We are currently building a monastery in the Virginia mountains. The property is around 200 acres and needless to say contains a lot of standing dead and dead trees. The endless supply of wood for fuel makes heating with wood our preferred method. smaller buildings are/will be equipped with wood stoves but for a bath house and main meeting hall we are proposing radiant heat using a wood boiler. manual J heat loss calculations for the meeting hall2300sf (possible full basement) hover around 30 btu/sf based off of preliminary plans and increasing air infiltration for the volume of traffic. The bath house calculates at 20 BTU/SF and is 1000sf. As well as heat we would like to provide hot water to 5 bathrooms and a general washing area (clothes, dishes, ect.) use should be based on 10 people.
the type of wood boiler that would suite us is my biggest question.
qualities we are looking for in a wood burning boiler:
Burn almost any type of wood. Soft, hard, even some green if possible.
Ease of use. Many different people over the years will be using the boiler and it would be nice to have few or no controls and an all around simplicity.
load three times a day or less.
Low smoke would be nice when not burning green wood.
I have been looking at all types of boilers from outdoor stokers, gasification, and garn.
From what I understand:
Stoker will burn any type of wood inefficiently and smoke a lot other then that it will get the job done.
Gasification boilers for our BTU load would require a good bit of storage (how much aprox?) And should only use dry seasoned wood.
other then the price tag the garn seems to be at the top of my list and i have trouble finding fault with it. Can it burn greenwood? do other company's manufacture a garn type boiler?
We will be building a room to house the unit based on its needs.
Thanks for any advice this forum seems to be the place for reliable wood boiler info and i appreciate the wealth of knowledge.
the type of wood boiler that would suite us is my biggest question.
qualities we are looking for in a wood burning boiler:
Burn almost any type of wood. Soft, hard, even some green if possible.
Ease of use. Many different people over the years will be using the boiler and it would be nice to have few or no controls and an all around simplicity.
load three times a day or less.
Low smoke would be nice when not burning green wood.
I have been looking at all types of boilers from outdoor stokers, gasification, and garn.
From what I understand:
Stoker will burn any type of wood inefficiently and smoke a lot other then that it will get the job done.
Gasification boilers for our BTU load would require a good bit of storage (how much aprox?) And should only use dry seasoned wood.
other then the price tag the garn seems to be at the top of my list and i have trouble finding fault with it. Can it burn greenwood? do other company's manufacture a garn type boiler?
We will be building a room to house the unit based on its needs.
Thanks for any advice this forum seems to be the place for reliable wood boiler info and i appreciate the wealth of knowledge.