newbie question about small boiler possibilities

[pro5oh]

Currently have a 1500 sq ft home on hwbb with a pellet stove and wood stove. Thinking it would be nice to get rid of both and use a small wood boiler and keep everything outside. Anyone make a small efficient unit and would it be worth installing?

 

[Frozen Canuck]

AFA is it worth it that would require a heat loss calc for your home as well as a description of your home layout etc. Plenty of free online heat loss calculators.
How far from the home would you intend to put the boiler etc. How long would like to go between firing the boiler (storage)?
Plus a lot more info so members can give you a more accurate recommendation.
Plenty of small cord wood boilers out there to choose from, many of the best will be Euro boilers as they were into energy eff & keeping the load small long before us.

 

[willworkforwood]

Welcome to the forum, Greybeard (now that's something I can relate to). Needing 2 indoor stoves to heat 1500 SF is somewhat unusual. Is the layout so spread out that you can't push/pull the heat from one stove all the way through the house? The modern cat stoves can really throw out the heat. The short answer is yes, you can definitely bring in a boiler to replace your stoves, and heat with it 100% (and maybe your DHW as well). And you could get everything outside the house, if that's your primary goal. But, depending on what percentage of your current usage is pellets versus wood, there may not be much "savings" for you on the cost of fuel. Because your are already (partially) heating with wood, it would be hard to expect a reasonably fast pay-back (followed by gain) from your investment; unless you could find a good used boiler at a decent price along with a DIY install. But there was a recent success story on the forum by someone who found a good used Tarm and DIY-installed it (inside his house) for small $$, so it can be done!