First Fire - Tarm Solo 60 with 1,000 Gallons Storage

[DenaliChuck]

It's been so long in the works I'd begun to forget why I was working on it!

42* water in the storage tanks at 4pm and the Tarm is humming along at 190* with 150* at the top of tank one at 8pm this evening.

I'd say its good to be off oil, except that it hasn't sunk in yet!

I couldn't have done it without my friend Tom in the lead. He brought a huge amount of boiler experience to the project and 70 hours of sweat as well, and I'm very indebted to him.

I'm going to take a wood-fired shower! Details, photos and more soon.

DC

 

[flyingcow]

Congrats, it is nice to be off oil. Our oil fired furnace is in the basement, took a while to get used to not hearing that unit running. Nice and quiet in the house while staying toasty. I'm only able to go 2 days on a firing, was hoping to go 3. But we usually have 4(sometimes 5) showers a day in this household, plus loads of laundry, dishwasher, etc. Also some chilly days, the house still pulls a little heat once in a while, not quite summer yet. Once you get the routine down, you'll start a fire and walk away almost as quick as taking out the garbage. I'm able to let my tank get down to about 100 degrees on the bottom 2 layers and about 115 on top before I get complaints about cool showers. Good luck.

 

[NHFarmer]

Congrats, It sure is a great feeling to take as long a shower as you want with no thought to how much oil you burned. Are going to burn year round?

 

[DenaliChuck]

Yup, year round! Rough BTU calculations suggest we can get by on a fire every 6-7 days in the summer.

'Course firing the hot tub will shorten the time between fires, but it'll be so much easier than the snorkel wood stove!

 

[sweetheat]

way to go DC! you will fall head over heels in love with your new Tarm as I did with mine. I still can't believe that I used only 2.75 cord of wood from 10/31/08 to 4/16/09. the last of the burns in the spring were every 5th or 6th day. It doesn't get any easier! Sweetheat :cheese: