2013-2014 HEATING SEASON PREPARATION

http://www.triprovince.com/Resale-Yard.page

That's where I got my tanks - scroll down for some tank sizes. My 330's are about 30" dia. x 9" long. Looks like 1000's are 40" x 15 ft.

Sounds like you're getting your ducks nicely in a row - but start looking now at boilers. Some dealers have spring sales - so be ready to pounce.

Where are you located?

Frost Proof Shallow Foundation and bury the tank underneath it all with, well insulated and fitted with a properly sizes ASME pressure relief valve to atmosphere.

My boiler is just on the concrete floor - think that's 4 - 6" thick. If you're putting it on a slab, that should do it. If you're thinking of something on the second floor of something, maybe just put some plate under it? Or maybe pour a thin slab?

You might be able to get a buried tank to work OK, but I wouldn't do it. Servicing would be almost an impossibility (without some serious work) once buried, any heat loss would be to the ground, and I'd be constantly stressing about rust. I'd rather have it up in the open where I could see & service it, and it could heat the space it's in if wanted.

To each their own though - some have had success with it.

A few suggestions;

If there is a possibility that you might choose a Garn Make sure you have enough height to access the top cover. I think 9' might be the minimum but check to make sure.

As you bury your underground If you do not have a high water table Make sure you have it below the frost line. I set mine up that way and both ends come up in heated space that has backup heat. You can at anytime shut the system down and travel without having someone babysit the system.

Make sure you use adequate size underground lines for the load. If you know you will be heating the garage, have you thought of some storage there also?

gg

For what you are talking about just pull the trigger on a Garn and be done with it. I have seen dozens of people look back at the boiler/divorced storage setups and realize they have invested as much or more than they would have if they just went with a Garn plus added complexity/pieces/parts to their system.
For a good wood burning design + storage it is very tough to "beat" a Garn.

Heaterman, How much for a Garn and how much to get it up and going? Also how does a Garn do when it is -10 and you are playing catch up trying to heat the house and the tank?

If i am in the catch mode,all the btus i am making with wood boiler will go to the house.I should most of the btus. With the gasification boiler low mass of water but quick recovery.

heaterman said:

For what you are talking about just pull the trigger on a Garn and be done with it. I have seen dozens of people look back at the boiler/divorced storage setups and realize they have invested as much or more than they would have if they just went with a Garn plus added complexity/pieces/parts to their system.
For a good wood burning design + storage it is very tough to "beat" a Garn.

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I can see where that would be an advantage with the right circumstances. But in mine, it wasn't. The thing about systems with multiple pieces is you can likely arrange the pieces where they will fit and hook them together. I didn't have the space to plant a Garn, but I did have the spaces to put a piece here & a piece there & tie things together. And my system wasn't cheap, but I'm pretty sure a Garn would have been more. That said, if I had had the room to comfortably put a Garn in my basement, one would have been on my short list.

I agree with Heaterman. Just pull the trigger and get a Garn. I just finished installing mine in Dec. I looked at it for a least 4 years before I said "the hell with it". I wish I would have done it 4 years ago.

It is hard to beat a Garn. The engineering is sound, but the new gassers are catching up.

If you have the same combustion efficiency and burn hot and short, then the built-in storage tank is an expensive addition. If you bury a tank and protect the outside from rust, the inside will be full of treated water (presumably a pressurized, closed system) and should last indefinitely. My tank will be under the building. If it does fail, I can think about giving up valuable real estate to a storage tank that should be insulated, buried or not.

I will bury and foam it with the rest of the shop.

henfruit said:

Heaterman, How much for a Garn and how much to get it up and going? Also how does a Garn do when it is -10 and you are playing catch up trying to heat the house and the tank?

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You really should check with your local Garn rep for pricing but basically a 1500 will list for $12,995 and a 2000 goes for $14,995. Installation costs can vary so widely from job to job that I would do you a disservice by estimating an installed price. To many things that have to be considered.....

As far as playing catch up is concerned, I really haven't found that to be a complaint on any that we have installed. Granted, you are dragging 1500 or 2000 gallons of water up to temp but the flip side is that you are doing it with a firing rate well past what a normal residential sized gasfier will produce. If you were all the way down to 110-120* you can expect to be back above 150 within an hour and up to 180 in not much over 2.If it takes longer than that you have dirty flues or wet wood.
Garns can crank out the btu's and they are capable of doing so because the storage is integral. You don't have to pump the "heat" like you do with a divorced storage setup. The water completely surrounds the firebox and all heat exchanger tubes so the heat transfer efficiency is stellar. There are no surfaces exposed to fire or flue gas that are not water cooled save the face of the door.

Make sure and check the id of the thermopex. I believe the Logstor is much closer to actual.

As an example, My 1 inch logstor uses the same fittings as 1" alumapex which is somewhere around 1.04" id if I remember correctly. That is about the same as standard 1-1/4" pex.

gg

I too find the Garn to be an excellent boiler based on all accounts I've read. With my basement indoor configuration it was never going to happen regardless of how badly I wanted it.

I suppose one nice aspect of our separated storage/boiler setups, aside from their small footprint, is that we can plumb our units in such a way that feeds loads before storage. That's precisely how I have mine setup. Storage sub 100 F and need to heat the house? No problem...

NE Wood Burner:

Some thoughts for your step 3. I'm hoping to be up and running for 2013/2014 and have been pulling the pieces together for a while now. These were my considerations for the Garn Barn:

20'x30' floating slab with 9' interior height. 12" of concrete with bars 12" OC both ways. Consider you have the equivelent weight of about 15 cars sitting in a 3 car garage here when the boiler and wood storage areas are full. Better safe than sorry on concrete thickness (also consider I was sitting on abut 4 foot of fresh (compacted) fill at one end). If you consider thickening just the perimiter and any other load bearing areas - note that you can thicken the whole darn slab for about the same bucks as the hand work that would entail. I considered forming a 12" high curb wall around the slab to let me use standard 8' studs and sheeting, but just decided to frame it 9' off the slab. Also consider you may want to swap out the boiler some day. The interior wall between the Boiler Room and the interior wood storage area is not load bearing to allow it's removal to move a boiler thru the overhead door in 20 or 30 years.

The odd framing direction to allow for a gable roof vent system (vs ridge or cans) to better avoid any sparkies getting into the attic.

The interior wood storage area is just covered with 3/4" CDX and the outside wall I will stack against is T1-11. No sense in tearing up good siding or wall coverings.

This is mostly a 3-stall garage with one being a car-port (2nd year wood drying) and the others being a Boiler Room and also an enclosed, mostly heated under-roof spot for 3rd year wood drying and burning (1st year cut and split is just out in the elements) Both interior stalls are fully insulated and seperated with a door between. This would allow closing down the interior wood storage, area and just heating just the boiler room if I headed south for a bit of sunshine or salt water. The boiler room will have a couple baseboard electric units to keep anything from freezing and seemed like a better idea than the Garn heating elements. During normal times - I expect the latent heat from the boiler will keep both rooms toasty by just keeping the inside door open.

Don't be cheap on the underground. Best guess said 1 1/4 Pex,would work, but upsized to 1 1/2 and encased it in a 12" block of spray foam. Don't hesitate to ruln a few extra pvc conduits between buildings to shove things like a water line or future low voltage electric after the fact. Digging a 2nd time would suck.

Run plenty of electric capacity. My box and feed would hadle 100 amps and could be used for anythig from a welder, camping trailer or backfeeding a generator. I think I could satisfy just the Garn needs with about 30 - 40 amps.

My first thought when I bought the Garn was to place the boiler in the house basement and thus why the rear exhaust. Those in the know talked me into going outdoors with it and I'm now very comfortable with that decision. A top exit exhaust would be a consideration if I was going with a seperate building from the start......but remember that forces you on the roof to clean the flue once or twice a year. Like all things..... a trade off.

I plan to get the "Pro from Dover" (Heaterman) in for a couple days in the fall to get this all up and running. I understand most construction, but am pretty clueless about details of


designing hvac.

Good Luck and don't hesitate to give me a shout if you have any questions.........remember it's more than a destination.........it's one hell of a ride!

Eauzone Dan

Burner:

Yes the boiler will be framed and insulated - likely going with wood framing, fiber glass insulation and steel studs on the front. There will still be plenty of access room at the front and side if I need to get at anything..

Think I 'm something south of 30 into it, but am afraid to add it all up. I wanted to go zero maintainence and that added to the costs. Siding and trim is something LP calls their "Smart Siding". It looks a bit like OSB from the back, but has an optional factory applied paint system rated for 30 years. You swear it's rough sawn cedar from the front. By the time it needs paint I'll be eating baby food, wearing diapers and won't care if it needs it or not. Soffit, facia and windows are all alluminum. I did the underground piping, dirt work and electric. Farmed out the rest.......Think I could have done it on the cheap for about 25 - 50% less, but everytime I do that - I wish I hadn't. Another goal was also to make it super easy and comfortable to use. Re-loading wood in the basement in my fuzzy rabbit slippers would have been awful nice, but this was the best alternative I could come up with to make it comfortable in an out building...

One other item I forgot was to consider 5/8 rock in the boiler room to keep the insurance guys happy. Getting denial of a claim after the fact by saving a few bucks on materials would lead to a very bad day.

My first thought was to roll the boiler in after the building was basicaly done, except for the non-bearing division wall, but saved enough man hours setting the 34' trusses with a crane that it cost less than two hundred to have them drop the boiler at the same time......I'm from Chicago metro and worked construction/surveying and engineering for 40+ years. They drove a 40t crane 40 miles one way and picked all trusses and the boiler for under 500 bucks up there in the toolies......they wouldn't have driven that rig around the block in Chicago for those bucks..... something to look into as far as any construction phasing.....

Dan

NE WOOD BURNER said:

goosegunner: That's a new name to me. do you have a link to a retailer?

Thanks

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Made by Urecon. I think they might have a Dealer locator. They have bigger sizes available also. It is sized in mm but the have tables with the id in inches.

I used the 2 32mm

http://www.urecon.com/applications/hydronics_flexible.html

I live in Wisconsin and got it from a installer about 3 hours away near Green Bay. Shipping was $60 but it was a short distance compared to you.

I could provide his name if you need it pm me.

gg