Add a immersion heater to outdoor boiler?

[ccjumper]

To get a real idea of my situation I'll have to give you a little idea of my setup. I am living on 100 acres in an old farmhouse built in 1889. The farmhouse as you can imagine is not very well insulated. I did change out almost all of the old single pane windows to new double panes. I have been living in this house for about 3 years now and the only way to heat it (without going broke) is an outdoor wood boiler system (freedom eliminator 36). However, the amount of wood I burn is insane. I go through an 8ft truck load and a half per week when the temperature is below freezing here in eastern ohio. I was hoping part of my problem was the underground water pipes weren't insulated enough so after my first year with the boiler i dug them up and bought highly insulated ones in corrugated pipe and then inulated them even more before burying them. The new pipe was a waste of time and money.......I know that insulating this 3,000 square foot old farmhouse is the answer but I do not plan to live in it forever I intend to tear it down in the next ten years and rebuild a smaller more EFFICIENT home in its place. So putting insulation in the entire house is not an expense I am willing to do.
The main question I have is if an immersion heater inserted out in the boiler would be a way to use less wood, while keeping the temperature up. I wouldn't mind if the electric bill went up a 100 bucks or so per month but I wouldn't want it to go up any more than that....Is this something that is even feasible, the screw plug immersion heaters would be easily installed and the electric is already ran out there. This would be especially handy when my fiancee is home alone hopefully she wouldn't have to load it as often?? Any help, suggestions, or opinions would be appreciated, thanks...Cory

 

[Fred61]

I wouldn't recommend supporting your wood consumption with electricity since 100 bucks worth of electricity consumed would be like p!ssing in the ocean with that load. If you wanted to use electric for a little back-up, I would install a couple used electric baseboards in places in the house where you would get some direct effect from them. There always seems to be used electric baseboards for sale. I, myself have taken them to recycling in the past, in fact I believe I have two or three 8 footers up in the rafters of my garage.

 

[maple1]

Echo what Fred said - sounds like a bad idea all around.

It's bad enough when you send wood heated heat into the ground & air from an OWB and it's ground lines, but sending electrically heated heat there makes no sense. I would be very surprised if even half of what you heated electrically made it to your house.

At least with a few small baseboards in the right place, or even small radiant plug-ins, all of the heat will be in the house. For a while at least.

If you have plans to keep the OWB beast for as long as you can, you might consider re-doing the pipes again the right way - but you need to make sure you do it the right way. Sounds like you used a poor product there.

 

[__dan]

The wiring to the outdoor boiler would be in the 2 kW rated range, just enough for the pump, controls, and lights. The heat load, if you replaced your 1/2 cord weekly fuel consumption with electric, would be in the 40 to 50 kW range. So no, and the electric bill would floor you.

There is something causing a vast loss of either heat or efficiency. Investigating and finding that will give you a clue as to proper or feasible remedies, but the tear down and build new is a good method I would recommend and have done myself. If you're going to abandon the existing structure entirely you could abandon it in pieces if you cannot make the entire move now. Close off and disable the portion you do not need now for the winter and heat the smaller space.

 

[Fred61]

When you made the decision to replace the underground pipes, did you first check the temperature drop on the supply and return lines or did you just assume the loss was there? Also, is the wood you are burning dry or green? Makes a big difference!!

 

[ccjumper]

Thanks for all the replies, When I redid the underground pipes I did not check the amount of heat loss first. I just assumed that the culprit had to be the pipes because their is no way I should be burning that much wood. The pipe I used was good stuff I did my research on that and I even insulated around it even more before burying. I'm glad I asked before I went any further with the immersion heater idea, I was just hoping their was a simple way to cut down on my wood consumption before the weather really rolls in. I uploaded a picture of the house with my old taylor wood stove that has since been replaced with the freedom. I posted it to show how big ithe house is, I think that thats my problem more than anything its too big and too uninsulated. The baseboard heaters are a good idea maybe ill give them a try.

 

[maple1]

I wouldn't be too sure you got a good product with the pipe you put in - what brand/kind is it? I'm not up on my in gound piping, but seems to me anything in something corrugated is not a good sign. You need something totally enclosing each pipe in closed cell foam, and the more the better - none of that bubble wrap or foil stuff. You should measure the temp differences between boiler out/house in to see what your temp drop is to be sure. So how much wood does that translate to per year? With a bit of work you might be able to tighten up the worst parts of your house for not a lot of money and improve things a lot.