Shipping Container for boiler shed?

I think someone did this with a Garn in the past.

I have seen a pellet boiler company using these for an all in one heat source location.Can't remember who though. Seemed like a decent idea. You could tek screw vinyl siding on the most visible face of it for appearance sake.

I think this is something that is very do-able.

I wouldn't do anything super fancy to get it landed - you could just level up four pads (one for each corner) with some compacted crushed stone, lay down some big patio-type stones, and set it right on those. We got one a couple years ago for storage, that's about all we did and the guy backed his tilt deck thing right up to it & landed it exactly in place all by himself. We didn't have to do anything else.

I would layout my storage in the front end, then cut a side door into it just behind that, and put the boiler in that space, then all the wood in the rest of it with access for filling with wood thru the back doors. 20' of length should be room for almost 10 cords of wood. You could maybe utilize pallets & a pallet jack in there to help move it around. 500 gallon LP tanks are 9.5' long. If you could get some modified & shortened so they could stand up, that would use the space even better. Say 4x300 gallons = 1200 gallons, in about 8' of floor space with a bit of room for insulation (they're 3' diameter). So the only modding you'd have to do to the container would be cutting in a side door, and a chimney hole. Plus a couple small holes for pipe & wiring. And maybe paint it a fancy color.

I don't even think you'd have to insulate - ours gets pretty hot inside on a sunny day. But you could do that pretty easily with some foam board & plywood over top if you wanted. Or just insulate the section the storage is in.

I agree with everyone else. It seems like a great idea. I would probably just insulate the section where the storage is at, like maple1 said, but other then that you should be fine. Might think about a slight pitched roof to keep rain water/snow melt from potentially puddling up on the top.

I say do it. Post some pics when it's done.

install a man-door.

rkusek said:

A company in the UK was selling those. That was the only example I could find on a search. Will try to look for the Garn one. If I were to heat my DHW with wood this would be a good option too. I would only have to burn once or twice a week to keep the tanks hot which should also help dry my next seasons wood stored in there. Plus I like the idea of reducing my wood handling. Instead of moving twice, I can cut, split, and then stack right in container. I too thought of covering the outside with barn steel if that is what it took to make wife happy.

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The Garn example was a year or two ago. A guy wanted temporary location for his Garn till everything was all said and done on his house construction.

I owned a 20' container and used it on a remote property to park my small bulldozer inside. Those containers are awfully skinny. You really get the feeling of a cave with a 40 footer. The floors are wooden and critters love to live beneath since there is a necessary gap between the bottom and the floor to allow for the lifting forks. I just set it down on the dirt, leveled off with the dozer. Never leaked. These things do sweat on the inside though.

Do most of these gasifier boilers not need much chimney height? Direct vent?

most gasification boilers are fan induced, so chimney height is not as much of a factor.

rkusek said:

A company in the UK was selling those. That was the only example I could find on a search. Will try to look for the Garn one. If I were to heat my DHW with wood this would be a good option too. I would only have to burn once or twice a week to keep the tanks hot which should also help dry my next seasons wood stored in there. Plus I like the idea of reducing my wood handling. Instead of moving twice, I can cut, split, and then stack right in container. I too thought of covering the outside with barn steel if that is what it took to make wife happy.

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It would be hot in there but you would need a fair amount of ventilation to let to water vapor out. It could be good for storing wood that has been air dried but then you're back to handling your wood twice.
Mark at Ahona has a beautiful fabric arch building that sits on four 40 footers. They are just painted and look fantastic.

rkusek said:

A company in the UK was selling those. That was the only example I could find on a search. Will try to look for the Garn one. If I were to heat my DHW with wood this would be a good option too. I would only have to burn once or twice a week to keep the tanks hot which should also help dry my next seasons wood stored in there. Plus I like the idea of reducing my wood handling. Instead of moving twice, I can cut, split, and then stack right in container. I too thought of covering the outside with barn steel if that is what it took to make wife happy.

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Fink Machine Inc, of Enderby BC supplies containerized KOB woodchip/pellet boilers. Awesome setup.
He deals mostly with commercial I think, but you can get residential sized KOB boilers also.

Make yourself a system like this guy so you can load wood in the open end and push it down towards the boiler.

That's interesting. The end of the wood shed & rails is still a ways from the splitter though. I like using pallets. You can put them right beside the splitter, then move where you want with a FEL. If that's into the end of a container, you can get them the rest of the way with a pallet jack.

Guy has a ton of money invested for burning wood.

heres what I saw, slightly upscale though
http://www.maineenergysystems.com/Energy-Boxes.htm

I think a container would be a great boiler shed especially a reefer, would be totally insulated. A Garn 1500 and up would be a little to big unless you could get access to front ,back and top. I built my shed 10 x 20 put the garn tight to one side after everything was done I have about a 16 in alley to get to the back.

Pics

rkusek said:

A company in the UK was selling those. That was the only example I could find on a search. Will try to look for the Garn one. If I were to heat my DHW with wood this would be a good option too. I would only have to burn once or twice a week to keep the tanks hot which should also help dry my next seasons wood stored in there. Plus I like the idea of reducing my wood handling. Instead of moving twice, I can cut, split, and then stack right in container. I too thought of covering the outside with barn steel if that is what it took to make wife happy.

Click to expand...

rkusek said:

A company in the UK was selling those. That was the only example I could find on a search. Will try to look for the Garn one. If I were to heat my DHW with wood this would be a good option too. I would only have to burn once or twice a week to keep the tanks hot which should also help dry my next seasons wood stored in there. Plus I like the idea of reducing my wood handling. Instead of moving twice, I can cut, split, and then stack right in container. I too thought of covering the outside with barn steel if that is what it took to make wife happy.

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rkusek,
I will try to get you a few pics of my install tomorrow ( think mine was the one Buzz saw was referring too). I tried to search for my previous posts that had photos, didn't have much luck... Anyways, I have a garn 2000 in a 20 shipping container. It was intended to be temporary for last year to get me up and running until I could get my garage built that would perminately house the boiler, but things happen, days fly by and it is still in the container... I really liked the set-up last heating season. It kept me dry while starting the boiler, offered some space for wood /kindling storage and most important, it was a quick easy solution to get my system up and running last year.

Pictures as promised. Kind of crude, but it actually worked better than I expected. If I was to do it over again, and the setup was going to be perminant I would have gone to a 40 foot container (more room for wood storage). Unit was a little snug but I left it about 3 feet off the back wall to allow access to the piping connections and combustion air. Didn't pipe the inlet duct out of the container as the top corners are ventilated, so if figured there was plenty of air draw into the container for combustion. I ended up with about 16" of space Down the left side between the wall and boiler. Would have liked a little more room while I was running the piping but... I piped the supply and return back up to the front side of the boiler before turning back, this allowed space for tees to install the supply/return sensors and a set of isolation valve before connecting to the thermopex at the rear of the container. All in all the set-up worked pretty good. No issues with condensation on the walls. I think it would be an excellent alternative to a stick built barn for a fraction of the cost.
kind of ironic that we are think about doing just the opposite of each other as far as a perminant space for our systems. I'll trade you a 20' container for your pole barn

I'll bet there is no snow on top of the container this winter.

wardk said:

I'll bet there is no snow on top of the container this winter.

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hoping not, but still haven't pulled the trigger on ordering the pole barn yet...
How do you like your 1500?
Love my boiler. Reliable, efficient, simple! I was actually thinking about loading the unit on my trailer and putting on one of my project sites this winter to provide temporary heat for a new build that we will be doing this winter, but then I remembered how much fun I had with this last year, and how comfortable my house was last season. Naw, going to keep it right here!