Burning woodchips in an OWB??

[RUGERGUNZ]

I am still experimenting with my boiler. (Central Boiler 6048). I am running it year round to heat DHW and it is working great. I throw in some junk wood and small chunks. If I put in a good load it lasts well over a week just running the DHW. I live alone and take at least one shower a day, do a load of laundry once a day, and run a dishwasher at least once a week.

My question is does anyone burn wood chips? I cut my own wood and get left with alot of branches, I can burn them but it is a pain to cut them small enough and trying to move them, then cram them into the boiler.

I would love to get a self-feed wood chipper and have the output discharge into storage bags. (I can get mussel bags or sometimes called onion bags.) This would allow air through the bag and for easy handling. The bags could be laid out in the summer to season and then stacked and covered in the winter.

I really want to do this and think that it would work, but don't want to spend the money until I know for sure. I can rent the chippers, but the discharge needs to be modified to hold the bag, I work alone and can't do both.

Thanks, does this sound feasible?

 

[itsme again]

I would think that if you threw in a whole bunch at once, it wood sort of smother the fire because, unlike wood, there wouldn't be any place for air to get circulated around it to burn well. Probably smoke like crazy. As long as you only put in a small amount at a time, it would be fine.

 

[webbie]

One big problem with wood chips is a capability to dry them! If they are not relatively dry, you will be wasting tremendous amounts of energy cooking the moisture off of them.

Considering that you live in an area blessed with wood, my initial suggestion would be to use wood chips for mulch.......what you suggest may be able to be done, but whether it would be worth your while and rental fees is another story.....

Also, a warning about long burns as you mention above.....such long burns can cause certain compounds to build up inside the firebox and prematurely eat through the steel boiler walls. A LOT of OWB's have experienced this problem. I might be misunderstanding your technique, though. It may be that you can burn it hot for a day and it holds the hot water for the week......either way, most boiler "rot" occurs in the warmer weather, not in mid-winter.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Why not get a couple bags of chips from somewhere else and see how they work? My guess is that you would need some kind of special grate--or a solid bed of coals--to get good combustion.

Most of us have found that while you can burn a lot of different forms of wood in a boiler, it's usually more trouble than it's worth. Chip-burning boilers are a completely different design than chunkwood burners, so presumably you wouldn't get an optimum burn, even if you could keep the chips lit.

 

[JustWood]

My dad has a 5036 CB. He fills the box half full of wood then throws 2-3 big snow shovels full of sawdust in and tops off with wood. He said it works good as long as he doesn't add too much sawdust because it will smother a coal bed. Chips might work better because of aiflow between the chips.