Hello, I am considering a wood gasification boiler. I believe I want a pressure boiler. I have a basic knowledge of wood heat and water heat boiler systems but no wood boiler experience. I was excited about getting a used eko 80 boiler. Burning less wood is intriguing but reading about people having trouble getting the gasification to work concerns me. I wouldn't mind fiddling with it a bit but after the initial learning i would hope to just fill it with wood once or twice a day and forget about it. I did some reading and it looks like the units are pretty particular on what wood is burned in them. I was thinking I would burn hedge and or oak half of the time and used pallets or soft maple half of the time. Neighbors are 6-800 feet away and the stove would also be that far from my house. Will this mix of good wood and junk render the unit terribly inefficient and or lead to continual maintenance?
Gasification boiler thoughts
- Thread starter woodboilerwonder
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hondaracer2oo4
Feeling the Heat
Are you looking at just Indoor model stuff? There are a couple extremely efficient owb gassers on the market that are very simple to run and are not finiky. They are nothing like the owb people think of in the past. They are well built, have real warranties that the companies stand behind and are phase two epa qualified. Atleast put some thought and time into looking at the Heatmaster G series.
maple1
Minister of Fire
My thoughts also.
Think there is a lot more homework required aside from the original questions.
A pressurized water jacket = boiler
unpressurized water jacket= water heater
Gasification requires wood that is seasoned and dry.
Green wood contains water,which is what firefighters use to put out fires.Dosn't really work efficiently for emitting heat and will cause you nothing but headache in a gasifyer.
Don't try for one that does everything,they don't exist.
if you go gasifyer,do so realizing wood quality is important,don't lie to yourself.
unpressurized water jacket= water heater
Gasification requires wood that is seasoned and dry.
Green wood contains water,which is what firefighters use to put out fires.Dosn't really work efficiently for emitting heat and will cause you nothing but headache in a gasifyer.
Don't try for one that does everything,they don't exist.
if you go gasifyer,do so realizing wood quality is important,don't lie to yourself.
Bad LP
Minister of Fire
!
hondaracer2oo4
Feeling the Heat
Medic21
Minister of Fire
800 x $15 = $12000
Almost equal cost to the boiler. Would be a deal breaker for me. Take 20 years on a $30k install for return on investment. Just in time to replace the unit.
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brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Thanks guys! I also have a second small house and a future pool i want to heat. The 800 feet is the distance between the 2 houses. Maybe i should put it in the middle and run smaller pex 2 directions. My wife will only bless this plan if she, "almost" never smells the smoke! What should I ask for pictures of on an eko80 to know if it is in good shape? It's about 10 years old and has been used inside a large building that is a cabinet shop. I am thinking of asking for pictures now and then if they look good go look at it. I assume I can pressurize it with an air bubble to see if it leaks. I am ok with some risk that comes with buying a used item as long as simply moving the stove does not present likely damage.
maple1
Minister of Fire
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Still gonna have a bazillion dollars in the pipe...cause it still totals 800 ft.
And don't skimp on the underground pipe, you WILL be sorry later...
And don't skimp on the underground pipe, you WILL be sorry later...
I was thinking wrong above on the distance. I was thinking round trip distance. 1 inch oxygen barrier pex is 66 cents per foot. It's about 375 feet one way. If i do paralleled run of this pipe it's 375 x 4 x .66 per foot. This is $990.00 plus the foam in ditch method I have read about on this site and fittings I suppose. Hopefully I can find it in a roll that won't have to have a splice.
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brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
375 to each house? That's not much different than before. And that much foam will still not be cheap either...
maple1
Minister of Fire
The project.
Mainly based on the 800' distance.
If it is rather 400' (is that the actual distance between the houses? still not sure...), I still would have second thoughts.
For starters - base your piping costs on 1-1/4" pipe. Not 1". And run some numbers, or get someone who knows how to do that (there are those on here who can), on what is involved in pumping all that heat through all that pipe all that distance. (A decent calc would also need to know your heat load or how much heat your heated spaces will need). That might even reveal that you might need 1-1/2" pipe. And the size/number of pumps needed will also be pricey.
You would also need to put an Eko 80 in a building of some sort. Preferably one that can utilize the standby heat loss. And maybe also big enough to hold your winters wood. Storage would also be preferable - you could maybe put some tanks in the houses for that.
That's not touching yet on your existing system and what you would need to do to adapt this to that.
It is 375 feet between the houses. The ideal place for the stove is near or in the smaller house. It has a 2 car garage and i was thinking of putting the stove and 2 1000 gallon propane tanks for pressurized storage into one of the garages. On the one inch pex I was saying I could run 2 supply and 2 return 1 inch lines. A little googling says this is the pressure drop and pump sizing etc. I take 500 x 5 gpm x 20 deg temp drop equals 50,000 btu transferred. I was going to run 2 of these circuits paralleled so it would be 100,000 btu.
I looked at technical document td10 about how to size a circulator and If I did it right an 007 on each of the 2 paralelled circuits would work. I was coming up with 14 feet of head. Please correct me here I am taking a stab at this but realize I likely made a mistake or more likely mistakes.....
maple1
Minister of Fire
375 feet one way is 750 feet total loop. I took a quick look at the first table I googled up and came up with in the area of 26' of head at 5gpm and 160° for 1" pex.
That's not accounting for anything else presenting head, like fittings & exchangers.
Chart for a 007 I think shows head topping out around 8', at 5gpm, going to zero flow at just over 10' of head.
I'm not saying what you want to do isn't dooable - but there a lot of things to consider.
That's not accounting for anything else presenting head, like fittings & exchangers.
Chart for a 007 I think shows head topping out around 8', at 5gpm, going to zero flow at just over 10' of head.
I'm not saying what you want to do isn't dooable - but there a lot of things to consider.
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