Anyone else hate burning wood? Need help with some numbers...

[deerefanatic]

Thanks for the feedback.....

yah Trevor, your a pretty cool guy, so I thought I'd better clarify my statement!

Wood stove is definitely out of the question...... I built this system this year to get the wood burning apparatus OUT of the house. (Had a wood furnace in it originally when we bought it)...... Not bringing a wood (or coal or corn or anything else) burner back into the house......

Hmm.... Ear corn.... That's good to know the EKO's can handle it.. have to try it if I go that route....

Bituminous coal... I was nearly ready to pull the trigger on a boiler for that. But it's nearly as expensive by me as having anthracite trucked in. I know it's cheaper down in IL and IN, but the trucking makes up for it.. Plus, for a stoker system, it can be problematic as to what kind of Bituminous you have...... I'll have to get a shipping quote for Bituminous from IN or southern IL.

 

[WoodNotOil]

My heating contractor burns coal. He said that coal boilers tend to overheat a lot in milder weather. If you go with coal, you may benefit from keeping the storage and using it at least for a dump zone to minimize wasted heat. It may also increase efficiency as well, but I am not sure about that. With that said, I still think you should put a gasifier in a shed. You won't regret it.

 

[brad068]

Hey Matt,


If I remember right you picked up a 1250 gal. bulk tank that you used for storage. Why don't you take up the garn style like I did. I hate to say it but its been actually kind of boring burn my unit. The design works so well that I almost forget that I'm burning wood at all, until the low electric bill shows up! Don't throw in the towel yet!!

 

[deerefanatic]

Garnification, I've been thinking about you..... In fact, a PM is sent......

 

[lexybird]

it makes me sick to think some guys are slaves to their wood boilers burning 20- 30+ cords a winters .what a waste of wood and your valuable time .. life is too short for that nonsense ,might as well have a second job selling that same amount in firewood and get yourself a real EKO gassifier ,do some research the new boilers are awesome and use latest technologies to cut your wood usage in half or better .

 

[Piker]

it makes me sick to think some guys are slaves to their wood boilers burning 20- 30+ cords a winters .what a waste of wood and your valuable time .. life is too short for that nonsense ,might as well have a second job selling that same amount in firewood and get yourself a real EKO gassifier ,do some research the new boilers are awesome and use latest technologies to cut your wood usage in half or better .

One part of my sales pitch is trying to get folks to realize the time and money they can save by purchasing a gasser over a conventional OWB. The price difference between the two can be made up in a relatively short period of time just in firewood value alone... I tell folks, if you are cutting your own wood for free, then go ahead and buy the gasser, still cut wood like you bought the OWB, and sell the unneeded portion at the end of the year. And let me tell you, there are other things you can do with your time that are far more valuable than cutting firewood.

If people are buying their firewood, I don't see how a boiler without some form of gasification makes any sense at all.

cheers

 

[Huskurdu]

Deerefanatic,
Sorry, didn't see this post till today. I'm in a similar boat. My Econoburn is eating more wood than I had every imagined. Although I don't blame the unit, it's obviously my ignorance that is the problem. Hopefully I'll make the correct changes here in a couple weeks to drastically reduce the amount of wood i'm burning. I'd just like to say 'hang in there', and if I don't get this darned thing figured out by next year, I'll sell it to you My wife will kick my butt if we have to keep filling it every few hours next year. I'm about 3 X the amount of wood that others are going through, so I know where you're coming from. I've got a barometric damper coming, i've got a welder coming to reconfigure the inlet and outlet on my storage tank, I've got a guy coming to 'properly' move the tees on my inlet and outlet to the gas boiler, and I've got a new-to-me automatic reset aquastat coming (Thanks Trevor!). I'm feeling beat up!
Hopefully you and I will be in a better spot next year. You're among friends.
np

 

[Piker]

Deerefanatic,
Sorry, didn't see this post till today. I'm in a similar boat. My Econoburn is eating more wood than I had every imagined. Although I don't blame the unit, it's obviously my ignorance that is the problem. Hopefully I'll make the correct changes here in a couple weeks to drastically reduce the amount of wood i'm burning. I'd just like to say 'hang in there', and if I don't get this darned thing figured out by next year, I'll sell it to you My wife will kick my butt if we have to keep filling it every few hours next year. I'm about 3 X the amount of wood that others are going through, so I know where you're coming from. I've got a barometric damper coming, i've got a welder coming to reconfigure the inlet and outlet on my storage tank, I've got a guy coming to 'properly' move the tees on my inlet and outlet to the gas boiler, and I've got a new-to-me automatic reset aquastat coming (Thanks Trevor!). I'm feeling beat up!
Hopefully you and I will be in a better spot next year. You're among friends.
np

Just wanted to note that storage done correctly... a dream come true.

Storage done incorrectily... your biggest nightmare.
Sounds like you are getting a handle on it. IF there is anything I can do to help, let me know.


cheers.

 

[ebbci05]

I am surprised at the amount of wood that I used this year. I went through 10 PULP cord from october until now and I am going to need a little more I made a switch around Jan. from an Econo. 100 - 150, and I know the 100 was eating the wood more than the 150 but still makes me mad. Was hoping that 10 pulp cord would last 2 winters. My 150 gets up to temp awesome and goes to low burn, but like it was said in the post before, storage is a dream if done right and not so fun if not. My system is lacking certain controls that will be addressed once the cold is gone. Also my house is not very energy efficient which also will be insulated better before next year. (feel the cold on windy days-drafty)
Anyway, no I don't hate burning wood but yes it can be very frustrating when things don't go like they are supposed too. The first winter and half of this one, I would consider a nightmare. Always filling the boiler and not getting the heat. The 150 Econo. is an awesome boiler compared to my 100. So now that the boiler is better I need to focus on the controls for the storage and manifolds. As of right now, I need to upplug the manifold that has my infloor and radiators on it to get my storage to heat up to 175. Once uplugged it will heat from 150- 175 in 1-2 hours.
Anyway, I don't want to drag on about all my issues, just wanted to let you know how you feel. I also know that I can only improve from here and with my 150 kicking butt, I have plans to make my own additional storage. (ICF's) That is once I get the right controls in place first

 

[Piker]

Eric,
It sounds like your 100 was undersized for the job. I don't think it is a matter of the 150 being a better boiler... just closer to being the right size for you. As far as the wood that you are burning, I don't know exactly what a pulp cord is, as the definition seems to be different from one person to the next. I think it has to do with the length of the logs, but I don't know for sure. I do know that a load of logs off the truck that measures 9 or 10 cord at 20' long usually only stacks up (cut and split) to about 5 or 6 cord, sometimes a little more. A cord being 128 cu-ft including air space, and approximately 85 cu-ft of solid wood.

Do you know what species your wood is? That will have alot of effect on the wood usage. I had originally thought that a pulp cord was usually waste wood of some sort. If it's poplar or pine, you will use about twice as much as if it were hickory or oak.

Just curious, why do you allow your boiler to go into low fire? With storage, the idea is to run full bore and then shut down. Maybe you don't have enough storage for that? If you are just letting your thermal storage circulate all the time, you are basically just creating more standby loss for yourself.

If you have any questions, I will do my best to give you a hand if I can.

cheers

 

[ebbci05]

Gotta go to a birthday party right now, so I will respond later tonight.
Mostly oak with a little maple.
10 pulp cord -8'x8'x20' roughly. I know that I had 25-28 face cord cut and stacked.(16"x4' highx8' long)