designing and building a mega boiler need help.....

[redneckfabricator]

Well thanks to all who are reading this, I've never posted before so here goes.... You may say that I'm crazy but join the club, I'm volunteering at a Christian kids camp called God's mountain in Missouri, I was about to hook up an OWB with an oil gun to a couple of the buildings....when I thought what if I made a mega boiler that would heat the whole camp.....crazy yes...The camp supervisor showed me an 8x16' tank on top of the hill 1/4" mild steel, and my wheels started turning, there is also a 7x14' tank the first tank could hold 6100 gallons of water, the second 4100 gallons.....The requirement, a total of 26952 sq. feet of different buildings to heat, minimum 18192 sq. ft if you subtract the garage(1400), gym(3360), and one of the basements(4000)... So there is a ton of requirement, here is my idea, I would like to build a switzer/garn style boiler inside the 6100 gallon tank, heating primarily from wood, but also set up with an oil gun(we have a ton of used motor oil 1300 gallons plus, and it keeps comin)the 6100 gallon tank would run in tandom with the 4100 gallon tank for extra storage. The second thought is actually running a geothermal loop(horizontal...we have property) and using the 55 degree ground water in the summer through the heat exchangers inside of our buildings, this would cool the buildings in the summer, winter comes we would turn off the geothermal loop and fire up the boiler and use that for heat. The question here is would that work? I've heard that the temperature differance is not extreme enough to cool off the air, but 55 degree water should cool off the air shouldn't it....second if I did do this about how much piping and what size would I need...? Okay back to the boiler, I would like to know your thoughts on firebox size and piping size as far as the heat exhangers inside the boiler example switzer uses i believe 9 2" tubes and 3 passes. the garn uses a single 4" maybe, never seen pictures.... how would I calculate to know how big the firebox would have to be to heat up 10,000 gallons of water...I know I know....you are saying this guy is loco.....yup...but for Jesus...... I would appeciate any dialog you all could offer, I find that others are normally smarter than I so I need your help thank you so much
Bryan

side note I also have a couple of other tanks that I could use one 8x16' two around 9x25' crazy big tanks....just throwin that out there

 

[overshot]

WOW! That is quite a project!.

I would start at the heat loads for the buildings. How many BTU’s total?
Determine what your needs are before you start the boiler.

 

[stee6043]

A whole bunch of research/design will be required on your part if you're going to have any chance at anything remotely "successful". I have a thousand questions but my first would be this: Do you have ten (10) guys willing to process the amount of wood it will likely take to satisfy this kind of demand? As OverShot stated, first step should be a heatloss calc to see what your total load will actually be. Google slantfin and you can find a free application for this.

I'm going to guess that the cost of doing this will be prohibitive. How far apart are these buildings? To run PEX underground around an entire camp alone could cost more than most OWB's.

There are several posters on this site that have built their own boilers with mixed results. Geothermal is super pricey as well. Not trying to discourage you But you have picked one heck of a project here...

 

[pybyr]

Used motor oil 100% (unblended with thinner heating oil or kerosene) will not run reliably in a standard residential-type oil burner "gun"- and burners that are 'ready' for it are expensive. There are some folks who've done some remarkable "DIY" work on low cost conversions for motor oil or used cooking oil with mostly standard parts and other available materials -and willing to share experience/ suggestions (Yahoo group: altfuelfurnace ) but even then, such units seem to require someone with particular personal familiarity on-hand/ on-site to keep an eye/ service (some of the parts and settings are outside the norm of what a regular heat contractor would be familiar with or willing to "take on" working on relative to liability of a home-adapted device). So-- unless you're going to live at this place where you're volunteering for a long time, or can be sure that you can leave it in lastingly capable hands, this may or may not be a way to go.

I admire the scope of your thinking for the wood boiler concepts, but I agree with Stee- there are a lot of talented folks (both Pro and DIY-ers) here in the Boiler Room who've done some really interesting projects, and are really generous with their knowledge and time-- but the many variables for what you're aiming to do may be awfully hard for anyone to figure out or advise about from off-site.

Some food for thought here:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/10763/

and/ or track down the fellow here who goes by the name "Garnification" who built his own Garn-type unit from a tank

Not trying to dampen your enthusiasm- just some things to consider

 

[Gooserider]

I agree with all the other advice mentioned, and would also ask how familiar / capable are you at large scale high demand welding projects like this? Even if not pressurized, large quantities of extremely hot water are really dangerous, and I would be very nervous about a home brew solution unless the person making it had some big time relevant skills, and all the "right stuff" in the way of equipment... The fellow mentioned earlier, Garnification, who did his own boiler, appeared from the pictures he posted to have been doing the project in a VERY well equipped professional welding shop, and been a person who had some serious professional chops in the profession...

OTOH, it might be possible to do something to work around a Garn - there is a place in VT that is a large cooperative housing setup that uses a Garn for heating the entire complex, and has been doing so for several years with minimal repairs needed on the unit. It might be tricky to do the burried pipe runs to get the heat around the camp, depending on how scattered things are, but you would have that problem with any kind of central heating system, no matter what was driving it.

Gooserider

 

[overshot]

Trying to build a boiler with hot water for a camp would be like building a boiler for a city, only on a smaller scale. Only one or two places on the earth have done that. A better option for large scale, long distance - steam turbine or hydro-electric. I think both are way beyond the scope and cost of the camp. Electricity is the most efficient form of energy to transfer to heat.
The cheapest option – pot belly stoves in each cabin. Make the kids carry the wood.

 

[DaveBP]

pot belly stoves in each cabin. Make the kids carry the wood.

What? Making children do physical work. Requiring them to learn to be careful with hot appliances. Forcing them to learn the relationship between basic resources and survival and comfort. Stealing time away from their important television programming.

Sounds like detainee abuse to me.

 

[Wet1]

Running 55° F water through a baseboard system during the summer would result in serious condensation issues.

 

[in hot water]

There is a Clean Burn dealer in Missouri and they have done some OWF conversions with their waste oil guns. Or you might check with them for a used CB 350 waste oil boiler and parallel pipe it with your OWF.

Burning waste oil is a very dirty process, bad emissions and lots of toxic ash to clean up. In fact the EPA is slowly shutting down waste oil devices. I think in parts of Canada they are banned completely now.

I'd recommend against a homemade boiler or pressure vessel, hot water is one thing but flashing to steam creates bomb like energy. A gallon of water has about the same energy as a stick of dynamite when it flashes to steam, old timers tell me.

Watch the Myth Buster show where they launch a small 40 gallon water heater by super heating it. A lot more than they expected!

hr

 

[JustWood]

Make me an honest offer on this beast and modify to your needs!
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/39612/

 

[redneckfabricator]

Thanks to all who responded, I was able to talk to Gary Switzer.....Just so you guys know this guy is quite the guy, man he knows his stuff, we talked about sizing an design of a boiler and he was willing to let me in on his experience. Much learned in an hour and a half conversation...at the end of the conversation I'm still gonna do the boiler, with the 6100 gallon tank a 42"x 5 foot box and 2 dozen 2" pipes 16 foot long... So I'm figured out the Load of the buildings(with help from the man), my 6100 gallon should hold about 4 million btu's and the smaller something like 2.7 million...anyways I've got a question, this will work for winter months but the hard part about missouri is the summer.....so here is the question....I'm thinking of running air conditioner A coils in the plenum of the furnace for my heat exchanger, with a little reworking the small ends of the A coil the return of refrigerant lines, could be retrofitted with a manifold, the manifold going into the A coil is big enough, but the return too small, so a little retrofitting would be needed.....the A coil already has a water pan underneath it so it would gather condensation....So it would be dual purpose, cold water from the ground in the summer.....boiler water in the winter.. I tried today with a circulating pump a garbage can full of water and ice to try and do a mock up of a geothermal loop....but no dice, I've got some Ideas for increasing the cooling, but I will try all this tomorrow.....Has anyone ever done this or am I crazy....ha maybe you shouldn't answer that....you guys are awesome
bryan
also what size piping would you run to the buildings? I was thinking inch...

 

[redneckfabricator]

oh and I agree.....get the kids to do physical work........too much tv and video games these days.... congrats kid you will be playin the game of cut down this tree.....and haul it to the boiler........

 

[Gooserider]

The summer ground cooling might help with the worst of the humidity, but I'm not sure if it would do enough for giving you really useful cooling - I know that the standard AC coil usually operates well below freezing, and you are only talking 50* or so from the ground loop - given that heat transfer is a function of the temperature difference, I'm not sure you'd have enough of a difference to get much cooling....

The boiler side should be buildable and work fine if you have the heat loss and other plans worked out properly, and pay good attention to burying your lines, etc.

Gooserider

 

[radiantman]

Brian----With all said and done just go and buy a couple of GARN units. It may be easier to find some one with money then building a boiler.