Interested in New Wood / Gasification Inside Boiler (EKO 40 - Cozy Heat)

[painter45]

I live in the Adirondacks of New York and I am researching a new boiler to compliment my Buderus
120,000 BTU oil fired boiler - one year old with radiant floor heat. I have 2300 sq ft. house with a 750
sq. ft. garage / apt forced hot air Olsen furnace. I want to use a wood boiler in the garage / apt building
to heat both. This building is appoximately 50' from the house. I use approx 1200 gallons of oil to heat the house
including all my hot water and 300 gallons of Kero for the garage / apt.

I equate 1200 gallons to 25 face cords of wood to do everything for 365 days. I am only interested in running
the wood boiler for 7 months (Winter). What do you think of the EKO 40 for my needs?
How much was your setup costs - boiler, piping, water storage tank?
How deep do you dig the trench? Other thoughts?

Painter45

 

[Duetech]

Welcome to the forum. I have an EKO40 form Cozy heat and I think it will do the job. Insurance could give you difficulty with any solid fuel appliance in a garage so you need to know what the restrictions/options are in your area. With adequate storage the EKO40 is quite a boiler and well suited to your project. I used my EKO40 without storage for a 1700 sq ft home for winter heat and year round dhw @ about 7.5 face cord. Would have been less but there is a learning curve for burning tecniques. If you have the time for attending the boiler dhw could be a reasonbly more economical approach for summer time dhw (especially if you could do solar). Dry wood is a must. Period. Well insulated pex below the frost line is certainly a plus. Snow melt lines are evidential heat loss but under a driveway or walkway may have it's value. My unit went in for $6500 total in 06 but as stated that was without storage and was "self" labor. If you can do the fire wood yourself that is a plus but it would not hurt to get a years supply of seasoned wood now and build your supply during the year for 2-3 years ahead. Wood prices are going up too so it's like saving part of the economy of your future. Denser hardwoods worked best for me but moderate woods of 20 million btu's per full chord worked well. 26 million btu's per chord like white oak, hickory, sugar maple are an obvious plus. Best to you!

 

[Willman]

Do a heat loss to determine flow rates, circs etc. Make darn certain that the pipe from boiler to loads is sized and insulated correctly. Theres info on this in the stickies above. +1 on your wood supply.

Will