Indoor biomas/wood gasification boiler questions

[Fahrenheit451]

Right now I have electric heat in the house we just moved into.

I want to go a different route since electric heat is almost as bad as heating with burning rolls of dollar bills.

I plan to install hot water baseboards in my house.

Does anyone know if an indoor gasification boiler would be comparable in cost to an oil burner?

I am trying to heat 2200 sq feet. Any idea on the size unit I might need?

I have plenty of firewood available and also like the idea of the ease and cleanliness of pellets, so I would prefer one that burns both.

Any brand names you can toss out there would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[muncybob]

Comparable in cost to an oil boiler, if you mean to purchase and install I would have to say the oil boiler may be cheaper in upfront costs. But, if you have plenty of firewood available and esp. if you plan to "process" the firewood yourself then wood boiler will pay you back dividens in the long haul. You need to do a heat loss calculation but to give you an idea...we have about the same sq footage to heat, half of which is ""marginally" insulated and the other half is well insulated. Our wood boiler is rated at 100k btu and we go through 4 to 5 cords per year. I've read where the savings in pellets versus oil is not nearly as beneficial as cord wood vs oil. But, I would guess either is better than total electric?

 

[flyingcow]

I've had good luck with my Tarm, Innova. But there are many comparable units out there.

Any idea of what your heat load is? Need to get an idea of sizing a unit.

When i had my tarm and storage tank installed, it was in the $12 to $15,000 dollar range. Already had baseboard in with existing oil fired heat. I was burning about 1000 gals of oil a yr. I can do that on about 6.5 cords of [b]well seasoned wood[/b]. I've enjoyed burning wood. My boiler is next door in my garage, piped to my storage tank into my basement. For me, this works very well.

I would guess you still want some sort of backup heat also?

 

[Fahrenheit451]

Couple more questions...

Does anyone know if they make a unit that burns wood logs and pellets?

I am reading up on the water storage tanks and was wondering if they work well with baseboards. What sort of temp is needed to maintain for the typical baseboard heater to warm the house?

For a 2200 Sq Ft. well insulated house, any idea what size boiler I might need? What size storage tank?

I appreciate the help here. Thanks.

 

[willworkforwood]

Welcome to the forum. We here in the boiler room have a strong bias toward gasification boilers, based on our individual success with these units. That being said, installing a complete set of emitters plus gassification boiler would be an expensive project (less if you DYI). Do you have experience heating with wood (the work, the mess, etc.)? I'll assume you know about that, and continue with a few more questions. Have you considered a wood or pellet stove as an alternative solution? Years ago, I heated a large colonial exclusively with a big old Ashley wood stove, and others here have similar experiences. And, the modern cat stoves are that much more efficient. A stove would be much less expensive (your electric would be the backup). But if you have already considered (and eliminated) that possibility, then have you looked at radiant or panel rads at all? I have regular BB, but there are many rave reviews about radiant, and I hear almost nothing negative about it. And radiant is a much better fit than BB for a gasser with storage. If radiant doesn't work for you, then consider panel rads as an alternative to BB. There are some very knowledgeable pros on this forum who have posted information on panel rads, and its apparent they have obvious advantages over standard BB (adjustable output being the primary one). You might want to sort through these things first, before getting into the specific model of boiler.