equipment, etc in there only wood. Because I can access my boiler from inside the garage. If I wanted to use it as a garage again, i need firewalls with no entry from inside the garage. Outside entry only.

 

[flyingcow]

Wood boiler heating systems intelligently engineered by Tarm Biomass ｻ HS Tarm Solo Innova ｻ this is my boiler.



American Solartechnics, LLC. this is my storage tank.


Sorry for the highjack. Also, google "build it solar". Good DIY site.