Looking to switch to OWB

[woodsHAM]

Made it through our first winter in our first home, and the wife and I are kicking around the idea of putting in an outdoor coal/wood boiler. With my We currently have a Clayton 1800 in the basement that is ducted in through the house, so the thought is to move the clayton and use water to air exchanger in the existing plenum/ductwork. While I am not overly familiar with the outdoor units, I'm looking for some opinions from those who own one. Central Boiler and Mahoning seem to be the popular units around my area. I would be looking for a unit that would burn both wood and coal. I'm not looking for a debate who build the best, just some thoughts on how the unit you have has held up. Thank you

 

[Lake Girl]

Central boiler is manufacturered close to where I live. We had an outdoor wood boiler (different brand) and I would not repeat the experience but that is just me Read the wikipedia entry and it mentions they can be dual fueled... Their "Dual Fuel" models have optional Fuel Oil, Natural Gas, or Propane burners.

 

[leon]

As an aquaintance of mine would say "Depends".

You have specified that you want a combination coal and wood forest eater that can burn
liquid or gas fuels.

Its fine to ask questions but you need to do a lot of homework.

SO much is going to ride on how much time you have to do this and how you value your time.

There are a lot of videos on Youtube about unhappy forest eater owners and what they have
to go through and they talk about how much time that they spend taking care of it and the
breakdowns they have had.

It took me 7 years to finally decide on a Keystoker Coal Stoker KAA-4-1 Dual fuel
unit that will burn anthracite and either gas or kerosene or fuel oil using a Beckett
burner as supplied by Keystoker. I have a Reillo burner set up for No. 1 kerosene fuel
and I have no complaints about it what so ever.

By the time I was finally done with wood after 33 years I had had enough of the mess
and time needed to deal with it.

By switching to coal completely I have no regrets.
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What type of coal, Anthracite or Bituminous, Bagged or Bulk?
It is fine to talk about brands and what YOU want to do but the issue is your "Potential" installation.

The Portage and Main wood and coal stoker boilers will burn soft coal but the issue is
smoke from unburned fuel just like a forest eaters stack and thier 17K plus tax price.

The EFM DF520 underfed stokers will burn rice size Anthracite and Bituminous coal and
they are half as expensive as the Portage and Main units.
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My advice would be to just keep examining the issue and decide if you want an indoor boiler or an outdoor boiler
and if you want an indoor boiler you could look at Axeman Anderson. The EFM520, The Keystoker dual fuel units from the KAA-4-1 and larger and also look at the AHS coal stoker and their wood gun units as well as the A+B Vanwert underfed coal stokers.

All of these units will go in basement or outbuilding and your coal and wood could also go in an outbuilding.
Only the EFM units will burn soft coal.

The other thing is how far you are from the anthracite mines and how much it would cost to truck 22 tons at a time to your home and you will save money buying bulk anthracite rice coal and bulk bituminous rice coal.

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All depends on you and whether you are looking 20 years down the road and wondering whether you will spring a leak
on your forest eater and whether it can be repaired let alone wondering about its service life AND WARRANTY as there is plenty of bad information about bad dealers and forest eater builders and how well they dont stand behind their product in some cases so keep that in mind when and if you pour a pad for your forest eater.

OH and dont think it cannot happen to you BTW.


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[maple1]

Indoor furnace to OWB is quite a change. Just wondering what's driving that possible shift? My first inclination would be to check out a new modern indoor furnace. Everyone's situation is different though.

 

[woodsHAM]

I appreciate the info leon. I would be mixing in occasional load of wv coal. The house we bought we bought primarily for its location and property with plans to build on the property in another 5-10 yrs and fix the farmhouse as we went then use it as a rental. The attraction to going outdoor altogether is my time home is somewhat limited with traveling often for work so shifting wood to the basement monthly for the wife to supply the furnace would be cut The mess altogether would be eliminated and we would have the ability to heat both structures whenever we do build.

 

[maple1]

How many cords of wood per year can you put up?

 

[StihlKicking]

How many cords of wood per year can you put up?

^^^This^^^

I've have dealt with Hardy Heater OWB's for a long time now. First an H4 now an H2. I love them, however I will say that you need unlimited access to wood to cut. Otherwise be prepared to buy wood. They burn a lot of it. Hardy now makes an EPA OWB that is supposed to be more efficient, all I can testify to are the Forrest eaters. I like mine, hope this helps.

 

[leon]

You have pretty much answered your own inquiry, Invest in an EFM 520 and put it
in an out building with a lean too that would store your rice sized soft coal.

You can invest in the smallest back up boiler and have zero issues.

OH and by the way there are only two stoker boilers, yes stoker boilers that can burn bituminous coal efficiently
The EFM520 and the Portage and Main AND You can buy 2 EFM' 520's for the money you would invest in the purchase price and sales tax for a single PM coal stoker not including the installation cost.

You would be able to put the EFM 520 in your basement and set up a coal bin with a dog house to feed the EFM auger to the burn pot.

You need a huge amount of combustion air to burn nut and stove size bituminous coal and the current combustion fans and coal grates will not be able to manage it as the soft coal gets very hot when burned in small stoves and large open hearths.

 

[drz1050]

You realize how wasteful OWBs are, right? They burn a LOT of wood...

Would installing a woodstove in the second building be an option down the road? It'd pay for itself pretty quickly.

If wifey isn't happy loading the furnace now, I definitely don't think she'd be any happier feeding an OWB...

 

[woodsHAM]

Luckily the majority of my wood comes free off family property. Ive went through 7 1/2 cords this winter and that's mixing in 1 ton of coal as well and this has been a very mild winter. I've seen enough replies on here to get the jist most on here aren't satisfied with them ! Boilers are big around my area, Most people I talk to claim they love there's, but all my family and friends still burn the indoor stoves so that's why I was asking on the forum. The central unit I was looking at claims it gets 12-16hr burn times but it is the newer EPA phase 2 boiler. Thank you all for the responses.

 

[drz1050]

That's quite the BTU load.. how big is your house?

 

[flyingcow]

Luckily the majority of my wood comes free off family property. Ive went through 7 1/2 cords this winter and that's mixing in 1 ton of coal as well and this has been a very mild winter. I've seen enough replies on here to get the jist most on here aren't satisfied with them ! Boilers are big around my area, Most people I talk to claim they love there's, but all my family and friends still burn the indoor stoves so that's why I was asking on the forum. The central unit I was looking at claims it gets 12-16hr burn times but it is the newer EPA phase 2 boiler. Thank you all for the responses.

Very few OWB owner operators on this site. While the OWB is a nice plug and play unit, mess outside etc, they do smoke alot and use a pretty serious amount of fuel.

Alot of us on this site looked at OWBers before we went with a gasser type of unit. My gasser is in an outbuilding. Basically for the same money as a OWB(new), you should be able to build an outbuilding and put a very efficient gasser in. And burn at least 1/3 less wood. And next to nothing for smoke.

Also, i think there's been some good user reviews on here with the Portage and Main out door gasser's if you want an OWB without putting up another building. And Econoburn makes a OWB gasser.

My neighbor and good friend has a E-Classic OWB. Phase 2 unit. Its ok, but its not as efficient as CB claims. Plus he still has to do periodic scrubbing of tubes and a thorough cleaning. Plus it still smokes pretty good. These units need seasoned wood to burn correctly, which he has. He's tried green wood, messes the unit up bad.

If you're dead set on a OWB, look at the classifieds. Should be able to find one at least half price of new. Low oil prices people are selling them.

 

[laynes69]

I'm in ohio and so far this year, I haven't hit 3 cord yet. That's wood only with an Epa certified woodfurnace, heating 2500 sq ft plus a basement. Is the house too warm with the clayton, what's the square footage your heating, how are your burn times? Usually when I see someone mixing coal and wood, it's to extend their burntimes. Depending on the heat load, the more modern furnace's have long burntimes on little wood. While an owb may go 16 hours on a load, that may be 3 days or more worth of wood for someome else. I'm not saying to go one way or the other, but upgrading to a modern unit makes a world of difference on wood consumption. Takes alot of stress off trying to keep ahead.

 

[jrod770]

Not all OWB's are smoke dragons and burn tons of wood and anyone who believes this is invited to my house to check out my set up. I installed Hardy's KB125 outdoor gasser and could not be happier. I sold the Clayton that was in the basement and now burn much less wood while also heating all domestic hot water. No smoke, fire, mess, dirt, bugs, or allergic reactions to all the above from my 4 year old daughter. Burn times right now are about 24 hrs., at the coldest this winter, I was getting 12 hr burns.

 

[leon]

Every situation is different, wood types and wood seasoning lengths are dependent on the wood.

I burned Pine and Hemlock for years and the only way it burned well was to split it down to
its smallest fraction and hardwoods are no different.

I had to re split the wood I received from the wood processor to make it burn better and cleaner meaning
near to kindling size which made the job of burning it easier because it was smaller.

A forest eater is still a forest eater and the way they are designed is 99% of the problem as I have discussed at length
here on the forum and at arboristsite.

We can discuss this all day long and the physics are still the same and the fire triangle is still the same and the
boiler designs are same and strictly dependent on the owners willingness to burn thinly split dry wood and not just dump
wood or garbage in the firebox and let it smolder and lose energy in the smoke.

It has been proven time an again in the Switzer and Garn boilers that batch burning dry seasoned wood wood provides the
end user with the most hot water.

The concept is not new. the Russian and Finnish masonry stoves were first to use batch burning of dry wood to heat the stone
in a multiple passage stone fireplace where all the heat is extracted as the wood burns by keeping the stone hot and in turn increasing the combustion temperature in the flue passages with very little smoke being left to exit the chimney.


Unless the builders of these things change their designs radically to follow the proven locomotive firebox two or three pass
fire tube design in a water filled boiler shell nothing and I mean nothing will change.

As far as some "forest eater" builders rewording the "fire triangle" to fit their sales message it is extremely missleading just for them to sell a product.

What they have done does not that does not work and it is not ethical either and anyone investing in these things needs to understand that as well.

If they simply added thermal mass with either water or fire brick in the fireboxes it would solve a lot of issues and eliminate a lot of smoke.

Furnaces and boilers have been lined with firebrick for years and it works to keep the heat in the boilers firebox to keep the fire hotter and also shed heat into the water wall of a boiler or the furnaces heat exchanger surrounding the firebox and then the plenum.

. The key is small fireboxes lined with firebrick or afterburners next to the combustion chamber made from firebrick.

Large square fireboxes require more welding and in effect do not burn well simply because the flue gasses swirl around and do not have a path to follow like a shell and tube boiler and simply exit the stack wasting energy.

exposing more of a firebox to the fire is fine but using the fire to its fullest advantage by scrubbing it of the heat by creating higher combustion temperatures using a scavenger or multiple pass baffle system would solve so many problems with these things and you would have no issues with smoke or your neighbors as smaller hotter fires would create less smoke heating as much or more of the water you need as the firebrick shed the heat into the water wall of the boiler.

If a simple single pass or two pass induced draft scavenger was employed along with adding water volume they would sell more of these things and the end user would burn much less wood. it would not work well for a pallet burner unless the pallets were shredded and burned in an underfed stoker boiler.

its been proven for years in Europe that wood chip burners work very well for home heating creating little to no noticeable smoke.





I welcome a rebuttal of this.

 

[jrod770]

Every situation is different, wood types and wood seasoning lengths are dependent on the wood.

I burned Pine and Hemlock for years and the only way it burned well was to split it down to
its smallest fraction and hardwoods are no different.

I had to re split the wood I received from the wood processor to make it burn better and cleaner meaning
near to kindling size which made the job of burning it easier because it was smaller.

A forest eater is still a forest eater and the way they are designed is 99% of the problem as I have discussed at length
here on the forum and at arboristsite.

We can discuss this all day long and the physics are still the same and the fire triangle is still the same and the
boiler designs are same and strictly dependent on the owners willingness to burn thinly split dry wood and not just dump
wood or garbage in the firebox and let it smolder and lose energy in the smoke.

It has been proven time an again in the Switzer and Garn boilers that batch burning dry seasoned wood wood provides the
end user with the most hot water.

The concept is not new. the Russian and Finnish masonry stoves were first to use batch burning of dry wood to heat the stone
in a multiple passage stone fireplace where all the heat is extracted as the wood burns by keeping the stone hot and in turn increasing the combustion temperature in the flue passages with very little smoke being left to exit the chimney.


Unless the builders of these things change their designs radically to follow the proven locomotive firebox two or three pass
fire tube design in a water filled boiler shell nothing and I mean nothing will change.

As far as some "forest eater" builders rewording the "fire triangle" to fit their sales message it is extremely missleading just for them to sell a product.

What they have done does not that does not work and it is not ethical either and anyone investing in these things needs to understand that as well.

If they simply added thermal mass with either water or fire brick in the fireboxes it would solve a lot of issues and eliminate a lot of smoke.

Furnaces and boilers have been lined with firebrick for years and it works to keep the heat in the boilers firebox to keep the fire hotter and also shed heat into the water wall of a boiler or the furnaces heat exchanger surrounding the firebox and then the plenum.

. The key is small fireboxes lined with firebrick or afterburners next to the combustion chamber made from firebrick.

Large square fireboxes require more welding and in effect do not burn well simply because the flue gasses swirl around and do not have a path to follow like a shell and tube boiler and simply exit the stack wasting energy.

exposing more of a firebox to the fire is fine but using the fire to its fullest advantage by scrubbing it of the heat by creating higher combustion temperatures using a scavenger or multiple pass baffle system would solve so many problems with these things and you would have no issues with smoke or your neighbors as smaller hotter fires would create less smoke heating as much or more of the water you need as the firebrick shed the heat into the water wall of the boiler.

If a simple single pass or two pass induced draft scavenger was employed along with adding water volume they would sell more of these things and the end user would burn much less wood. it would not work well for a pallet burner unless the pallets were shredded and burned in an underfed stoker boiler.

its been proven for years in Europe that wood chip burners work very well for home heating creating little to no noticeable smoke.





I welcome a rebuttal of this.

You're right, it's still a smoke dragon. I guess we should all throw these things away and burn coal like you. I expected a comment like this, hence, I'm done.

 

[woodsHAM]

I apologize if I started some huge debate , was just looking for some insight lol. I appreciate all that gave advice , so far I've looked at the drolet tundra/heat max if we replaced current furnce with something more efficient and that route is being avoided at all costs ! Hate to lug one Clayton out and the 600 pound drolet into the basement. Other option and most likely situation is just sticking to what we both know and putting in a newer more efficient woodstove in our living room and only using the old furnace only if it's absolutely needed

 

[StihlKicking]

Not all OWB's are smoke dragons and burn tons of wood and anyone who believes this is invited to my house to check out my set up. I installed Hardy's KB125 outdoor gasser and could not be happier. I sold the Clayton that was in the basement and now burn much less wood while also heating all domestic hot water. No smoke, fire, mess, dirt, bugs, or allergic reactions to all the above from my 4 year old daughter. Burn times right now are about 24 hrs., at the coldest this winter, I was getting 12 hr burns.

Look at what jrod770 said. All situations are different. Hardy makes a wonderful product. I own a h2 "smoke dragon" which dosen't smoke much at all FYI. It fits my situation perfectly. The KB units are very efficient and Hardy also makes a good unit that burns coal and wood. If you want any more info on OWBs pm me. Gassers with storage are not the be all end all it just depends on your situation. It just so happens that a lot of people here have that type of set up, so it gets pushed pretty hard.

 

[Lake Girl]

If wifey isn't happy loading the furnace now, I definitely don't think she'd be any happier feeding an OWB...

I'll second that! Been there, done that My nephew asked me where I worked out Add on wood furnace uses far smaller pieces of wood...

 

[Jataylor]

Luckily the majority of my wood comes free off family property. Ive went through 7 1/2 cords this winter and that's mixing in 1 ton of coal as well and this has been a very mild winter. I've seen enough replies on here to get the jist most on here aren't satisfied with them ! Boilers are big around my area, Most people I talk to claim they love there's, but all my family and friends still burn the indoor stoves so that's why I was asking on the forum. The central unit I was looking at claims it gets 12-16hr burn times but it is the newer EPA phase 2 boiler. Thank you all for the responses.

I suggest intergrating a thermal storage tank into any wood boiler system. In the winter we burn once a day and transition time it looks like a burn once every 3 - 4 days. House temps don't vary more than a few degrees between burns.