Ad on Wood boiler

[WoodChief]

I currently have a 116,000 btu fuel oil boiler that circulates through wall mounted base boards. I was considering adding on an indoor wood boiler in a weather tight building outside. The building with the ad on would be located 40ft away from the fuel oil boiler in the basement. The house is well insulated and has newer weather tight replacement windows. There is around 2000 sq ft. Climate and location is in northwest Ohio. Here are some of my questions. Would a smaller 90,000 btu ad on would boiler be adequate for now (until upgrade to a gasifying boiler) to assist in the heating process? And what would be required for me to add the wood boiler to the current heating system? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[Gooserider]

I currently have a 116,000 btu fuel oil boiler that circulates through wall mounted base boards. I was considering adding on an indoor wood boiler in a weather tight building outside. The building with the ad on would be located 40ft away from the fuel oil boiler in the basement. The house is well insulated and has newer weather tight replacement windows. There is around 2000 sq ft. Climate and location is in northwest Ohio. Here are some of my questions. Would a smaller 90,000 btu ad on would boiler be adequate for now (until upgrade to a gasifying boiler) to assist in the heating process? And what would be required for me to add the wood boiler to the current heating system? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Welcome to the forums, and you are asking some good, but very basic questions. You might want to read through some of the previous threads to see what others have done in order to see if you can pick up some of the background and keep us from having to repeat the same answers...

In short, you need to do a real heat load calculation to figure out what kind of heat you really need, and assume that you should probably go for a wood boiler that is 25% greater and the next larger size - i.e. if your real heat load is 75kBTU/hr, you'd want a 100kBTU/hr minimum, or the next size up from that.

I don't see any real advantage to putting in a non-gasser now, and upgrading later, unless you already have the non-gasser...

There are lots of options for plumbing in a wood boiler. Given the choice, I like a parallel setup where you put a tee on each side of the existing boiler and pump, and put a second pump on the wood boiler, with flow checks on each - then set up the controls to answer the heat demand from the wood boiler if it's hot enough, or the oil boiler if it isn't...

Don't forget that with a gasser, it is best if you can add storage in order to get the best possible performance.

Gooserider

 

[Jeff S]

I don't see any real advantage to putting in a non-gasser now, and upgrading later, unless you already have the non-gasser...



Gooserider[/quote]

I agree,especially when you can tak advantage of the tax credits available.