Intro and Out Door Pellet Boiler Q's

[backcountry]

Hi everyone,
My name is Mike and I live with my family in Washington State. It seems as though everyone on here lives back east, but I have found a lot of great info. Ive been searching for

people and info on outdoor pellet boilers. We currently heat our home with a Country Stoves (now owned by lennox) Winslow SP40. It has been fantastic for almost 10 years. We

will be building a new home on our property this summer and I am considering an outdoor pellet boiler system. The main reason is so we can heat the house, hot water, green

house and shop all with the same unit. The house will be 1800 sf two story colonial style. I am leaning towards radiant floors on both levels. The house will be super insulated, no

cathedral spaces and good air flow/open floor plan. Our current house is 1000 sf and we use about 2 to 2.5 tons to heat is a winter. Our winters are pretty cold for Washington,

but nothing compared to most of you guys. So on with the questions.

1. Any personal experiences or information on specific brands.

2. I am capable of self installing, are any of the different companies more DIY.

3. I had been planning on using the pex tubing, in the ditch, with the plastic sheeting, and foamed in with closed cell spray foam. I research a company called Tiger, DIY spray foam kits. Any one used a product like that.

4. Is there any accurate information on tons per year. Perhaps by zip code? It seems difficult to find any realistic tons per year info.

5. We wont have a basement and I dont want to take up floor space for an indoor boiler, so when you install an outdoor unit, should you put it in a shed type structure. Or just our in the air?

Thanks for the help.
Mike

 

[Delta-T]

hmmm, I have no experience with outdoor pellet boiler....just the 2 Harman units, that you could certainly put in a shed or something. You can calculate a rough ton use based on BTU's (8200-8500 BTU/lb is a decent working # for the most part). Round "these parts" for a decent structure of 1800 square I'd guesstimate ~4 tons for heat and add another 20% for domestic H2O and you're approaching 5 tons, again, guesstimating.

 

[Delta-T]

oh, and welcome to the circus....er, um.....forum :cheese:

 

[Como]

An outdoor wood chip boiler for a house that well insulated and size sounds like overkill.

How much are the other loads?

 

[backcountry]

Well neither the shop or the green house have insulation, but the heat in them will either be seasonal, with the green house or on a need basis with the shop. Of the few that I have seen the BTU's are within the range of what should be needed for the house plus the occational use things. But again, I dont have any experience in them specifically. Perhaps it would be better to use an indoor unit, in a shed or the garage. Would there be a cost savings to do it that way?
Mike

 

[Como]

Assuming something like 20,000 btus for the house, I am not sure if any Boiler is that small.

 

[backcountry]

Well, my old house has an old electric furnace in it. It is a 60k btu unit. Most of the web pages I looked at to calculate btu's for our new house style, insulation and climate zone,

show a need of 85k btu's. I dont know how accurate these calculators are, maybe I should contact a local HVAC company or a dealer and see what they calculate out our need to

be. None of the calculators ask about building codes or insulation values either. Does anyone know of a more accurate online calculator?
Thanks
Mike

 

[Como]

Where I am a Super Insulated House would be about 10 btu sq ft. And I am a lot colder, a lot colder.

But them there is no set definition of a super insulated house.

50 btu sq ft is high for modern build, very high.

 

[backcountry]

Anyone have any more input on this. We are looking to build the house in late spring and I want to be self educated and not dependant on the salesman as my educator. I called around and the average was 70 to 75,000 btu's for the house. I still need to figure out the hot water needs as well as the shop and green house. Any other opinions about the btu's.
Thanks
Mike

 

[harttj]

If your looking for outdoor pellet boilers your selection is limited. Central boiler maxim is one.

Heating that greenhouse will take some BTU. The larger greenhouse guys seem to use pelco outdoor units.

Tim