I am a new Tarm 60 wood boiler owner and am just checking this site out to see and share firewood war stories. Best
New Tarm owner saying "hello" from Vermont!
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Dave T
New Member
Wecome to the boiler room many Tarm owners here earlier this year I halled a 30 year old Tarm out of my basement, Tarms are made for the long haul.. If I had bought new Tarm would have been the only unit I was interested in I'll throw a pic or two of my old Tarm the funny part is when I got rid of my 30 year old Tarm somebody bought it, but I sold it for the price of scrap..Dave
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Nofossil
Moderator Emeritus
Welcome to the boiler room. Would you care to share some details of your installation? Great to see yet another Vermonter on here. I don't know what it is - maybe something in the water, or maybe some vestiges of the Yankee self-reliance ethic - but Vermont seems to be over-represented here. Not complaining, mind you.
I'm in Addison county, and I'll probably be doing a wood heat open house at some point.
Looking forward to more posts.
I'm in Addison county, and I'll probably be doing a wood heat open house at some point.
Looking forward to more posts.
lawandorder
Member
welcome to the room I have a Solo 40 in Upstate New York near Plattsburgh. I am still trying to iron out things and get going good but this is a grea place for info. Its my daily routine during my first cup of coffee....
VtRv
Member
HSTarm, hello from Morrisville, I just finished the install on my Solo Plus 30 last night and fired it for the first time. Today I'm having my 500 gallon LP storage tank spray foamed and plan to get that heated up as soon as I can to get the full benifit of the system and start learning how to use this thing.
Hi from Morrisville (again). New Eclassic 2300 in use this season. Enjoying the warmth and remembering the sweat from this summer! 
Have you gotten a quote on the spray foam? I also have a 500 gallon tank I am setting up. My plan is to box it in (already done) and then use regular fiberglass insulation, but am curious how much spray foam would cost instead.
VtRv
Member
I was given a quote this morning of not more then $350.00. I was planning to start with fiberglass which would be considerably less but the spray foam has to do a much better job. I was trying to figure out the best way to wrap it with fiberglass and tape the seams with my tank 6" from the concrete wall in my basement and I thought it was going to be a pain so decided to have it sprayed. The guy who is spraying it said he's done a few and puts on either 2 or 3 inches. I told him I wanted 3" for the highest R-Value.
NHFarmer
Feeling the Heat
HSTarm,Welcome to the Boiler room.I have a Tarm Solo40,it has been on line for about 2 months now.There is a learning curve but once you get past that you will be glad you made the move to wood heat.So far I really love mine.Do you have your system up and running?
NHFarmer. Do you have your tarm set up as a series? If so... can you give me any tips on my setup? I have the Tarm Solo 40 without storage in the series set up. Would like to know how you deal with all of your zones calling for heat at the same time? Can i increase the temp somehow ( as in the temp in each zone that circulates.... not the temo in the boiler) ? I have adjusted the mixing valve already. Any other ways?
NHFarmer
Feeling the Heat
I used the Tarm design for my system.I had a steam heating system that I converted to hot water.I reused all of the cast iron radiators.The nice thing about them is they will still heat even at lower temps.I did not connect any backup at this time,ran out of $$$.I do find the temps vary from about 140 to 190.at the low end I still get plenty of heat.I think this swing is due to the termovars.Once the system is all up to temp it will hang around 180 which is perfect for me.As for the circulators,I can have all zones calling and maintain temps with no problems
Fred61
Minister of Fire
I've heard that People have insulated their storage tanks by building a wall around them and filling the space with sawdust. It has worked in the past for our forefathers who insulated their ice storage houses with it.
Hello all, I'm not here much but will post some photos of my install asap. Put my 60 in my workshed, now the boiler room!! Installed about 75' from the house, ran thermopex 1" insulated line to the existing plumbing in the house. I replaced my oil boiler with a Triangle Tube propane boiler (back-up) and installed a dual coil Heat Flow 80 gal hot water tank. Installation was done by SunWood Systems out of Waitsfield Vermont. I have been up and running since it was completed about 5 weeks ago. For the most part it has been problem free. I am heating a 6 unit apartment house with a good demand (I live in one unit)! I love it but there is a pretty decent time commitment, new relationships beware!! I don't have a woodlot but that is in the plans. The house used about 2000gals of oil last year and I hope to supplement about 70% this year with wood(1cord~150gal) plan to burn about 10 cords, the rest will be propane. The Tarm 60 is wired so that when the temp of the water drops below 140 the propane boiler will come on. So far so good!! I've had the propane boiler in for about 2 months and for about 3weeks without the Tarm, and to date I've only used 90gals...
Well stay warm all! I will check back soon!
Well stay warm all! I will check back soon!
rcollman
Member
Hi from NH,
We had an old SunRay wood/coal boiler and replaced with a Solo40. About 15 years ago we moved the business out of the house and installed a backup propane boiler. Since replaced that one. Plumber Co. who installed the second propane boiler, installed our Solo using the Plumbing Example D. It was their second install of a Solo. There are two zones, one large one that heats most of the house (cira 1930) and a smaller one that heat a "new" cira 1950 room.
We have no basement but a "furnace/laundry" room. The boiler sits on a cement slab, there is a suspended chimney (now metal) directly behind the boiler. Tight spaces but we have lived with in since 1980. Wood must live outside, no woodshed, but we have a summer porch that we "pre-position" about 1 cord now, but will have 2 cords after Xmas.
We are now through the first part of our shakedown. The tempering valve fooled our plumber at first. Learned how to operate the Solo when it was 30 degrees, with out heat storage Changed our fire lighting methods, to insure quick gasification. Thinking about adding a generator potential (Ice Storm downstate this year was a reminder).
I have a love hate relationship with the dials and gauges on the Solo, but I can live with it. Love the peek hole, think I will get some more gaskets and a spare glass disk (so a clean one is always ready). I am thinking of putting some sort of indicator light on each of my 3 circulators, two external dial temp gages for the tempering loop and another for the primary circulator (for my benefit) and move one of my outside temp gages near a window in the furnace room. Maybe because I am new.
My left over 2 cords from last year seems to be burning nicely. I got 2 cords in June and stacked and covered them. Then got 2.5 more cords in July, then 2 in Sept. Think I will be starting to June wood in January.
Next step is to start tracking heating degree days, and some consistant measure of wood. Hope 8 cords will do it, did with the SunRay, expect Solo to use less wood.
Best to all
We had an old SunRay wood/coal boiler and replaced with a Solo40. About 15 years ago we moved the business out of the house and installed a backup propane boiler. Since replaced that one. Plumber Co. who installed the second propane boiler, installed our Solo using the Plumbing Example D. It was their second install of a Solo. There are two zones, one large one that heats most of the house (cira 1930) and a smaller one that heat a "new" cira 1950 room.
We have no basement but a "furnace/laundry" room. The boiler sits on a cement slab, there is a suspended chimney (now metal) directly behind the boiler. Tight spaces but we have lived with in since 1980. Wood must live outside, no woodshed, but we have a summer porch that we "pre-position" about 1 cord now, but will have 2 cords after Xmas.
We are now through the first part of our shakedown. The tempering valve fooled our plumber at first. Learned how to operate the Solo when it was 30 degrees, with out heat storage Changed our fire lighting methods, to insure quick gasification. Thinking about adding a generator potential (Ice Storm downstate this year was a reminder).
I have a love hate relationship with the dials and gauges on the Solo, but I can live with it. Love the peek hole, think I will get some more gaskets and a spare glass disk (so a clean one is always ready). I am thinking of putting some sort of indicator light on each of my 3 circulators, two external dial temp gages for the tempering loop and another for the primary circulator (for my benefit) and move one of my outside temp gages near a window in the furnace room. Maybe because I am new.
My left over 2 cords from last year seems to be burning nicely. I got 2 cords in June and stacked and covered them. Then got 2.5 more cords in July, then 2 in Sept. Think I will be starting to June wood in January.
Next step is to start tracking heating degree days, and some consistant measure of wood. Hope 8 cords will do it, did with the SunRay, expect Solo to use less wood.
Best to all
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