Payback on pressurized storage

I don't really think that storage will save you any money at all. It will not cause you to burn less wood. You might have a slight savings by limiting idling. Adding storage does add to the operating convenience of the setup.

9 grand to have a 500 gallon tank installed? That must be one pretty tank or the plumber must be driving a really nice truck. What's the breakdown?

chuck172 said:

I don't really think that storage will save you any money at all. It will not cause you to burn less wood. You might have a slight savings by limiting idling. Adding storage does add to the operating convenience of the setup.

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It allows you to save oil/gas- using it to heat DHW

My general rule of thumb is, Payback has to be < 5 years otherwise I won't invest. Why? After 5 years you typically can't be assured of repair costs, part availability etc etc. So I have to get my monies worth quick to protect the investment. The only way I'll do storage at this point is if a great deal falls in my lap and then it's for convenience not payback. Heck I'm not even online with my ebw yet so my investment is failing me...........for the moment

Adios Pantalones said:

chuck172 said:

I don't really think that storage will save you any money at all. It will not cause you to burn less wood. You might have a slight savings by limiting idling. Adding storage does add to the operating convenience of the setup.

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It allows you to save oil/gas- using it to heat DHW

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not unless a DHW loop is incorporated into storage. DHW loop can be used without storage as well by using a sidearm heater or such

I am having my tank plumbed in today as we speak and here is my break down.

500 gallon used propane tank $300
welding to modify tank $150 (including pipe and fittings)
Spray foam insulation for tank $375
100 gallon propane tank for expasion tank $25
valves, auqastat, BLT Control, copper and plumbing supplies $2000
Havent gotten the plumbing bill yet but assuming approx. $1200

Grand total $4050.

This should cut the wood usage by a little, not much. And will allow much more convience during shoulder season heating and for DHW. I would say that the payback might take some time but this setup is much more for the ability to burn only a few hours each day instead of being a slave to the boiler always worrying about idleing and creosote and oil boiler kicking on if the firebox is empty.

My plumber is figuring roughly 2 full days labor so 16 hours at 75/hr is where I came up with the 1200. The electrical work shouldnt take more than a couple hours since I have the BLT control everything is fairly easy.

How long did it take your plumber to do everything he had to do? I have a year old setup with a tarm 40 and buderus oil already up and running so all he has to do is tie in the storage tank to what I had done a year ago. Maybe you had more prep work to get the storage tank hooked in?

well without storage i used 150 gallons since last august when we first moved into the house. but I didnt burn much during may of this year and didnt start buring last season until late october so we used some oil to heat the house during that time since there wasnt enough of a heat demand to burn with the tarm. Once the storage is hooked up I am planning on buring from September 1st to June 1st so I will only use oil june, july and august for hot water. So I imagine I will only use maybe 60 gallons a year.
What is your burning schedule like now that your storage is up and running? Im looking forward to having mine running by this weekend.

Wood has value too. Even if it's free, the cutting, splitting, stacking and stoking still requires effort.
I have storage and often burn wood for the dhw.
To tell the truth, I don't burn much oil for the hw. I have a superstor and an efficient oil boiler.
These tarms and other wood boilers have very big fireboxes and require lots of wood to heat big volumes of water just for domestic hot water.

Storage for me would make a big difference but I cant justify it on cost. I get my wood "free" usually and burn about 2.5 cords a year. My burnham wood boiler (an old timer) is either full bore combustion or smouldering with the air damper shut down. Its rated at 100,000 btu/hr. I dont really use it until real cold weather or when I have been gone for a weekend and had the thermostat turned down. I do have a VC defiant wood stove that probably uses half the wood at a lower efficiency as it is in the basement If I had storage I would use the wood boiler more often and burn less oil. I burn 300 gallons of #2 a year in addition to wood, let say I replace 150 gallons with additional wood burning. At 2.50 per gallon thats $375 savings per year and a lot more work on my part.

On the other hand solar hot water currently has a couple of rebates in NH http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=NH40F&re=1&ee=1 plus a 30% fed rebate (until December 31st 2010). This supplys my hot water for 6 months a year where I previously had a tankless coil on my oil boiler which burned about 1 gallon a day. Thats 180 gallons a year or $450 per year. I expect with the combined rebates on solar hot water, you may spend $2000 out of pocket so the payback is better and unlike wood, there isnt a lot of additional work on your part.

Birdman said:

How much oil do you think you will save by using your storage?

I must agree... teh convienance of having the storage is pretty cool . I guess I have to weigh that convienance with a 10-15 year payback.

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conv of storage= clean burn & more heat. inconvinience = restart the fire without coals

Payback might be calculated on a purely economic basis, which is certainly OK. For me though, this being the 4th heating season for my Tarm, I have learned an incredible amount regarding hydronic heating, had tons of fun on data monitoring and logging, hopefully benefited many others in sharing of knowledge and experience, been a volunteer consultant to a large Garn and Wood Gun install, met some fabulous people, honed a variety of skills, including getting back into some computer programming, and heated first my old shop and now my new shop in the process. How does one put a value on these non-economic pay backs?

As to wood, the great bulk of what I burn is slab pine from logs I convert to lumber. It is waste wood to me, probably could sell it for something, but it is a by-product of another endeavor. Certainly some time is involved in cutting to length, splitting, drying and stacking, but these also have non-economic pay back in physical activity, working outdoors, general well being, and lots of satisfaction and contribution to quality of life.

I'd much rather invest my money in all of these non-economic, quality of life, assets than simply measure dollars out and dollars in. The last 4 years have been a mighty fine ride, and I would be the less for not jumping on the wood gasification cart. Joie de vie! Much better than having focused on other investments, the stock market, economy, jobs, vicious politics, fear mongering, character assassination, and the like, of the current political campaigns.

Pay back could not have been better. Return on investment: 100%+.

Very well stated Jebatty. My wood boiler project has turned into physical activity for the whole family, self satisfaction, woodland management for wildlife, and the talk of the town.

Payback period on storage in general= Forever +1 day
Not having to build a fire every day in the shoulder season= PRICELESS

Depending on the boiler, heat load, and burning habits storage may or may not save some wood... But it sure is nice
to be able to start a fire when it suits me, not when the house is getting cold. The WAF alone is worth the price of admission

kabbott said:

Payback period on storage in general= Forever +1 day
Not having to build a fire every day in the shoulder season= PRICELESS

Depending on the boiler, heat load, and burning habits storage may or may not save some wood... But it sure is nice
to be able to start a fire when it suits me, not when the house is getting cold. The WAF alone is worth the price of admission

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+1

Its kinda like buying a new vehicle with air conditioning. You could buy a car without/and just roll down the windows and this will cool you off some, but during the real heat its nice to have the air. I'm not saving any wood with my storage as my tanks are not in my living space, so I lose any standby heat, but being able to go 2 or 3 days between firing the boiler after fully charging my storage makes life allot easier even in the coldest part of winter.

I will be able to provide some interesting info in a day or two on stand-by "loss" into a 1500 sq ft heated space from a Tarm with 1000 gal insulated, pressurized storage tank installed in the heated space. I fired the Tarm yesterday, outside temp 41F, and the next few days are forecast into the low 40's day and 20's night.

Birdman, the plumber finished hooking everything up with the storage. He had the ZV-1 zone valve in the wrong spot when I got home last night so he had to change that this morning. But the whole process was about 12 hours for the plumber and his helper. Electrician will be over first thing tomorrow morning to wire everything to the BLT control box. Looking forward to tomorrow afternoon when I can fire up the first burn and hopefully everything works the way its suppose to. This has been quite the process and without these forums, I wouldnt have known where to even start!

I do like my setup, I would do a few things different if I knew last year what I know now. I wouldve put the tarm in a small room outside to eliminate bringing all the wood into the basement, this might not be as much of a hassle if I were to have a walkout basement. As far as the superstor goes, i have no complaints. I actually turned down the aquastat to 120 so its not keeping the water temps up to 130 which is where it was set all last year. I still have as hot of water as I would ever be able to tolerate while taking a shower or doing dishes. I found myself making a small fire at night and another in the morning during the shoulder season months which was quite a pain after a while so I am looking forward to having this storage set up and running.