help a wood newbe

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fatkidracer

Member
Dec 19, 2011
13
Reynoldsville, PA
Been lurking here since I got my first home in October. It is a 1200 sqf ranch on slab with in-floor radiant heat via a 5-7 year old oil burner. There is all a 2300 sqf detached garage that is also on slab with in-floor radiant heat coming from the same oil burner. The install looks very well executed and the home was built like the preverbal brick chit house and is well insulated. The only thing is to keep the house at 70 and garage around 55 takes a lot oil. More then I feel it should but this is my first experience with any type of heat besides naturel gas so maybe im wrong on that. Anyway im more confused now then when I found the site so I figured it was time to join and ask some questions.

1.What is the cheapest way to get whole house and garge heat with wood tieing into the system that is already in place?

2.Why dose no one here suggest OWB’s? most everyone on my road uses one what is so bad about them?

3.I have no room for storage, yes even with a garage twice the size of my house I have no room for large tanks anywhere. So what is the best way to go without storage?

4.How much am I looking at from an initial investment point of view. I only plan to stay here for at most 5 years as the home is just to small for more then just me and the girlfriend and I want a family soon.
 
How much is a lot of oil? Do you know if they insulated (ridgid foam) under the slab? I think that the prevailing attitude here against OWB's is that up until lately, they were not avaialble as a "gasser" and are usually pretty nasty to be around and to feed. I've never had an OWB, but after having my inside WB, I could not imagine having to "suit up" every time that I needed to check the fire. On the other hand, plenty of folks don't want to deal with the wood hauled into the house either, take your choice. Depending on your oil cost/consumption you might not get your payback in your time frame, that is unless oil keeps on going thru the roof $$$ and you find a buyer that is willing to do the wood thing. Presonally if I were in PA and didn't have a good wood source, I'd burn coal.
 
If you are only looking at staying five years, I would say it is not worth the trouble in my opinion. Have you considered that your house is small right now, but you could add on in the future if and when your family grows. You never know what is going to happen. 711 is right, is all that slab insulated well? Underneath and on the outside? You have been in your house a very short time. Maybe you could give it a little time to see if you are happy with location, neighbors, etc. Some things to think about. I would not go with an outdoor wood boiler unless it was a gasser. Have a good one.

If you like location, neighbors, etc. You might put addition on to accomodate family, new boiler and storage all at once. In the future when you can afford it, and plan it. It takes some planning and time. Need dry wood as well. :lol: I keep thinking, and the list keeps growing...... :lol: I'll leave it at that.

Oh, sh!t. I forgot. I have a thermostat in my garage with in-floor heat. I set it at 45. Can yours go that low? If not, might want to get one that does. I don't know what the lowest setting thermo you can by is. I was happy with 45. Really no need to heat it warmer than that unless you are going to be out there working on a project or something else. Might save you some money in oil. Later.
 
If the house is too small you could just move into the garage.
 
If you are pretty sure you will be moving in 5 years, and can be pretty sure you'll be moving to a place you could also use it, I would look at an OWB. There are gassifying ones now (although they might be a bit pricey), you should be able to get it hooked up so that it could be unhooked and removed fairly easily if you wanted, you could then take it with you if you wanted to, and it wouldn't be so dependant on storage. Lots of ifs in there - you'd have to have a place to put it and store wood for one thing. But it sounds like you would definitely see a payback from the sounds of all the oil you're burning - but would be interesting to hear your oil numbers.

I am pretty sure you're in the right place though. ;)
 
Gassifier means little (or no) smoke. A traditional OWB is also called a smoke dragon (or is that a brand name?). 5 years is probably too short. You won't get it in this season which makes it 4 years. Solar on the south side tied into the existing radiant would be quick and cost effective. You can use the slabs for storage and the oil for the rest, maybe just tie it into the garage. You could easily take the panels with you to the new house. Control logic would be pretty simple. I have my indoor gassifier in an outbuilding (12x16; getting to 8x16 porches this week). That keeps the loading smoke out of the house. I have storage in my basement so storage loss is not a big issue most of the time.
 
mikefrommaine said:
If the house is too small you could just move into the garage.

:lol: Good one mike. Garages are awesome. Big garages are even better. Sounds like you have a nice set-up with garage and house and in-floor heat throughout. In-floor radiant through the entire joint, if well insulated under and around the slab, should be about as efficient as you can get. A gasser would be sweat. If you don't want the work of the wood, a pellet boiler would be nice as well. Do you want to do all the work of heating with wood? It is a lot of work and time. But if you have the time, and don't mind the work, you can scrounge for wood, and/or buy it as cheap as you can and save more money than buying pellets. A lot more. Heating with wood has become a hobby for me. Really like it.
 
thanks to all for the reply. the home is on 2.5 acres and way it is situated on the lot and the layout of the lot makes it very unlikely i will ever expand the home. the garge is why i bought the home in the first place. before i bought the house i had stuff spread out all over gods creation at my parents house, my friends house, my girlfriends parents house. now ALL my toys are in one heated place where i can work on them whenever i want in comfort. believe me when you park a 3/4 ton truck and full size suv plus 3 atv's and 2 dirt bikes and 1 street bike plus all the other stuff that garage space fills up quick!

the t-stats in the garage only go down to 50 which is what i have them set at right now. that leaves the garage at about 55 which leads me to believe it is well insulated under the slab and i know its all insulated well in the walls and ceiling. i have burned about 150gal of fuel since October and it is only used for heat no DHW. is that a lot for the Sqf im heating? i don't know much about the home because i bought it from an estate and the gentleman who owned it before had been dead for a few years so no way to really know.

as for cutting and splitting wood. been doing that all my life for scouts and helping other people with there wood so thats not really a concern. i could get a tri-axle of hardwood dropped off for under a grand. and most people around me use about that per winter. i could also get it for free but man is easer to just have the truck drop it off in the back yard!

how much is one of these "gasser" burners? i could do the slab and the plumbing into the house with help from a friend in the business but we had never even heard of these "gasser" until i joined here.
 
So, you have used 150 gallons so far this year. What would you think you will use for the whole season? Maybe 500-600 gallons? It all depends on how you look at it I guess. If you are only going to be there 5 years, not worth it to buy any wood burning gassification boiler in my opinion. Easier to wait until you get into your bigger home. Start saving for it now. The Gassification boilers are the best way to go. And even better if you go with storage. Storage makes it so easy and efficient. A new Gasser can go anywhere from $5000-$15000 without storage. Just depends on which way you want to go. Check out Froling, HS Tarm, Wood Gun, EKO, Econoburn, Biomass, Attack. In no particular order of course. ;-)
 
Aside from the obvious performance differences between traditional OWB's and gassers I think you'll also find that a new OWB is NOT significantly less expensive than a downdraft gassifier. Throw in the fact that most gassers will burn maybe 1/3 the wood as a comparable OWB and you might find that gassers are less expensive overall.

That being said I would not personally consider installing either system in a house I only plan to be in for five years. No way. It takes 2 years just to get these things running like you want them to...
 
An outside gasser would be relatively easy to take with you if you move.

An indoor boiler could always be move too, just a little more work.

You might find a used smoke dragon if you are patient which might be cost effective for five years.
 
stee6043 said:
That being said I would not personally consider installing either system in a house I only plan to be in for five years. No way. It takes 2 years just to get these things running like you want them to...

this concerns me more then anything else i read on here. i feel if i pay someone to come do the actual boiler install that it should be good to go as long as it has good wood to go in it? it seems like i read about a lot of growing pains with all these different systems and that just seems like it should not be for something that costs so much and you depend on to keep your family warm?
 
fatkidracer said:
stee6043 said:
That being said I would not personally consider installing either system in a house I only plan to be in for five years. No way. It takes 2 years just to get these things running like you want them to...

this concerns me more then anything else i read on here. i feel if i pay someone to come do the actual boiler install that it should be good to go as long as it has good wood to go in it? it seems like i read about a lot of growing pains with all these different systems and that just seems like it should not be for something that costs so much and you depend on to keep your family warm?

If you're paying someone to do the install, you're not paying them to teach you to use the darn thing. That is not learned in a weekend. An install of any appliance can be "good to go" but still not work the way you expected it to- not the installer's responsibility. He didn't say it takes 2 years to work properly, he talked about getting it to run the way you wanted it to.

As an example, my plain old smoke dragon is a steel box with a door in it, nothing more. Took me 5-6 years to learn to work it properly and depend on it- largely my own fault but there's a learning curve too.

I might suggest that if you're looking for a heat system that you "fire and forget", maybe wood isn't the best choice of fuel.
 
IMO, leave what you have alone. But use this forum on how to build/design or buy your new place in 5 yrs. I live in a cold climate. I was burning 1000 gals of oil a yr, and still wasn't as warm and fuzzy as i would like. So i went with what i have, and enjoy this set up greatly. But if i was only burning 600 gals a yr, i probably wouldn't have switched to wood. Might have thrown more money at solar? hard to say. Get a T-stat that will go as low as 40 in the garage, would be good money spent. FWIW...i have a 35x75 truck garage. i only heat it when i need to. Maybe burn 175 gals a yr in the garage. As you can figure out, my thoughts are you're spending a lot of coin on garage heat. BTW, my tractor trailer is worth $250,000. It's my baby. plus my duramax, 75hp tractor, etc.... Not boasting, just being a pain in the azzz.
 
fatkidracer said:
stee6043 said:
That being said I would not personally consider installing either system in a house I only plan to be in for five years. No way. It takes 2 years just to get these things running like you want them to...

this concerns me more then anything else i read on here. i feel if i pay someone to come do the actual boiler install that it should be good to go as long as it has good wood to go in it? it seems like i read about a lot of growing pains with all these different systems and that just seems like it should not be for something that costs so much and you depend on to keep your family warm?

Fatkidracer,

I am in my first year with my Gasser. I am getting plenty of heat out of it and love it. And it is easy to operate. What I think stee6043 is talking about, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he is talking about working the bugs out of the system and then getting the whole system to run as efficiently as you can. That takes learning on the operators part, testing with temperature readings, keeping track of how much wood you are burning, etc. It all depends on how technical you want to get with it. Efficiency is important, saving any wood you can saves time, work, and money. If you have been taking care of wood for the Scouts your whole life, you know it takes time and work. (I don't know how much wood you were processing in that tasking.) But some of the people on here go through quite a bit of wood because they heat a big house, garage, and domestic hot water. And/or the house they have may not be insulated as well as yours. Lots of variables.

Something else for you to consider if you would like to burn wood where you are now is adding on a wood burning boiler that is not a gasser. I still don't think it is worth it if you are going to only be there for five years. But, a non gasser would cost much less, and let you heat your house and garage with wood. Much, much less efficient though. Like I said, I don't think it is worth it.
 
You would have a few thousand in the install (pad, well insulated underground pipe, connections to the existing radiant) that you would not be able to move. The unit itself (5K or more) could be moved (they are heavy) without much of a problem. I would not do it for 5 (or 4) years. Do your research, plan you next place, work on scrounging some stuff now. Gassifiers like storage (500 to 1000 gallons; used propane tanks are popular). If you have storage, you need a large expansion tank (maybe a 250 gallon propane tank). Do your research here, ask your questions, and be ready for the new place. If you are building it yourself, think about getting the gassifier and radiant working early, makes it easier to finish the house in colder weather (it always seems to work out that way).
 
Thanks all for the advice and words of wisdom. I have found a semi local dealer of a few different kinds of gassers and “smoke dragons†and I am going to talk to them the week between Christmas and new years and see what they say as far as return on investment and whatnot. Sounds like I am just going to be paying the oil man for the next few years. My next home will be built the way I want it so a wood system will be integrated into it from the start.
 
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