A few pictures of our boiler systems.

[ewdudley]

My favorite thing is burning all my sawdust.

Looks more like pharmaceutic production room, or a Confederate Air Force hangar. Not much sign of any sawdust!

 

[Gasifier]

Nice 711. Thanks for sharing. This is what is cool with all these pictures in one place. You never know what idea you are going to pick up from someone else. Seeing everyone elses system is sharing ideas without even talking about them. You never know when you are going to help someone elses learning curve be a little easier for them. This site does this in several ways. Very cool.

 

[711mhw]

Nice 711. Thanks for sharing. This is what is cool with all these pictures in one place. You never know what idea you are going to pick up from someone else. Seeing everyone elses system is sharing ideas without even talking about them. You never know when you are going to help someone elses learning curve be a little easier for them. This site does this in several ways. Very cool.

I like to think that I come up with an original idea now and then, but eventually I realize that I saw it somewhere else before!

 

[Gasifier]

Nice 711. Thanks for sharing. This is what is cool with all these pictures in one place. You never know what idea you are going to pick up from someone else. Seeing everyone elses system is sharing ideas without even talking about them. You never know when you are going to help someone elses learning curve be a little easier for them. This site does this in several ways. Very cool.

I like to think that I come up with an original idea now and then, but eventually I realize that I saw it somewhere else before!

I know we all come up with are own, good, original ideas. It is just that we read and see so much with all the information we process sometimes we can't remember where it came from, if we thought of it, found it, lost it and found it again. I can not tell you how many times I am telling someone about something cool I read and can't remember where I read it. E-mail, thread, news on line, newspaper, magazine, book, etc, etc, etc.

 

[leeeallen]

711mhw
Is that a factory smoke removing hood or did you manufacture it? Nice to keep that smoke out of the house.

 

[stee6043]

Here is a shot of my setup before she got insulated. I believe I took this during one of my cleaning runs before draining and refilling...

 

[Gasifier]

Very nice Stee6043! I remember your thread on your complete install. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. For those of you who have not seen it. Check this out! :bug: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/32524/ Thanks again for posting your system!

 

[goosegunner]

Started the building last year October 2010. The boiler was online without storage December 2010. I am finishing the insulation of the 1000 gallon pressurized storage now.

Boiler is in the 12'X16' area on front of building, Tank is in 6'X20' enclosed lean directly behind boiler room.

gg

 

[Gasifier]

WOW! Holy sh!t GG. That is one beautiful looking building you have there. Nice system. Where do you keep your wood supply? Thanks for posting pictures of your system.

 

[goosegunner]

WOW! Holy sh!t GG. That is one beautiful looking building you have there. Nice system. Where do you keep your wood supply? Thanks for posting pictures of your system.

Thanks, Its been quite a project.

I have rolling carts that I can get about a weeks worth of wood on. I keep that in the boiler building, it dries very nice. I have enough wood in the big building to carry me through the snow months. I have another 25 full cords cut and out of sight. I do have to handle my wood more than I like but I will work on that in the near future.

gg

 

[Briquetmaker]

Hey EW. What's that interesting looking thing-a-ma-jig you built in the last picture of your post? And is that an oil boiler you have for back-up next to your Attack?

The thing-a-ma-jig is field-expedient, shade-tree, rural-contemporary engineering artifact for controlling boiler draft as a function of flue temperature:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/69395/P45/

I've wasted a lot of Saturday afternoons in my time, but that little project made up for a couple of them at least. It controls the burn rate nice and steady, and shuts to air off completely at the end of the burn, which preserves a nice charcoal bed for the next burn.

The other boiler is Keystoker anthracite boiler. It's even allowed under the boiler room charter:

"This Forum is for the topic of Central Heating - specifically with wood, coal, pellets, corn and other solid fuels. We can also discuss multi-fuel systems, which burn oil and gas along with solid fuels..."

EW, The keystoker has a hopper feed on it?

 

[711mhw]

711mhw
Is that a factory smoke removing hood or did you manufacture it? Nice to keep that smoke out of the house.

Yes . It's the factory unit that I can't life without it. It even sucks the dust out of the air when it's cleaning time!

 

[infinitymike]

She's not hooked up yet but I'm almost there!
I have the pipe run from the garage to the oil burner which is 70 feet away.
Tuesday my hvac guy is coming to do the hook up.

Should be up and running by Thursday.

The white pipe is the monoflow system that runs around the first floor.

This is the 60 year old oil beast that I will be hooking up in parallel to the wood gun.

I have a silly question.

Is primary/secondary the same thing as parallel?

 

[Gasifier]

Wow! Looks great Mike. It won't be long now. Good luck this week. Keep us up to date. Thanks for sharing the pics of the progress!

 

[ewdudley]

The keystoker has a hopper feed on it?

Yeah, pretty basic, but it's simple, efficient, and looks like it will live up to its reputation for being reliable. Off-the-shelf Honeywell and Grainger control components.

Although it's annoying to have to take ashes out all the time, it's arguably cheaper and more convenient that maintaining a wood supply and feeding the wood boiler.

But psychologically it's so much nicer to heat the house as warm as I want with as much wood as it takes.

--ewd

 

[bigburner]

Mine!!

 

[Gasifier]

COOL bigburner! I assume you made that! What is it? I can't tell if it is a boiler or a hot air furnace. Again, I'm technically challenged with some things. :lol: Very cool. Tell us a little about what you did there man. Thanks for sharing the pictures. That's awesome!

My neighbor has a home made pallet burner for his large metal building that is his workshop. No insulation it that building. It gets cold in there. Until he starts driving up to the dutch doors with the Gehl skidsteer and loading 4 or 5 pallets at a time into it. The thing throws some serious heat off. Have a good one.

 

[Gasifier]

Bigburner. Can you explain this system to me a little. It is a little hard for me to tell from the pictures how it works. Is that a storage tank on the right hand side there? What do you heat with it? Anymore information you could give would be appreciated. Very cool to see all the different systems.

 

[infinitymike]

Bigburner,

That thing is insane! That is one big burner (no pun intended)
Based on the ladder that thing must be 15 feet high! Holy Macaroni dude.

No need to split anything either, just throw the whole dame tree in!

I guess you are heating half of Michigan!

Very impressive.

 

[bigburner]

welded 1932 steam boiler rated for 30 psi [Hydro at 45 psi] Hot water 1200 gallon, about 800 ft 3" fire tube, several skids of refractory for burn chamber, set up to do up flow gasification with counter flow passages and bypass, wood loaded with two wheel dolly, door hand cranked gear box -open/closed, 4,000 gal storage [unpressurized], Heats - 9,000 sq ft shop @ 60F in slab + 2500 Sq ft house @ 70F Air to Air with under floor tile areas + 1,000 sq ft indoor pool room & 12,000 gal pool + 700 sq ft garage Air to Air [mounted on unit heater] + 800 sq ft apartment in slab, wood consumption - not sure we burn every thing [hard ,soft wet, dry] some days it seems like it is very very efficient and others not as much. My guess when burning hot [fire brick glowing] it has efficiency as good as anything out there. This is fourth season Plan on doing some stack reading this winter, find out where the short falls are in the burn cycle/air adjustment. Hope to also experiment with straw bales and wood chips.

 

[Gasifier]

welded 1932 steam boiler rated for 30 psi [Hydro at 45 psi] Hot water 1200 gallon, about 800 ft 3" fire tube, several skids of refractory for burn chamber, set up to do up flow gasification with counter flow passages and bypass, wood loaded with two wheel dolly, door hand cranked gear box -open/closed, 4,000 gal storage [unpressurized], Heats - 9,000 sq ft shop @ 60F in slab + 2500 Sq ft house @ 70F Air to Air with under floor tile areas + 1,000 sq ft indoor pool room & 12,000 gal pool + 700 sq ft garage Air to Air [mounted on unit heater] + 800 sq ft apartment in slab, wood consumption - not sure we burn every thing [hard ,soft wet, dry] some days it seems like it is very very efficient and others not as much. My guess when burning hot [fire brick glowing] it has efficiency as good as anything out there. This is fourth season Plan on doing some stack reading this winter, find out where the short falls are in the burn cycle/air adjustment. Hope to also experiment with straw bales and wood chips.

Very cool bigburner. Thanks for sharing your system.

Boiler guys. Is this all the systems in the boiler room forum. I think not! C'mon, we want to see pictures of your system. Does not matter what it looks like, we just like to see you heating systems! See how others do things. Never know what you might learn or what idea you might give to someone else.

 

[Gasifier]

I see there are many new systems and new members. So I thought I would bring this thread up again and see if any of you want to add pics of your systems who have not already. I like to see pics of your systems. Thanks in advance.

 

[ozzie88]

All homemade here,up-draft Gasser. Works great! 2nd year in maine, Lots of welding here. Basebboard in propane tank for dhw. works great also. 330 gal. storage

 

[ozzie88]

All homemade here,up-draft Gasser. Works great! 2nd year in maine, Lots of welding here. Basebboard in propane tank for dhw. works great also. 330 gal. storage

 

[hartkem]

I just finished mine this year. Put about 5 loads through it a few weeks ago during a cold spell and it worked good. 500 gallons of pressurized storage in basement. Boiler shack about 120' from the house. Homemade A coil in forced air plenum.