Hello everyone; first post

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Hello! Well, like most people the rising cost of oil has me looking into heating alternatives. I have wood-burning experience having grown up during the 70's energy crunch; my dad installed two wood stoves which I obviously took care of as did everyone else in the home. My first home when I first got married in 1988 was a small ranch that was set up for electric heat. I imediately installed a Consolidated Dutchwest Convection heater in the basement and we heated exclusively with wood (6 to 8 cords/year) for 14+ years.

In 2003 I built our current home which has approximately 2,000 square feet of living area and a 364 square foot loft area. I designed the house with an open floor plan (Kitchen, dining and living room open, cathedral ceiling above the living room area and the loft above the kitchen and dining). I have radiant floor heat everywhere ecept the 3 bedrooms (baseboard) and the loft. I also heat 1,400 square feet of my basement with the radiant as well. I have a Buderus boiler and enough plumping and pumps to make a submariner feel right at home! I went through 900 gallons of oil last year (including domestic hot water) and we keep the house around 70 to 72.

I have an unused flue in my chimney in the basement so my thought was leaning towards an indoor boiler tied in with my current system. I am sure I will have a lot of questions as I go along, but this appears to be the community to tap for knowledge. For now, I do have a couple of questions:

1. Most of my research so far has indicated that I will burn considerably less wood with a gasification type boiler than one would expect. Our old house was a small ranch and we went through a lot (in my mind) of wood there. My wife has fears of using even more to heat our new larger home. In our old house we were relying on convection to heat the air, in this case we'd be heating the water which would be a big difference in my mind; comments?

2. I'd be interested to see if any other members here are close to my location (Warren, MA) and would be willing to share their experience in boiler selection, dealer selection & service, and use; maybe even giving me a tour of their set-up?

3. What kind of efficency numbers can I really expect out of a gasification-type boiler?

That's about it for now; I'm sure there will be more to come. Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Eric Johnson]

Welcome to the Boiler Room, DMF.

One of our members, nofossil, has an EKO 25 located in a big house in northern Vermont, and he burns about 4 cords of wood annually. I doubt anybody else is that efficient, but you'll certainly burn less wood (for a comparable amount of heat) with most gasifiers. Hot water storage is a nice option, as it gives you greater flexibility in firing and even more efficiency. The point to remember about gasification (or any other clean-burning technology) is that it converts smoke into energy, so no smoke means greater efficiency, pound per pound.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Welcome aboard.

The way you describe it, you sound similar to my setup before I installed the wood fired hydronic. But all of our house and garage are radiant, we have no baseboard. I assume my climate is similar to yours, as I live in upstate NY.

Some very basic things:

1)Especially if you will not do storage, get an accurate heat loss calculation done and slightly undersize your wood unit.
2)Make certain that you will be able to burn without letting smoke into the house. Some units are probably better at this (I believe NoFo swears by his inside EKO installation) The only unit I have hands-on experience with is GreenWood. Though I generally like the unit, I would NEVER install one inside the living area due to smoke.
3)I would bet that the first year, you will use more wood than the 6 cord you mentioned. I hope that was full cord, because if you expect to heat that much space with 6 face, you and the Mrs will be greatly disappointed!
4)When shopping around for a unit, bring anything that a salesperson tells you back here for straining through the bullshit filter. Though there are a few salesmen lurking on this board, most everyone else will give you their honest opinion of how their unit/setup works.

Jimbo

 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Thanks for the response Eric and Jimbo.

Just a couple of questions and clarifications to Jimbo's post:

1. How do I obtain a good heat loss calculation?

2. The unit would be in my basement, which although it is heated it really not "living area"; it is basically a work and office area for the farm. I didn't envision this to be any worse than when I heated my old home with a woodstove in the basement (i.e. a puff of smoke now and then from loading, etc.); should I expect worse?

3. A cord of wood, to me has been and always will be 128 cubic feet. Is there a reason why you specifically mentioned "the first year"? Just compensating for the learning curve? Is there a way to calculate wood usage based on previous year's oil usage?

4. That's why I joined here! Nothing like first-hand user-level reports to compare against salesmen's BS!

 

[Eric Johnson]

You can download a free heatloss calculator from: http://www.heatinghelp.com

There is a bit of a learning curve on any wood-burning appliance, in my experience, and gasifiers are no exception. I second Jimbo's contention that you'll burn more wood the first season, mainly because you'll waste a lot of heat learning how to fire it to match your needs. This is much less of an issue with adequate storage.

 

[Sawyer]

You can download a free heatloss calculator from: http://www.heatinghelp.com

There is a bit of a learning curve on any wood-burning appliance, in my experience, and gasifiers are no exception. I second Jimbo's contention that you'll burn more wood the first season, mainly because you'll waste a lot of heat learning how to fire it to match your needs. This is much less of an issue with adequate storage.

Eric, does your signature "Orlan EKO 60 1,000 gallons of hot water storage (pending)." mean that you are operating your EKO without any additional water storage at this time?

Thanks,
Just trying to learn my way around this site ;-)

 

[Eric Johnson]

Yep, that's what it means. I have the tank and hx all built, but haven't gotten around to putting it all together. Silly me. Works pretty darn good without it, but I can see where it will really be nice to have that battery down in the basement holding a charge.

 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

In my short time here I've noticed a lot of people using the Orlan EKO. In checking out their special offer through Cozy Heat, their ad mentions a "Free Loading Valve"; can someone tell me what that is?

Thanks!

 

[Nofossil]

I'd be cautious about drawing too many conclusions, but I think a reasonable rule of thumb is that for a properly operated indoor gasifier, a cord of wood replaces about 150 gallons of fuel oil. I'd plan a bit of extra wood until you get yours dialed in, but it's a good place to start. I used to burn about 600 gallons of oil during the heating season. I now burn about 4 cords of wood. We do keep the house warmer, so it's not a completely accurate comparison, but it's a good sanity check for whatever numbers you get from your heat loss calculations.

 

[antos_ketcham]

Thanks for the response Eric and Jimbo.

Just a couple of questions and clarifications to Jimbo's post:

1. How do I obtain a good heat loss calculation?

2. The unit would be in my basement, which although it is heated it really not "living area"; it is basically a work and office area for the farm. I didn't envision this to be any worse than when I heated my old home with a woodstove in the basement (i.e. a puff of smoke now and then from loading, etc.); should I expect worse?

3. A cord of wood, to me has been and always will be 128 cubic feet. Is there a reason why you specifically mentioned "the first year"? Just compensating for the learning curve? Is there a way to calculate wood usage based on previous year's oil usage?

4. That's why I joined here! Nothing like first-hand user-level reports to compare against salesmen's BS!

I'd second Jimbo on the smoke issue. When the boiler is hot and you start loading it, it can roll some pretty impressive smoke out the door in short order. If you must put it in the basement you might want to consider having a draft hood fabricated with a fan in a pipe to the outdoors to vent all that smoke out.

Pete

 

[Jersey Bill]

I have a 18" exhaust fan right behind my basement boiler. I have a 30 minute hand crank timer so I can leave the fan to purge out the smoke after some (most) loading events. I put this in after the wife complained about smokey smells in the house. that solved the problem.
I can imagine that installing a big exhaust fan might be a problem in some basements.

 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

I'm confused about the smoke issues. When I heated with a wood stove in my basement, I would occasionally get a downdraft that would send some smoke out when I opened the door to reload, but that was it. Setting up a fan to exhaust smoke from the house seems like there will be a whole lot more than that... Are boilers that much different from the stoves?

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Depends . . . and not the diapers

The GreenWood I assume the same for all the Seton-style spin-offs) has a smoke path that requires the smoke to go down without any forced induction. Thus, when the door opening will allow the smoke to go up without going down first, it WILL take that path.

I think most of the forced-induction downdraft units have mechanisms to alter the smoke path when the door opens.

 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

I think most of the forced-induction downdraft units have mechanisms to alter the smoke path when the door opens.

So...I'm thinking "forced induction" is something I want to be a priority then....? Are certain brands forced induction? I thought that all the gasification units had a fan that forced air in; is that what you mean by forced induction?

Sorry for the dumb questions; just trying to go from a plain wood stove frame of mind to a wood gasification boiler one!

 

[trailhound68]

I must agree with the smoke issues mentioned about the Greenwood/Seton. I am glad mine is not in the basement for that reason.
However, if it were in my basement, I would probably burn half the wood I consumed last year because of the residual heat generated by the stove.
I went through a lot of wood last year, but not having to split is a dream come true. I hope to add storage this year to increase efficiency.