Gasifier in the garage?

A quick search will yield you loads of info on this very topic. It comes up about 8.7 times per year.

Here you go. (Kind of fun to watch, but the main point is you can narrow your search to hearth.com by adding site:hearth.com to the search terms.)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=boiler+garage+site:hearth.com

Thats pretty neat there mr. dudley

This can get to be a hot topic with lots of opinions about state, county and insurance laws as well as the real facts about the such.

I have mine in the garage and love it. Real easy to bring wood in and real easy to clean any mess.
I just take the leaf blower and blow all the ash, dust and debris right out the doors.

I am a contractor and personally went to the town with a brochure of what I wanted to install.
The plans examiner said there was no need to get a permit because it was just like installing any other type of hydronic heating appliance.
I don't know about CT but I read through the NYS codes and a solid fuel appliance can be installed in a garage as long as some requirements are met.
Any spark source, must be at least 18" off the floor.
Fire rated sheetrock must be installed on the walls and ceiling.
And the unit can be no closer to the walls and ceilings than 12"

At the same time I was installing the gasifier, Allstate was dropping all LI'ers from there homeowners policies.
So I needed new insurance and the new company (Rutgers) sent an adjuster out to look at the house.
They saw the 25 cords of wood and took pictures and I showed them the WG and they took pictures of that.
The only thing they required of me was that I showed them a receipt of a licensed installer.


My garage isn't really an active car garage.
But I have an old 65 impala that is stored in there waiting to be restored.
I have a Harley that has gas in the tanks and I ride every so often.
I have some landscape equipment with gas in them.
I have several 5 gallon gas cans with gas in them.
All of the things with gas are about 15' away from the boiler.
They are all sealed well with their caps.
The chances of enough fumes building up in the garage to have a stray ember pop out of the firebox and ignite the fumes are pretty slim.
The amount of air that is moving through the garage everyday will just dilute or move any fumes right out.

I have 2 very drafty overhead doors. 2 regular man doors with no weather stripping and in fact one door has a pane of glass broken from it.
The parts per million of fumes to O2 can only be trace at best.

On another note, a cranky neighbor called the town on me complaining of smoke (which there really isn't any except at startup for a few minutes) and a funny smell.
The town came by and told him, I am in my legal right to have the boiler and there's nothing they can do!

That is where I have mine. I partitioned my off with cooler panels 3 inch thick and a steel fire rated door. Panel skins are metal.

In my case the garage is the ideal location. It is under the family room, so heat from the boiler and piping helps heat the family room above. That room is where we spend most of our time. The family room used to be cool; now it's cozy.

I set a skid of wood down right beside the boiler which dramatically reduces handling. Mess from wood and biofuel is easy to clean up. Ash removal is easy and mess easy to clean up. Bugs are no problem.

Throwing on an extra split or two is not an issue, as it is all inside. Same with starting the fire, I can do it in PJ's if I want to. If I produce too much smoke from a carelessly timed boiler-loading-door opening, I just open the garage door.

Insurance company was unconcerned once they inspected the install but added a $50/year wood-burning surcharge. That covers the fireplace insert as well.

I have no gas or vehicles in the garage except a 20 pound propane tank with a weed burner for starting the fire.This works great. It has a long hose so the tank is well away from the boiler.

The Windhager I'm running sits about 5 feet away from the wife's car in our "well ventilated" garage. ....let's just say I don't have to worry about combustion air....
Neither do I worry about having an "event" occur due to flammable vapors due to the ventilation as well as the fact that the door on the Windhager is never opened while flame is present.
The possibility exists that vapor could enter the boiler through the combustion air opening but it is about 16" off the floor. So that's pretty remote.

My wok 25 is in my walk in basement and we like it. The residual heat rises into the house and I don't need shoes and a coat to tend the fire. I would say if you can do it in the garage or basement go for it it makes things much more convenient.