Needing advice on storage

[ChemicalWaste]

I'm just getting started into this, and it's all completely new to me. We bought a new (old) house (1873) in March of 2014. It has 2 wood burners in it. One is a Isle Royale Legacy wood stove, the other is a Greenwood 100 boiler. The boiler is my concern for this post. Love it or hate it, it's in, and right now it's not going anywhere. I'm not loving it, but I'm trying to polish a turd here, but maybe it's nowhere near as difficult as I think it is.

The house has the original radiators in it for heat downstairs. I also have an old natural gas boiler in the basement for backup, as well as a brand new heat pump put in over the summer of 2015. The second floor is heated by a forced air gas unit in the attic. There is no connection between the 2 units.

Last winter, which was pretty mild, I burned 12 cords to heat this place. Clearly, I don't want to keep that up my entire life hence, I'm looking to add some storage, preferably in what used to be the coal chute in the basement, directly under the boiler. Part of my thought was to use the storage tanks, however large I can manage to get down there, to run the radiant heat downstairs, and also put a heat exchanger in the air unit in the attic.

Is it possible to do multiple zones out of the tanks?

Also, I know of no one in Ohio who does this sort of work. I've never welded a thing, and I hate plumbing, so it won't be a DIY job, but I certainly don't want to have some hack come in and junk the place up. Any recommendations on who to get a hold of would also be supreme.

I was reading some of that biomass hydronics training PDF, and a lot of it makes sense, but I'm admittedly lost on other parts, so I'm willing to call in professional help and admit defeat. I have plenty of other crap to do anyway.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dogwood]

ChemicalWaste, a few questions. How many square feet are you trying to heat, and how is your home insulated? Do you know the moisture content of the wood you're burning? And what kind of wood is it? How much space do you have downstairs for your storage? Twelve cords seems like an awful lot of wood to be burning especially if you are heating the second floor with gas and using a heat pump too.

 

[wolfe64]

The first thing to do, is to check your insulation. We had a Greenwood 100 for 9 years. Insulated the crap out of our 1800 sq. ft. 1840 house 3 years ago. wood consumption dropped by 40%. Installed Tarm Bonus Plus with 300 gal storage this year. Another learning curve begins.

 

[maple1]

I only picked out one question there, my answer to that one would be yes.

Adding storage should improve boiler operation & efficiency, but how much it will reduce your wood consumption is a wild card, since 1873 construction = big heat loss potential. From what I have read about Greenwoods, storage should help the boiler quite a bit in just the cleaning/maintenance side alone.

Adding storage also usually means batch burning, which also usually means making a new fire every day. Not that big of a deal to most of us who have gone that way, but might be a niggling little detail that some might not like.

 

[ChemicalWaste]

The heat pump is backup as well, but we use it mainly when it's in the 50s because the boiler will make it too hot since the only control for it is the aquastat. Generally, r boiler has enough to keep both levels warm, but if we choose bedroom doors it gets frigid.
We have 3300 sq ft to heat, plus high 11 ft ceilings downstairs and 10 upstairs. In 2 of the crawlspaces under the front of the house the floor joists are mostly insulated. Some of them, but not all. Other than that all I know about is blown in insulation in the attics.

Most of the wood was below 20% last season, but about 3 cords of some stuff that was felled 2 years before was cut in a pinch. The next day it rained, and then froze. Needless to say, I didn't get much out of that.

Everything I burned last year was hardwood. Mostly ash, of course, but some maple, walnut, locust and a little oak. This year is similar, but heavier on the oak and maple. It's been reading 15-20 for everything I've checked.

I'm guessing the room in the basement I would like to put the storage is about 5x10x7. There is probably about 1000 square feet of basement. The rest is crawl spaces.

 

[ChemicalWaste]

Also, thanks for the replies.

 

[dogwood]

ChemicalWaste, take a look at the "stickies" by Bob Rohr and Nofossil at the top of the Boiler Room site for some plumbing ideas including storage. Also check out this link from the Caleffi Idronics site, http://www.caleffi.com/sites/default/files/coll_attach_file/idronics_10_0.pdf and look at the diagrams for storage plumbing ideas. The diagrams look intimidating at first, but really aren't so bad once you figure out what the system components are. Also the Tarm Biomass site has,numerous diagrams that show how to incorporate storage, and various type heat emitters. I used one of their schematics to work in our water to air heat exchanger.

For a house as big as yours I'd be looking for a thousand gallons of pressurized storage, if you go the pressurized route. I'm guessing your 5 x 10 x 7 space would be a tight fit for two 500 gallon used propane tanks used for water storage. I'm guessing the 5 x 10 is the width and length of the room. Look around on site for pictures of storage. Some people stack 500 gallon tanks, others have one 1000 gallon tank, plus other variations are pictured. There are other non-pressurized system options as well that I'm unsure you could work in with your existing radiators.

I stated out where you are, knowing little to nothing of hydronics, so don't give up. We heated our 3000 square foot home and DHW in Virginia with roughly four cords of dry locust, oak, cedar, and other miscellaneous woods last year. It's colder in Ohio no doubt, but not three times colder. You must be exhausted cutting, stacking and burning 12 cords. Get your home thoroughly insulated, walls floor and ceilings, and as draft free as possible. Understand what plumbing you want and need, so your installer doesn't take advantage or get away with a poor installation.

By the way if your storage tank has fittings of the right size and location no welding should be needed. At least that was the case with our storage tank.

Good luck, and post on your progress.

Mike

 

[ChemicalWaste]

ChemicalWaste, take a look at the "stickies" by Bob Rohr and Nofossil at the top of the Boiler Room site for some plumbing ideas including storage. Also check out this link from the Caleffi Idronics site, http://www.caleffi.com/sites/default/files/coll_attach_file/idronics_10_0.pdf and look at the diagrams for some storage plumbing ideas. The diagrams look intimidating at first but really aren't so bad once you figure out what the system components are. Also the Tarm Biomass site has,numerous diagrams that show how to incorporate storage, and various type heat emitters. I used one of theirs to work in our water to air heat exchanger.

For a house as big as yours I'd be looking for a thousand gallons of pressurized storage, if you go the pressurized route. I'm guessing your 5 x 10 x 7 space would be a tight fit for two 500 gallon used propane tanks used for water storage. I'm guessing the 5 x 10 is the width and length of the room. Look around on site for pictures of storage. Some stack 500 gallon tanks, others have one 1000 gallon tank, plus other variations are pictured. There are other non-pressurized system options as well that I'm unsure you could work in with your existing radiators.

I stated out where you are, knowing little to nothing of hydronics, so don't give up. We heated our 3000 square foot home and DHW in Virginia with roughly four cords of dry locust, oak, cedar, and other miscellaneous woods last year. It's colder in Ohio no doubt, but not three times colder. You must be exhausted cutting, stacking and burning 12 cords. Get that home thoroughly insulated, walls floor and ceilings, and as draft free as possible. Understand what plumbing you want and need, so your installer doesn't take advantage or get away with a poor installation.

Good luck.

Yeah, it's some work. This year, so I wasn't short, I cut 18 cords. I had about 14 cut/split/stacked before I bought a log splitter. It's a chore for sure. I know there is a better way, that's why I'm on here. I'll check out those links and the stickies when the kids go to bed. I appreciate the help.

My fear with insulation is that everything is plaster and I don't want curved walls to crack from drilling holes. There are a lot of drafts that I haven't really had the opportunity to seal up yet that I really need to get to. Mainly the doors to the attics and crawl spaces.

 

[Pat53]

Chemical, from what I understand, the Greenwood is about the same as a Seton. If you haven't cleaned out the tubes on that Greenwood, I would definitely take the back panel off and check the tubes. I added 500 gallons of storage for my Seton 130 a few years ago and it made a huge difference in my wood consumption. My house is about the same Sq ft as yours and I live in Upper Michigan and only use about 7-8 cords in a normal winter. Before the storage it was about 10-12 cords. Those tubes might be all plugged up with gunk and your efficiency would naturally suffer as a result.

Pat

 

[ChemicalWaste]

I took that panel off in September. I don't know when or if it was cleaned out, but it was loaded. I ended up breaking an intake pipe putting it back together because I'm an idiot, and that's all I'll say about that. Fixed it with an exhaust pipe from the car parts store and some exhaust sealant.

I'd be much happier in the 7-8 cord range, but I'd love to build the solar kiln I have planned for my lumber projects and have room for 6 cords in it when I'm not using to dry lumber, so if I could get closer to that number, I'd be thrilled. It'll be mainly a shed that gets warmer in the sun at that point, but I'll take whatever drying I can get out of it for firewood, too. Did you do any insulation at all, too?

Like I said before, I have plenty of other projects to work on. I have a bunch of cherry in the basement for an entertainment center in the living room, I just finished off my hickory dining room table, the original front porch, corbels and all, a garage and driveway, coffered ceiling in the library... I think the list is somewhere around 32 projects now that the dining room is done.

Cutting wood is killing my around-the-house productivity. I think I cut 6 cords Easter weekend. If I could have the other weekends cutting wood back, I think I could really cut into this list!

 

[dogwood]

My fear with insulation is that everything is plaster and I don't want curved walls to crack from drilling holes.

I saw on a TV home improvement show loose fill insulation being blown into wall cavities from outside the house in order to not mess up interior walls. If you have shiplap siding, you remove one row of siding around the perimeter of your home. You then use a hole saw to drill every sixteen inches into the stud bays. You blow in the insulation through the holes, re-plug the holes, and then put the piece of siding back. If your house is brick or stucco, never mind.

Its a fair amount of work I'd imagine and professionals were doing that job on the TV show. Unlike cutting and splitting it's a one time job however, no matter how nasty. Insulation and restricting air infiltration is the key to energy efficiency.

Mike

 

[ChemicalWaste]

That's the other issue. This old girl is all brick. I know that the insulation would be the biggest benefit as it would help in the summer as well, but at this point in going to try to exhaust other options before getting into that.

The windows are all original as well, which looks kind of cool, but they're terrible. The bad news there is there all 96 inch true arch windows, and there are 28 of them. I do have some storm windows panes for each window that I put in place to take away some of the draft. It's going to be a long process, and if love to address all of these issues soon as I can. I definitely have some phone calls to make.

 

[Pat53]

My house is also brick, and I have not done any additional insulating since we moved here 17 years ago. Unfortunately, you'll likely end up with a lot of build-up on those tubes every year simply because of the way they are run. IMO the only way to run a Seton/Greenwood (or most any wood boilers for that matter) is with long hot burns and as little idling/smoldering as possible. Of course using good dry wood is also key.

good luck, Pat