NoFossil, Eric, what size EKO ?

OK narrowing it down, (boiler choice) however, the table EKO provides for sizing may as well be written in Latvian.

What size EKO ?

2000 sq Log home built 2005. No great rooms or high ceilings. baseboard.
Boiler will be 80' from house
plans for 1000 gal storage (not sure pressurized or not)

Another question is series or parallel ? I want simple operation, oil backup,

Thanks in advance for input.

Go to heatinghelp.com and download the free heat loss calculator and run the numbers on your house.

Parallel if you can do it, for all the reasons that nofossil has explained so well in many posts (ability to isolate either one for maintenance; no standby losses on the oil side when using only wood; etc.).

I think the storage tank gives you lots of flexibility in boiler sizing, but I would try to get the boiler size that would work best without storage. To determine that, you have to take into consideration things like how often you're going to be able to tend the boiler, your estimated heat loss (don't forget the underground line and boiler enclosure losses), type of wood you're going to be burning, etc. Also, think about future expansion of your heating needs. Do you eventually want to add things like a hot tub or heated driveway, greenhouse, addition on the house, etc.?

And you're right, the published guidelines for the EKO are pretty useless. I think part of it is that stuff gets lost in translation and conversion, and part is that they do things a lot differently in Europe, so there are factors used in making those calculation (rules, regs, traditions, etc.) that don't apply on this side of the pond. You might have better luck trying to find something from Tarm, as they've been in this country a lot longer and as a result, have tailored their specs and literature more to the needs of this market.

You've got to do some baseline heat loss calculation - otherwise you're just guessing.

That having been said, the guidelines that are commonly used for sizing oil or gas boilers don't apply. Determine your worst-case heat loss, and get the smallest boiler that's bigger than that. With oil, there's no penalty (and some benefit) to oversizing. With wood that's not the case.

When I built my house, I did the calculations and ended up with 30,000 BTU/hr loss at -30 degrees. My plumber said "get a 120,000 BTU boiler. You'll want the extra capacity for heating hot water and for quick response".

I bought the EKO 25, rated at 80,000 BTU/hr, and actually more like 60,000 BTU/hr in normal use. It's way bigger than I need, but it's the smallest one out there. I've never averaged more than 12 hours per day in any week since I've installed it.

I could have guessed, no heat loss calc's for macs out there. :-/

Ther are some heatload calc sheets still available to do it the old fashioned way, via a tape measure and a simple calculator. Actually all the software calcs are built around the ASHRAE manual J. The radiant specfic calcs are "adjusted" a bit.

I switched to a Mac this past summer and bought the Parallels software to run all my Microsoft programs. The CADs and drawings I have posted here are from software running on my new Mac. I bought the 20" screen and I can run and view the software and this list together. neat stuff.

hr

Intel Mac, right HR ?

What about heat loss programs and other such items for those of us running Linux? (might even be worth a sticky / Wiki article on this sort of resource for all O/S's)

Gooserider

Do a web based heat loss calc they are platform independant

Any pointers to where?

Gooserider

http://www.heatinghelp.com