Do I want to do this or not?

[AlanJS]

I've got a fuel oil furnace and I use about 750 gal of oil per year. I'm in northern Indiana and I don't feel like spending more and more money each year on fuel. I've got a friend who sells OWB's but I'm on the edge of town and I'm concerned about the smoke/smell. I've done some research and learned about the whole gasification concept. This forum has been very informative, but now I'm not sure if I want to do this or not. It kind of freaks me out seeing all of the issues that people have with these. I'm not mechanically, plumbingly , or electrically-inclined and I'm getting cold feet. I've got an abundant supply of free SYP lumber as I work for a truss manufacturer so I'd like to take advantage of that.

Storage or no storage?? My friend loads his up and it smolders / burns all day and only during the coldest of winter days does he fill it twice. Now....I suspect that it's not real efficient, but it sounds simple. Do I need to be concerned about a gasifier, or can most anybody do this?

I'm torn between putting a gasification unit in the basement (where I would need to get wood to it and figure out how to vent it) or put it in the garage with a 50' run of underground water lines. The garage is connected to the house via a breezeway, but if these can be placed in the basement, the fire-hazard seems non-existent.

Lastly, I have a cedar shake roof on my house. Do these things ever put off sparks, such that I would need to be concerned?

I'd appreciate any thoughts anybody would have.

Thanks so much.

 

[deerefanatic]

Where in Northern IN are you? I used to live in Michigan, about 15 mins north of Sturgis.........

I'd say go with gassification. With wood heat taking off like it is, wood's not gonna be cheap/free for long. Plus, just alot less work tending the unit....

 

[kshultz]

With using only 750 gals of oil, is your DHW oil? Have you explored costs & payback for both the systems you are looking at? 750 gals. of oil doesn't sound like a huge amount. How much would you like to spend? Just some thoughts.

 

[AlanJS]

Thanks for the responses thus far. I'm located about 1/2 hour north of Lafayette or an hour south of Gary. 750 gallons may not seem like a lot of fuel, but at $3.75/gal (what is was 3-4 weeks ago) I'm looking at a $2,800 heating bill. I've done a $ analysis for a 15-yr time period with some very conservative numbers and it would be a very wise investment to go with wood. My DHW is electric, and I would want to put a water-to-water heat exchanger for that....at least for the winter heating season.

I'm not afraid to spend $9,000-$12,000 for a system because it will pay itself back in a decent time period. As I read through many, many posts last night, it kind of made me wonder if something like this is worth it. Like I said, I have access to free 2x dimensional SYP lumber. Will that work well?

Any other thoughts on my original post......the questions that I have? Thanks again.

 

[Nofossil]

I guess the real answer is that you have to look at this as a long-term investment. Make you best guess about the future cost of fuel oil, and look at the numbers. If you have the money, compare it to other investment options. If you have to borrow money, look at the savings compared to the total cost.

I used to burn about the same amount of oil. My installation was less expensive than current prices, and I figure the savings to be an average of better than $2000 per year.

On average, you'd have to invest $30K or more to get that annual return. On a second mortgage, you could borrow quite a bit for $2000 in annual payments.

I'm glad you're thinking about your neighbors - wish more people did.

I've never seen sparks of any size out my chimney. It might be possible during startup, but I'd say there's no chance at all during operation.

 

[stee6043]

If you have the cash and free wood I hardly see a downside? Go with a gassifier and never look back. I did see that you mentioned possibly putting the unit in your garage? In most places code won't allow you to place a wood burning appliance in your garage. You may want to check into that before you start making plans. Of course, this only applies if you're going to get a permit and do it "the right way". ha.

 

[AlanJS]

Good point about the garage. I don't think a permit will be required but I still don't want to do something stupid. From your signature stee6043 it looks like you have an EKO 40 with a forced air furnace. That work good for you? Also you have pressurized storage. Pardon my ignorance, but is all storage water in a pressurized tank or is some in non-pressurized tanks? Have you ever burned dry dimensional lumber?

Thanks.

 

[stee6043]

I was in the same boat as you this past summer, Alan. I spent hours upon hours on this site reading. My EKO is actually about another month from being functional. I'm plumbing the tanks this week, chimney goes in next week, final plimbing the next week and we should be ready to burn.

If you read up on pressurized vs unpressurized storage you'll see the pro's and con's of both. Ultimately, if you have the room and can get your hands on pressurized tanks it's typically the easier way to go. You don't have to deal with heat exchangers and "make up" water, among other things. If you have pressurized storage you basically have one continous loop of water for your boiler. When you have unpressurized storage your boiler will still have it's own pressurized loop that will feed a heat exchanger in an open tank (thus the non-pressurized lable). The boiler always operates at pressure in either system.

So obvioulsy I'm no expert since my EKO is still in the hook-up stage. But I can surely appreciate where you're at! I've been working on my system since August and can't wait to get it started. But I'm taking my time with the plumbing and the details to make sure it works right the first time...

 

[stee6043]

One more note - the insurance implications of not having a permit should be considered. You don't want to have a problem with your boiler, damage the house, and not have insurance cover it. I think that's the primary reason most folks get permits for these units. If you have an insurance provider that simply wants the unit "inspected", you may be able to get by without...

 

[muncybob]

We use a comparable amount of oil (840/yr including dhw) and I created a spreadsheet in which I can plug in varying amounts for cost of fuel be it oil, delivered cut/split wood, traix load of wood, etc and while the payback period varies depending on several variables the payback is there within 8 years at the most for me. My problem is finding an installer in my area that really knows what they are doing in hooking up wood/oil boiler and storage or I would have mine in by now! Since I will most likely need a new chimney installed I'm probably looking at next spring now since we don't want to be an extended period of time w/o heat and hot water. If you have somebody available with the knowledge to install a gasifier and are OK with the labor end of wood burning I would not wait any longer since the costs of installing are continually rising. The only possible negative to me in this adventure is if something happens to me which prohibits me from cutting/splitting the needed wood since I doubt my wife will do it and we would have to rely on delivered cut/split wood...but even in this case it will be cheaper than buying heating oil!....just got some delivered at $2.70/gallon....sort of feels like I got a bargain but 2 years ago I would have been screaming bloody murder

 

[Birdman]

I will explain to you my situation. I bought a Tarm Solo Plus 40. It will be installed withinn the next 2 weeks. My wood is for free( well... I hve to cut annd splilt it) as we have alot of land. I have a oil boiler and a woodstove. I rely heavily on the woodstove in winter.. burning 4 cord. My wife hates the woodstove. Too messy. I live in a drafty log cabin that we built.. 2000 sq ft. We have alot of pride in it .. since it was mostly built with our labor and trees. However.. it would not be a thing of beauty to a profesional carpenter. Anyways.. I went with the Tarm after discovering this site and reading for tons of hours. I do my homework first. I then went to ( at that time) Tarm USA as it is about 1 hour north of me. Great people... knowledgeable and dependable. I decided to go for it and bought it in June. Even with prices of oil going down now .. the choice seems simple to me. I can supply my own wood, I am in charge of my heating destiny.. not the oil gods, it is clean and efficient, it is realiable and tested to be a good concept ( Europeans are good at it), no mess like wood stove, I can ( with pressurixzed storage) heat my hot water in the summer ( 3 kids) and it will allow me to keep my oil boiler for backup... ( If i get old.. or hurt etc ) Also... I see my payback in 3-5 years. then I save 3000 a year? To me that is like an extra 3000 I MAKE per year... 10 years... 30,000... not bad... maybe with that money I will add a garage! ( or 2 ). Oh.. and another plus of the system? 140,000 btu's and hour?! cripes... I am excited for install. Hope it lives up to my expectations.. I will chime in when the install is done.

 

[Duetech]

Hi AlanJS,
My EKO 40 is hooked to an air heat exchanger and it works just fine. I do not have storage as yet but plans are being formulated. While reading I believe you crossed some strings that mentioned the use of pine. If the 2x dimensional SYP lumber is pine it will burn like pine excluding the mess of the bark. With large storage you may burn more than chunk type pine per charge of storage but your supply is most usually dry in comparison so maybe not. If your supply wood is drier than 20% it will probably burn faster. With enough storage though the burn feasibility is based on the amount of supply, your heat needs and your willingness/availability to load the wood. I still have my fuel oil furnace as back up. I burn pine and I burn hard wood. Pine usually gives me about 40-50% less burn time and about30-40% more creosote for my non storage set up. Even though you have the 2x it would probably pay you to get some oak firewood for the times you don't have enough time to randomly nurse your storage fires or with out storage when you will be gone from home more than 6 hours.