Conventional or Phase II Boiler?? What should i get?

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Conventional stove or Phase II stove?

  • Conventional Stove

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jdruhnke

New Member
Jan 6, 2015
6
SE Minnesota
I Live in SE MN and have 12 acres of mostly hardwoods to harvest. I'm first narrowing down on the companies that i would consider for purchasing from, but i'm still having confusion on if i should buy a Conventional stove or Phase II stove. I want to make up my mind soon before the EPA puts the ban hammer down on conventional stoves this coming spring. Below are a few things i can think of... Right now i'm leaning on going towards a conventional. Am i missing anything?

Conventional
Pros

- Can burn green wood if you are in a pinch and have nothing else
- Cheaper than phase II
Cons
-may burn more wood
-may not be as energy efficient as a phase II

Phase II
Pros
- Is said to burn less wood
- produce less ash (doesn't really matter for me)

Cons
- more finicky if not kept clean and air ports open
- have to clean it more often ?
 
I would avoid outdoor wood boilers. Put an indoor gasification boiler in a shed or maybe an econoburn outdoor unit. An owb will require 10 or more cords which is ridiculous. There are many guys with true gassers on this site, do research so you don't live to regret a bad purchase.
 
Maybe i should add. the whole story. Right now for heat we have a heat pump on the AC unit which will work down to around freezing. We also have an LP furnace in the basement and also a forced air wood burner.

My issues i have with my current wood burning setup are as follows:
- it's a fire that is inside. I clean my chimney at least once a winter then in the spring to be safe.. yet it still makes me nervous with having two small kids.
- i can only store so much wood inside before i have to go get more for my pile through out the winter months.
- i have a log chute in the back corner of my garage and when i throw wood down i need someone else down there to stack it... yet Again
- wood usually has some snow or other moisture on it when i first get it in the house so i can get a mildew smell for a few days till it dries back out.
- there is a mess inside after dumping more wood of dirt and bark and have to clean that up and take all that crap back up the stairs outside to dump in woods.
- emptying ash.....and have to lug it back up the stairs outside to dump in the woods.
- we can at times have a smoke smell in parts of the house simply when opening the furnace to load it.
- i have to load it at least 4-6 times a day.
- on cold nights single digits or below i'm luck if there are coals left to get it going in the morning again
- it can ONLY heat my house. insurance wont cover me having a stove in my wood shop so i'm forced to burn LP.
 
I put an outdoor phase 2 boiler at my house in november for some of the same reasons. It has worked out great. I would stay away from convention boilers do to inefficiency. Mine is simple, no smoke, plenty of heat. When temps below 30 it needs to be filled about every 8 hours, otherwise twice a day.
 
I put an outdoor phase 2 boiler at my house in november for some of the same reasons. It has worked out great. I would stay away from convention boilers do to inefficiency. Mine is simple, no smoke, plenty of heat. When temps below 30 it needs to be filled about every 8 hours, otherwise twice a day.

What brand did you go with?
 
My issues i have with my current wood burning setup are as follows:
- it's a fire that is inside. I clean my chimney at least once a winter then in the spring to be safe.. yet it still makes me nervous with having two small kids.
Based on my 24 years of experience with a wood stove in our living room, primary heat source for our house, your cleaning regimen indicates you are burning less than well-seasoned wood (too high moisture content to green) and/or are letting your wood smolder and not burn at a sufficient heat level to burn clean. You would benefit greatly and safely by improved burning habits.

- i can only store so much wood inside before i have to go get more for my pile through out the winter months
- i can only store so much wood inside before i have to go get more for my pile through out the winter months.
- i have a log chute in the back corner of my garage and when i throw wood down i need someone else down there to stack it... yet Again
- wood usually has some snow or other moisture on it when i first get it in the house so i can get a mildew smell for a few days till it dries back out.
- there is a mess inside after dumping more wood of dirt and bark and have to clean that up and take all that crap back up the stairs outside to dump in woods.
- emptying ash.....and have to lug it back up the stairs outside to dump in the woods.
- we can at times have a smoke smell in parts of the house simply when opening the furnace to load it.
- i have to load it at least 4-6 times a day.
- on cold nights single digits or below i'm luck if there are coals left to get it going in the morning again
All convenience factors, sound like rationalizations to me, night be important to you, but what about everyone else, from critters to the health of your family and neighbors? Your new stove/boiler choice will burn cleaner, use less wood due to increased efficiency, your wood load inside will last longer with less stacking, less clean-up, less ash [you said this doesn't matter to you anyway], and probably less loading required. In addition, build a wood shed or properly cover your wood to end the snow and moisture concerns. These issues can be largely eliminated with better wood storing and seasoning habits and are totally in your control.

We all need to do our part to sustain the earth on which we depend for everything. A cleaner burning wood stove/furnace/boiler is one thing that makes a difference.

And for a forced air wood furnace that does burn efficiently and has long burn times, take a look a the Kuma Vapor Fire, made in MN, and an outstanding performer.

- it can ONLY heat my house. insurance wont cover me having a stove in my wood shop so i'm forced to burn LP.
So, you new wood burner can't be in the shop either. With an outdoor burner you will be piping in hot water lines to the house and the shop. Follow the advice of Hydronics and redmample172.

Your stated Phase II Cons relate to your habits of burning wood not well seasoned (too high moisture content) or improper burning habits. They are in your control. Trash a stove and it will trash you too. I live in N MN where it gets really cold, wood stove in the living room and a wood gasification boiler with storage in my shop. The chimney for each gets brushed once per year in the summer before the start of the new heating season. The wood stove, other than ash removal and cleaning the glass, never gets cleaned. The boiler gets ash emptied as needed and the firebox scraped once in the summer and then sealed from air/humidity infiltration after the end of the heating season = 1 hour of time.

I can't get insurance for my shop either because the wood burning gasification boiler is in the shop. IMO it is safer than the wood stove in my living room. Fire hazard is near 0. So I save a couple $100/year without insurance which isn't needed anyway.
 
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If you do the simple typical OWB install, you will still be dealing with most of your issues or some of them at least, which are related to wood being stored outside most of the winter and only moved in when you need it. It gets cold wet & icey, and when it thaws out it makes a mess.

There are options as I see it.

Replace your current wood furnace with a better one, and get your wood under cover.

Put an indoor boiler in your shop, run lines to the house, and get your wood under cover.

Put an indoor boiler in another outbuilding. Along with your entire winters wood, and run lines to the shop & house.

Both boiler situations should also add/incorporate storage.

Are you sure your insurance won't let you put a boiler in your shop? You just mentioned 'stove'. I would double check on that. Also not sure how much room you have. Maybe build a separate addition to the shop with its own entrance, for the boiler & wood? Keeping all your wood in the same space as the boiler will help immensely - huge difference between burning wood that is left out allw inter & kept inside in a warm space all winter.

More to the point of your original question, I would chose a 'Phase 2' unit over 'conventional'. But an OWB of any kind would be my (distant) second choice over an IWB in an outbuilding with its winter wood supply. And storage - either in with the boiler or in the house.
 
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for the same money as a OWB you can put a indoor gasser with storage in a shed, if you have the ability and time to install it yourself. I was in looking to put a owb in, and found this site. So glad i did. Now I have a way more efficient and convenient boiler inside a shed. No standing in the weather to load or clean. I have room in the shed to store some firewood etc. Its always warm in the shed. You have to cut or buy the wood either way so why not get a year ahead and burn about half as much ? Lots of proven, long life, indoor units to choose from. Storage is so nice, you load and burn when its convenient for you. The boiler don't idle so the only smoke you get is a couple minutes at start up. I haven't cleaned my chimney in three years and it don't need it. Have you seen the mess from creosote that a conventional owb makes. The smell is putrid, get a wind blowing towards your house or neighbors and people are plugging there nose. Ever see the smoke roll out of a owb when it comes out of idle ? that's your unburnt fuel going up the stack. There is a reason these owb are being outlawed.

Edit : All that being said, if I were to get an outdoor unit, It would be a phase 2 Portage and Main.
 
I bought and installed a Polar Furnace G2. I started with EPA phase 2 testing results and went from there. I chose Polar mostly because their smaller unit more closely matched my BTU requirements. It also seemed to be a simple design. Beside the ceramic liner in the secondary burn chamber, there is nothing that I could not fix or fabricate myself. I didn't have a good chimney to use, didn't have the height requirement in my basement so an indoor unit was out of the question. With two dogs, taking scraps to compost and tending garden (even in winter), I'm outside a few times a day even in the worst weather so outside was not a problem. It has ~160 gal water jacket. Maybe I'll add some more water storage in the basement some day to extend burn times. It is easy to adjust BTU output too (goal is to keep proper stack temp). I'm at 100,000 BTUS. If I built a greenhouse, garage, etc I can make a few changes, flip switch to high setting and be at the full 160,000 BTU max.
 
I forgot to add my boiler can also be installed indoors-so if the rain began to bother me I could build a shed around it
 
In my view, with that much hardwood at your disposal, there's not excuse for not getting a couple of years ahead and burning it in the cleanest, most efficient and cutting edge appliance you can.

"In a pinch" is not a rational reason for compromising your burn for the vast majority of time you won't find yourself in a pinch. Think about it--if a gasification boiler is twice as efficient as an OWB, over the life of the boiler you're going to be cutting and handling half as much wood. Half as many trips out to load the stove. All for the "convenience" of having the option of burning green wood? I don't think that makes any sense.
 
Not a conventional. Maybe a outdoor phase 2. I got rid of my Centeral Boiler 6048. In the middle of last January it was going through 1-1.5 cord every 2 weeks. Sold it for a indoor gassification boiler and storage.
 
Not a conventional. Maybe a outdoor phase 2. I got rid of my Centeral Boiler 6048. In the middle of last January it was going through 1-1.5 cord every 2 weeks. Sold it for a indoor gassification boiler and storage.
I assume you're happy with the change? How much has wood consumption changed?
 
I forgot to add my boiler can also be installed indoors-so if the rain began to bother me I could build a shed around it
Just what I did built a three sided shed used tin siding second hand sheeting,worked out fine second year no more snow or rain as well as storage for enough wood for a week always dry.
NICY NICE
 
Right now I cut the wood where the tree fell into the lengths i can fit in the furnace, haul them to an area next to my sheld where i pile them up and then later on split what needs splitting and then stack my final piles. I actually have some metal roofing from an old barn that i'm going to use to build some covers for storing the wood outside in the same area, so yes that will be an awesome help either way i go.

With those indoor gassification boilers, they look small... what are you guys seeing for an average burn time on those? Does it every make you nervous having those in your house? If i install anything in my shed that burns wood it will void all coverage on that building, so that is NOT an option. which sucks because i would have just installed a small stove and burnt all my scrap cut offs.
 
I assume you're happy with the change? How much has wood consumption changed?


Very happy. Some teething issues. Woods not ready yet, but burning anyways (mixing with eco bricks to start fires and build coal bed). Haven't measured any wood consumption yet, But at a glance it seems to be quite a bit less then the old central boiler. And that will just keep dropping as the wood gets better. Coming up on two weeks running. When my head stops spinning, I'll work on tuning a little better. I'm just starting to get consistent now. This weekend I'm going to try to drive my storage up as high as I can, so that should be interesting.

The storage is definitely worked to my advantage so far. Pretty sure just running wide open is helping me a lot in this learning curve. Before the bottom fell out this week, I could of easily covered quite a bit of time (18-24 hours) with just a load or 2 at night. She's been running pretty hard these last couple days. Working on training the wife. She's good, just got to remember to tell her things as I figure it out.



Anyways, I honestly feel whatever way you go, phase 2, or indoor gasser is the way to go. Storage is also something I would put a lot of consideration into. Just feed it good, dry wood and it should take care of you. Just listen to the guys / gals here. They will point you in the right direction. I'm glad I have made the change after running a conventional Central Boiler for 7ish years.
 
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Right now I cut the wood where the tree fell into the lengths i can fit in the furnace, haul them to an area next to my sheld where i pile them up and then later on split what needs splitting and then stack my final piles. I actually have some metal roofing from an old barn that i'm going to use to build some covers for storing the wood outside in the same area, so yes that will be an awesome help either way i go.

With those indoor gassification boilers, they look small... what are you guys seeing for an average burn time on those? Does it every make you nervous having those in your house? If i install anything in my shed that burns wood it will void all coverage on that building, so that is NOT an option. which sucks because i would have just installed a small stove and burnt all my scrap cut offs.

I think I would shop insurance providers. Lots of guys on here have wood burners in their shops. Some even have them in their garages - but that gets stickier due to issues with gasoline etc.. Some providers say no way, some say it's OK as long as the unit is raised up off the floor a certain amount. 18"? Not sure.

As far as size - mine is pretty small, but it pumps out a lot of heat. In this current cold snap, I am only actually burning 8 hours a day. Which is the beauty of storage. You don't think in terms of burn times, because talking long burn times with boilers only means one thing - a smoldering fire. Which combined with the water cooling effect of a boiler, means a big mess of smoke & creosote. With storage, the fire burns wide open until the fuel is gone (usually takes about 4 hours to burn through my 3 cu.ft. forebox), what the house doesn't use goes to storage and gets used when the fire is out. Mine is in my basement, along with my entire winters wood and storage. I have no worries about the fire burning down there - mainly because by the time I go to bed, everything is charged up & the fire is out.

But you would need to change your wood handling routine. Cut & split to size as soon as the tree is down, and stacked right then for drying. These things need dry wood - usually drying for a good year does it, but it depends on species & drying conditions. Two is usually better. But the plus is you will need a lot less of it. Which some shrug off at first, but soon regret after a year or two or few of feeding their OWB.
 
There are 2 things that matter far more than brand, ..... In most cases anyhow.

They are;
A. Whether the boiler and thermal storage is sized and installed correctly
And
B. Your determination to burn properly seasoned fuel.
 
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Clean burning. Typically a gassification unit with secondary combustion.

(Not sure of the 'Phase 2' terminology itself, but I think that is what was meant).
 
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