10/14/2010 Rain? Snow? Oil?

Oh man, that weather is tough.

We've had more than a week straight of sun and 70's. The windows are open in the upstairs and the downstairs is soaking up the heat for December.

If the boiler hasn't paid for itself yet, hopefully it will this winter, and perform for years to come.

Iseedeadbtu's we have talked before. This is my third season burning my greenbeast. I am happy, but nervous to say, that my refractory is still perfect. My question to you is...... Do you ramp the boiler up and down or run it continuous? In other words I am holding out until Nov. 1 to fire mine then keep it fired none stop until approx. April 15. I travel on the weekends in Oct. so I do not like to light it and burn all week then let it cool down on the weekends. I do not seem to have the moisture and creosote issues that most guys post about. Just curious to see how you and others run theirs. I have been burning solid rounds of maple and oak some have been almost green but most are dried about 12 months. I do not have storage, I load it heavy in the morning before work, throw in a couple, three, four rounds in the cold afternoon (3pm) then load it heavy at 10pm.
Rich

I run my greenwood the same way. I probably won't fire it up until late in Nov, then I run through March. I fire the same way using mostly birch that is pretty dry. This will be my 3rd year and I should almost break even at the end of this year. I do not have any cracks in my refractory yet, but the outside of my skins is showing a lot of rust mostly near the bottom. I am waiting to see how much of a pain replacing the skins is as I am reluctant to sink anymore $ into this boiler.
Doug

At this point my skins are really rusty under the insulation on the inside. I will keep using them until they are ready to break through to the outside. I am not to concerned about replacing the skins. I am a wood and metal shop teacher so cutting and replacing the steel is no problem. My concern is the water tubeing/hx inside. I hope greenwood used some better quaility steel there. Hopeing to break even at the end of this season also. I am really happy with its performance and oil savings just pissed at the low quality skins.

I usually start the last weekend of October but this year we've had so much sun I'm wondering if I'll need to! Frost this morning....burning natural gas right this minute. But we'll see how the next 2 weeks treats us here in Michigan. Things can change quickly...that's for sure.

just fired up my eko 25 thursday night 10/14. normally I would prefer to wait until its low 50s during hte day but I got tired of hearing the fuel oil boiler kicking on and my wife keeps the house extra warm because of the newborn. Plus it is nice to take a extra long hot shower with that free wood hot water

I have a question if you figure that you can pay off a boiler in 3.5 yrs. I'm not sure what you all have invested but. I paid around $6500 (shipped) for my Greenfire and had at least another $2500 in pumps, copper, pex, heat exchanger, ect. (Wife says it's actually much more than that) Now, I have a new house (2008) so I'm sure that I'm going to take a much longer time to pay off my investment. But my last house was bigger and older and I heated the house and a 30x30 shop on natural gas and would never see a natural gas bill over $300. Say you burn for 6 mths at $300 per month. And the actual average would be less but for the sake of argument. That's $1800 per year, Which seems like an awful lot to me. but even at that its nearly 5 years to break even. Not counting on all of the gas, truck, saw, etc, costs. Not don't get me wrong I like cutting / burning wood. But if you can pay off this thing in 3 1/2 yrs you may want to spent some of your money and efforts in insulation or windows for your house. One of the funniest statements that I hear is that "I get free heat with my wood boiler" Nothing is free, and includes Health Care and Wood. :exclaim:

My propane bill was over $3000 the year before I installed the boiler. That was with a wood stove in the family room that I burned about 3 cords in. I have a 20 year old 2200 sq ft house that I built. It has a lot (24) of large windows and 4 doors. Now my propane is less than $500 per year. I figure up to this year to have saved $7500 to $8000. That should cover the stove and about 1/2 the install which I did myself. If I change to a different boiler the install supplies will get used over.
I thought I had done my homework when I bought the greenwood. I have learned about a lot more since thanks to this site. I would do it different if I had to do it over. Probably should have gone with a Garn back then and been done with it.
Doug

When I built my system, I priced w/Garn "very nice people" Problem is that they wanted me to install two of there units. My system has a lot of infrastructure that would still be needed with any system. I heat a 9000 sq ft shop, 3250 sq ft house, 700 sq ft apartment, two care garage and 12,000 gal pool. By gas bill in the summer is 300 bucks, lots of showers & laundry. The ROI on my system is ???? maybe never. but from a cash flow point as I am getting older and the cap & trade BS still lingers on the horizon. I don't want give up the use of my shop or live in my house at 65 F because I can't afford the heat bill. I have a geothermal heat pump connected to my system that I don't even use because they changed the rate back to "stupid" peak was .15 off peak .04 [18 hours a day] now its .07 & .12 ---- Point being, with wood I control at least this aspect of my life

Trzebs13:
Natural gas is substantially cheaper than propane, heating oil or electric. So people who have only propane, heating oil or electricl available as alternatives are going to have substantially greater savings with wood.

Payback is an interesting question. Really, I think the right way to look at it is to see what the cost of each option would be over the time you expect to be living there (plus any delta, positive or negative, that each system would contribute to the house sale price at the end).

You have the initial cost for each option, the annual fuel cost, maintenance costs, and replacement cost for any parts that wear out (including the boilers). Keep in mind that oil boilers cost something up front and don't last forever, either.

If boiler life were infinite, I'd be happy with a ten year payback. How many investments pay back 10% per year?

Even if payback were worse, I'd still consider it as a way to spend money now to reduce my fixed expenses in the future.

Just my $0.02