New Biasi Wood 3-7

[CMAC]

I am new here and new to wood burning.
Just had my Wood 3 installed this week. It feeds into my existing oil boiler. The Biasi is in a detached garage 45 ft from the oil boiler in the house. In floor heat in a 7 year old house.
Everything seems to be going OK so far, the Biasi seems to have married in well. House is beautifully warm and hot showers that last forever.

Question is: what kind of burn times should I expect from the Wood3? I am still fine tunning the process....I have gotten 6 hrs but most seem like 4 hrs or so. Mind you it has been -20C since I sparked it up- Good time for it.
Any info is appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Duetech]

Welcom to the forum cmacguigan,
Your Wood3 is unfamiliar to me. My EKO40 is about the same distance away as your Wood3. The fire box on the EKO40 is 6.55 cu ft. and though the temperature here is not quite that cold it is close and a load of wood is lasting around 9 hours from coal bed to coal bed. When the wind is still or near still a load will last around 10 hours and around freezing will last 10.5 hours. Different burn times will be experienced with different woods. Currently, in these frigid temperatures, to experience 9 hours burn durations red oak and hard/sugar maple (about 24-25 million btu per cord. See: (broken link removed to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm) ) are the only woods used. In more moderately cold bl walnut (20 million btu per cord) is used to get the 10-10.5 hour burn durations. Bl walnut will only last around 7.5-8 hours in this frigid weather. My system is non-storage with forced draft air heat exchanger and a sidearm dhw. Check that link out it will help you determine the best wood to buy and compare prices for any other wood you might come across...Cave2k

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Welcome , good to see an Islander on here . Great site for info , help and advice.

 

[danmitchell9]

1) I'd find a different use for the black walnut besides burning it (the good pieces anyway). I have a similar type of boiler unit (new this fall...National Stoveworks Thermo Control). Your burn times sound similar. I built an addition onto our house to put it in because I didn't have any room in the basement. It has an 8" flue which I put a damper in just to slow it down. I live on a hill and get a really good draft. Keep track of your cord useage this winter, I'm curious myself how much I'll use. These things aren't as efficient as the gasifiers. And I'd also be interested in any ideas about water storage to get the most efficiency out of these kinds of boilers.

 

[godsowndrunk]

i havnt heard many good things about the biasi yet im curiouse too how everyone makes out . i reaaly like my biasi b-10 oild boiler but i want to replace my itaska wb40 with a big hunk of italian cast iron. please let me know how everything is going take care

 

[l40knocker]

I installed a new Biasi 3 Wood 4 this year. I have it hooked up parallel to a Crown Freeport oil fired with 2 hydro-air units and an indirect fired water heater. With a maximum fill of wood I will get about 4 good hours average burn time depending on outside temps and showers. I have a wife and 2 teenage boys who love long hot showers.I do not have any storage but can see the advantages. The boiler is rated at 75000 BTUs and it will handle the load if you keep tending it. I was surprised at the amount of creosote it can produce. I burned a Yotul woodstove in the same chimney and had very little creosote but the boiler really sooted up fast. Well long story shortened, I got tired of loading it and tending to it so I tried my luck at burning coal to hopefully cut down on tending and creosote. I will definitely be burning coal instead of wood from now on. I tend it 2 times a day, maybe throw a little coal on in the evening on cold days. I love the boiler now and would not hesitate recommending it to someone for a way of heating their house. QHT says they are getting the boiler listed in the USA for burning hard coal this year and that I can get shaker grates for it this Fall. If you look at the left side of the boiler there is a round knockout and that is where the grates will be going through the jacket. Feel free to PM me about the boiler any time.

 

[kshultz]

Hi There...I installed a 3wood-6 this past summer. I'm burning wood & need to tend about every 4-5 hours, but I find I'm still learning to. I thought of burning coal to give it a try, maybe next year but for now I buy my wood in logs to sell off half to pay for my wood. So at the end of the day free wood is good for me. I have a 3 story colonial 3,200 sq.ft near Portsmouth NH and the boiler keeps up easy! I had a lot of build up early on, but learned how to run the boiler better. Mine to is also connected up to my oil burner. My temp guage on the BIASI is about 15 er degrees different from oil boiler temp. reading. I was running the water temp too low at first, but now try to keep it circulating at 160-180 degrees if I can. Today was sunny & warm compared to the last couple weeks (30 deg. today) so I let the fire run out where when I first started I would have kept it running. There are some drawbacks to this boiler, but I think for the price it's a very fair deal and should give years of service.

Hope this helps... I have some pictures if you want them.

 

[CMAC]

After a couple of weeks now, I am still unsure if the Biasi3-7 was a good investment or not. Burn times range from 2-5 hrs, I have had a couple of 6hrs but I believe the demand was quite low during those times... it seems to require quite a bit of tending to, 3AM feedings and lunchour fills.
I am satisfied with the performance other than the burn times.
I am considering either getting another unit or implementing storage. Either way more money has to be spent. I would apprecaite some feedback or opinions here.
I really don't want to buy another boile rbut it doesn't make sense to have comitted all this effort/money/time not to be satisfied.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Is your fire only burning for 4 hrs or is it heating your house for only 4 hrs? My boiler only burns for 4-6 hrs depending on how much wood I put in it but the house only drops from 21c to about 19 overnight. How many btus is the 3-7 rated at?

 

[CMAC]

coal to coal in less than 4 hrs many times...., I have a slab so i am trying to load up slab during the optimal burn time, and waking hrs then i set it back (stats) overnight to get a little longer time. last night was 1045pm to 415AM, not too bad, but still up at 4Am going outside to detached garage to feed the the thing. house doesn't drop too much, 22-3 degrees, but I hear the oil boiler kick in and it drives me nutso.
btu i belive are 130K or 120K, in Biasi's literature it is supposed to be good for a 4000 sq home, i have 2500 or so
I am still playing with damper control hoping to "get it right"
Corrigan's are willing to help per say, but they are pretty busy

 

[l40knocker]

What type of wood are you burning and how is the boiler piped into the existing system? You may have to insulate some piping. How old is the house? My 2200 sq ft house has a calculated heat loss of 50000 btu at zero degrees F and that does not include the garage that I heat. Your house is 2500 so that boiler is plenty big enough to handle the load. Are you using the manual pipe damper? Is the boiler overheating a lot and dumping into the overheat zone? Before I would get rid of the boiler I would really have someone take a look at the piping and the layout, I really think the boiler should handle that load and burn longer.I hope you can figure it all out.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

I put a switch on my oil burner. So I turn it off and it stays off. Who did your install??

 

[CMAC]

Corrigans did the flue and Bevans the plumbing. No flue draft regulator installed.
I just noticed tonight that my flue damper was not completely open,,,say 85%, which may have been limiting the size of log Iwas able to put in. If I put in anything larger than a 3-4" stick it wouldn't burn, so maybe this will allow larger log=longer burn time. I will know by Monday.
Back to the install- I was surprised by the lack of knowledge by everyone involved... not to be negative but honest. i like strong opinions on how things should be done but didn't get any real confidence in any application answers that I had
I am a controls kind of guy so I am not done.. I may do some automating via a PLC and some sensors/timers to control things a bit better, especially if I add a storage tank.
My wood I burn is mostly maple and birch, some cedar for starting. seasoned to 14-18% .

 

[mark123]

I too found it hard to find people knowledeagble in wood burning appliances, I did find a guy named John Rousseau , he owns red clay construction and others have told me he is the best, he specializes in chimneys. My boiler smoked a lot, smoke poured into the basement whenever I opened the door, obviously a draft problem. Anyway he fixed several problems the original chimney builders did wrong and removed the liner , wrapped it all with some special insulating wrap and now it burns much better and no smoke comes out of the door. He told me all about gasification boilers, something no others retailers ever mentioned.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

Hey John Rousseau is the prince of flue draft. He installed a liner in my house 20 years ago in Murray River and again installed a insulated liner in my present house this year. Also he helped me measure up for safety to install my new gassifier.