OWB question

OWB dealer brainwashing I suspect. "Buy my boiler, it will burn everything. Even the kitchen sink".

Have to agree with stee as most/all OWB are sold with a statement like that. Making them even worse performers in the real world. Let him know that he could switch to a secondary combustion boiler (gaser) from any reputable manufacturer & burn 20% of the wood he does now.

Of course he would have to dry that 1/5th down to a MC of 20% as any reputable gaser related person will never tell anyone to cut a tree & feed it (green) into any combustion device.

If he just burned seasoned wood, chances are he will burn less wood. Part of the energy from burning green is getting rid of the water.

It will burn greeen wood but use more wood, get more smoke, and will have creasote every where.

OWB's usually have their own built in storage so one of the main "efficiency" selling points (and costs) of a gasifier is side stepped in the OWB sales approach. OWB plumbing layouts are usually much simpler than gasifiers. By design gasifiers are less efficient while idling but OWB's idle a lot (an operational selling point). You can load an OWB and not worry about it for 12 hours or longer usually in the heart of winter and it will chug right along doing what the owner thinks it's supposed to do. The owners think that as long as the fire is burning it is producing heat (obviously it is but sometimes that heat is just going up in smoke and not efficiently improving the heat quality of the water). Owners often say green/er wood lasts longer (it does in appearance but most times that heat is just going up in smoke and not really improving the heat quality of the water). The problem is that most OWB owners think that as long as you don't have to relight the boiler you are doing just fine because a relight can mean hours of burning before you get usable heat. Many OWB owners think load and go is the right science for their system and seldom if ever experiment with the most efficient use of their boiler and fuel supply for the greatest output for simple reasons like committment or availability. However I have found that filling my particular OWB half full with seasoned wood will give me about 12 full hours of unattended burn time while a full load will usually only yield 16 hours. A half load of greener wood will only yield 6-8 hours of unattended burn time and a full load will only yield 10 to 12 hours. Load placement is important too. The highest efficiency I have gotten with my OWB is by loading the front half bottom to top instead of just filling the boiler half way up from front to back. Generally in a gasifier the primary combution chamber is filled with pre heated air and the fuel supply is heated which helps ignition of the wood. In an OWB outside air is introduced into the only combustion chamber to fan the fire and spread it and it takes time to heat the wood enough to overcome the cooling air enough to heat the water. Because the storage is built in to the OWB the owner seldom sees a wide enough temperature swing in boiler output to effect the heating of their home and as a result are led to believe their boiler can burn green/er wood. It is quite possible OWB user's feel that the sophistry of a gasifier is not worth the trouble or that gasifier owners are prone to exagerate how little wood they use in comparison to an OWB user. I have a gasifier that is off line and am currently using an OWB and I can seriously say I miss the gasifier. Unless your co-worker had to use a gasifier I doubt they would think it a better system.

Hi
Tell him about this site,encourage him to read here every day.If he follows your advice.you should recive thanks from him.
Thomas

salecker said:

Hi
Tell him about this site,encourage him to read here every day.If he follows your advice.you should recive thanks from him.
Thomas

Click to expand...

+1

I recently purchased a 20 pulp cord load of logs which had been cut 1.5 years ago. The logger unloaded the logs in my driveway and when he was all done he told me the following: He normally hauls green wood in his forestry business and thus has never given a thought to exactly how much water is in green wood. Since his semi and trailer had a built in scale system he was able to notice that the load of 20 pulp cord weighed 10,000 lbs less than normal green wood.

At 8 lbs/gallon, thats 1250 gallons of water. How is it that people honestly think that the same liquid that fireman use to put out fires can make wood burn better in an OWB. I've run into people who have been brainwashed by the OWB manufactures before.

Effecta man

Effecta Boiler User said:

I recently purchased a 20 pulp cord load of logs which had been cut 1.5 years ago. The logger unloaded the logs in my driveway and when he was all done he told me the following: He normally hauls green wood in his forestry business and thus has never given a thought to exactly how much water is in green wood. Since his semi and trailer had a built in scale system he was able to notice that the load of 20 pulp cord weighed 10,000 lbs less than normal green wood.

At 8 lbs/gallon, thats 1250 gallons of water. How is it that people honestly think that the same liquid that fireman use to put out fires can make wood burn better in an OWB. I've run into people who have been brainwashed by the OWB manufactures before.

Effecta man

Click to expand...

Maybe they are steam boilers, ha ha ha