Another Garn comes online!

[cmittlesteadt]

Last night was the first night in the 10 years of living in my house, that we weren't burning LP to heat it. After a long, sometimes challenging process, I finally have the Garn up and running. It feels good to know that I won't see the LP truck again for a long, long time. I have some tweaking to do, but thanks to all of you on this forum who offered design help, my water delivery system is working very well. I have to learn how much to feed the beast and when, but at this point, all looks good!

Thank you!

 

[huffdawg]

Last night was the first night in the 10 years of living in my house, that we weren't burning LP to heat it. After a long, sometimes challenging process, I finally have the Garn up and running. It feels good to know that I won't see the LP truck again for a long, long time. I have some tweaking to do, but thanks to all of you on this forum who offered design help, my water delivery system is working very well. I have to learn how much to feed the beast and when, but at this point, all looks good!

Thank you!

Congrats ! It feels great to be weened from the gas boob doesn't it . I also so have a 10 year old boy who need to learn how to work hard. Too many video games.

Huff

 

[James Ascherl]

Congrats Cmittle. Your post means there is still hope for me!
Huff, If you give that ten year old boy a chainsaw, he will quickly become a ten year old man.

 

[goosegunner]

Congratulations!

Once you run a few loads you will get an idea of what a load of your current wood will raise the temps.

With a few sensors you can average your temps and you can load appropriately to hit your target temp.

I made a spreadsheet calculator that I have on my iPad. I enter top temp, bottom temp, target, and current boiler temp.

I also factor in btus for load at current temps over burn period.

It takes about 30 seconds to enter numbers and I can hit the amount of wood right on just about every time.

Gg

 

[cmittlesteadt]

Hey Goosegunner,

Your spreadsheet idea is great! Would you mind sharing with me?

Thanks!
Chris

 

[cmittlesteadt]

BB, don't get discouraged, keep at it. It has taken me since last Sept. to build the building do the trench, plumbing electrical and all of the other miscellany. It hasn't been a small project by any means, but I've learned a ton and the learning will continue. Best of all, I'm much, much more self-sufficient.

Best of luck!

 

[goosegunner]

Hey Goosegunner,

Your spreadsheet idea is great! Would you mind sharing with me?

Thanks!
Chris

Sure if I can get it off my iPad. I used an app.

Otherwise if you tell me what you want I can make one for you.

You do need to weigh the wood. I got a great scale off Craigslist. And I use a shopping cart to load the boiler.

I also can load the cart for my wife when I am gone. Kindling in child seat wood in the basket. All she has to do is push the cart next to boiler start and load the wood from the basket.

The cart is the perfect height no bending over or walking to the wood rack.

Gg

 

[cmittlesteadt]

GG, if you can just email me the file from the iPad, I'll open in on mine and buy the app if I need to. I'll probably need to tweak the formula a bit for my variables, but that sounds like a great idea! My email is: [email protected]

Thanks!

 

[deerhntr]

Congrats Chris!

I know the feeling. I just can't imagine going back to "feeding that Arab elixir" to my oil burner in the basement. Our winter here has been somewhat mild this year so our garn has not had to work nearly as hard as it did last year. Originally, I calculated it would take 4 years of burning to pay back, and break even assuming oil was roughly $2.20/gal with a 10% yoy increase. BTW, today here in PA it is $3.69/gallon. The way oil or propane is running now, I bet the payback is now ~3 years.

In any respect, I am sure you will be thankful you made this investment, and it will certainly pay for itself in short order, as long as the 11yr old is splitting wood for you. ;-) Good luck, and post some pics!

 

[Cebulskig]

Congrats on the new boiler!

 

[RowCropRenegade]

Congrats on weening urself off the fuel truck! Be glad that operating the garn is so much easier than installing one. Again, congrats, hooking the beast to radiant should be awesome!

 

[bpirger]

Congrats! I've spent the day sitting inside...watching out all the windows at the howling wind and blowing snow. Feeling a little chilly so I cranked up the floor...77 inside, and the floors are 82. Can you say incredible warmth? And yeah, all for the price of about 10 pieces or firewood! Not a drop of oil since 17NOV10. Welcome to the club!

You'll quickly find out at what temp you need to refire the Garn. Do you know what temp water the underfloor heat loop typically wants? Then when your Garn reaches, say, 10 degrees above that level, you'll likely be ready for fire. In my 1500, I can raise about 55-60 degrees rise in the water will a "full load" of wood. I think the consensus with the Garn is you want your wood about 6-10" from the back of the chamber, and likely 6-10 from the door. You may find that placing a block to deflect some of the air from the bottom "upward", i.e. not directly into the fire, may help clean up your burn in the very beginning more quickly. I use a small chunk of wood for this purpose....sitting a few inches in front of the bottom port. It'll burn up within 90 minutes as well.

Enjoy!

 

[flyingcow]

It really is nice once your burning wood. We've kept our house much warmer since we don't hear the oil boiler running. Fire the oil unit up a few times a winter(just for 30 minutes), or let the tank cool so the aqua stat turns on the oil burner. Just to make sure it's there and everything is still ok.

Than shortly after getting the wood boiler online, I found a tractor with enough lifting capacity for a pallet of wood. Stack right off of the splitter, move to dry, put next to boiler room in the garage. Love being spoiled.

goosegunner---love the idea of the shopping cart. I use a wheelbarrow, but the cart would be better.

 

[flyingcow]

FWIW---i have seen $3.95 gal fuel oil prices.

 

[goosegunner]

It really is nice once your burning wood. We've kept our house much warmer since we don't hear the oil boiler running. Fire the oil unit up a few times a winter(just for 30 minutes), or let the tank cool so the aqua stat turns on the oil burner. Just to make sure it's there and everything is still ok.

Than shortly after getting the wood boiler online, I found a tractor with enough lifting capacity for a pallet of wood. Stack right off of the splitter, move to dry, put next to boiler room in the garage. Love being spoiled.

goosegunner---love the idea of the shopping cart. I use a wheelbarrow, but the cart would be better.

Here is the setup. Works great because it moves easy. I bought it for $9.

gg

 

[flyingcow]

looks good. nice clean area too. Thumbs up.

 

[huffdawg]

Congrats Cmittle. Your post means there is still hope for me!
Huff, If you give that ten year old boy a chainsaw, he will quickly become a ten year old man.

Ya I was thinking that today when he was pulling his hoodie sleeves down over his hands when were stacking wood today. I told him you will have sissy hands forever . Pretty soon his work load will start to get much higher.

Huff

 

[TCaldwell]

congratulations chris,
is gg's burn planner set up like nofo's, would be interested to see.
tom

 

[goosegunner]

congratulations chris,
is gg's burn planner set up like nofo's, would be interested to see.
tom

Mine is just a basic spreadsheet with formulas. I initially used the calculator on my phone but it took longer.

I am going to work on it more but it works for me now. If I had any app skills I would write something for the iPad, anybody ........?


gg

 

[Sawyer]

Congratulations Chris, I remember when I waved good-bye to the LP truck......still smiling.

As Bruce said, you may want to use the firebrick in front of the nozzle with smaller branchwood or splits to control puffing. The idea of the 2x6 which will burn away and help fuel the coals in the last half of a burn is also good advice.

 

[skfire]

Congrats Cmittle. Your post means there is still hope for me!
Huff, If you give that ten year old boy a chainsaw, he will quickly become a ten year old man.

Ya I was thinking that today when he was pulling his hoodie sleeves down over his hands when were stacking wood today. I told him you will have sissy hands forever . Pretty soon his work load will start to get much higher.

Huff

Hey Huff, make that little dude work.,,he will forever thank you later in life..I know I am, to my dad..even though at the time I was not a happy camper, the old man was a disciplined Navy man and boiler guy in tankers, he had me working since I was 8.

Here is a pic of my boy, he is 9, this is form last summer, fist year helping me split and stack,,,,extra careful and a but tense for me,, but all is well under careful supervision and guidance.
No video games allowed in my house(that's the wife's edict...I was down to sneak in some Galaxian(old timer), but the "dragon" rules the roost...)

Scott


ps: to the OP, sorry for the hijack...and CONGRATS on the new awesome boiler..

 

[cmittlesteadt]

Thanks for all the congrats guys! I'm learning how much wood and when. It looks like I can get 14 hours or more between firings if it's below freezing. It's been warm here today, I think it hit 45 deg. I fired at 6am, brought the tank to 187 and now it's down to 165. I think that I won't fire tonight and just ride it out. Hopefully, I won't be too far below 130 in the morning.

I'm inspired by all of your great ideas and unique methods for working with your boilers. I'm sure I'll borrow more of your ideas. Tonight, I'll be wiring up the last bit of controls and things should be pretty much finished.

Thanks again everyone!

Chris

 

[flyingcow]

Chris, let it ride for tonight. but it's hard to leave the fire alone! Good luck with the learning process.

 

[deerhntr]

Thanks for all the congrats guys! I'm learning how much wood and when. It looks like I can get 14 hours or more between firings if it's below freezing. It's been warm here today, I think it hit 45 deg. I fired at 6am, brought the tank to 187 and now it's down to 165. I think that I won't fire tonight and just ride it out. Hopefully, I won't be too far below 130 in the morning.

I'm inspired by all of your great ideas and unique methods for working with your boilers. I'm sure I'll borrow more of your ideas. Tonight, I'll be wiring up the last bit of controls and things should be pretty much finished.

Thanks again everyone!

Chris

Chris,

Keep in mind that 165F on the dial does not mean a homogeneous 165 throughout the entire tank. Remember you are stuffing cooled return H2O into the bottom of your tank, and the tank will stratify. Also the Supply is ~6 inches below the Tank thermometer. The one thing I have learned from my temp monitoring. when I really need to burn is dictated by the temp I measure at the supply side of my heat exchanger. The tank thermometer really is useless for anything other than filling the hole in the bung. I bet if you are at 165F now on your tank therm., your supply is down in the 130s or lower. I would burn, and top it off for the night. The wife will thank you! .....and me!

 

[bpirger]

You'll find a good number of threads on the Garn stratification and the fact that the front sensor will read anywhere from 10-20 degrees off the actual water supply temperature hours after a burn finishes. During the burn, and immediately after, they agree quite well (due to the mixing driven by the fire). But as the fire ends and the stratificaiton begins, it seems very typical for the actual supply temp to deviate substantially from the front sensor temp.....growing larger as time passes...until it starts to grow closer as the whole thing gets down toward 120 or so (my experience anyways).

Many folks go 24 hours...all depends on your load. The one "issue" I have with my 1500, some mornings, making DHW can be very slow...or not possible. Now, we typically burn in the morning....so it's been 20 hours since the fire is out. If we fired in the late afternoon, morning DHW would likely be not an issue....though late morning laundry may be....

You will quickly learn what you need. You may also consider droppign your DHW setting.

Enjoy!