We would appreciate any advice on efficiently operating a wood-fired boiler system like TARM Solo in coastal Virginia. Our temperatures can really vary in the winter months, but we don't have the extreme cold that many of you face up north. We have heated our 1- 1/2 story log home with a wood/oil forced-air furnace system for the last 20 years, but are considering a change to a cleaner, more efficient system. Excessive creosote production and smokey burns have plagued our existing system even with lots of tweaking and adjustment. Also, if we move to a boiler system, we will probably be without a storage tank for the first season. Thanks for this forum--great information.
Wood Boiler in VA?
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I libe in Colorado and used to burn a Tarm in the late 1990s. I didn't have a storage system and regretted it. In the winter I would do OK, but in the shoulder seasons I would have smoke burns and creosote buildup from fires that idled too much. I expect that most of your burn season would be like our Colorado shoulder seasons. If you can burn hot and fast and dump that heat into storage, the Tarm will work like a charm. If not, you might end up lighting 2 or 3 small fires each day or suffering through dirty idling.
Thanks for the feedback. We typically burn about 4 cord of wood and 250 gal. of oil per year. Our wood supply is unlimited, so we plan to stick with wood-burning as our primary heat source. If we convert to a wood boiler system, we might also switch to a propane back-up. The ability to burn hot, short fires and store the extra heat would really be perfect for this climate. It also sounds like we should definitely include the storage tank in our initial installation.
Has anybody ever converted an oil tank to storage?? What is involved?? I didn't think it could be done!!?? We have 2 tanks and I would gladly give one up for storage!
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