?s About Installing EKO Outside

[Chris D.]

Must the building be insulated? I talked to the importer (and mostly could not understand him) but I thought he was saying that the building should be insulated AND that a couple of heating units should be installed in the building along the floor.

I am very interested in these units; however, installing one in my house is out of the question and the complexity (based upon what I have read on these forums) of the installation is a real turn off. That plus the recommendations to install huge holding tanks; I don't have room for that. Are the holding tanks really necessary? I have new home that is 5,000 square feet and unlimited access to dry oak. I almost think I'd be better installing an outside woodboiler, pumping it full of an inconceivable amount of wood and watching it smoke like crazy. Suggestions/comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[sdrobertson]

The building doesn't need to be insulated but I would. I insulated my boiler room with fiberglass (R-19) and I still get allot of ice buildup on my roof. My boiler room is 10 by 8 and it gets really hot when I really get it cooking. Plus its nice to go into a warm room to refill. Also it helps the boiler run better as the warmer the air into the boiler, the less the boiler has to warm up this air. As far as large storage tanks....Gasifiers work best when you run the boiler full tilt....During the shoulder season (spring or fall) when you don't need as much heat its harder to load the boiler just right so that you only produce the btu's that you need so storage is used so that any excess btu's that the boiler produces are placed into the water and then you can use these btu's when you don't have a fire going. A OWB has water in it and it shuts down and smolders until the water starts to cool down and then it opens up and allows air to reach the fire again producing heat. You can think of storage as a battery...you charge the battery with the boiler and then heat off the battery. The larger the battery, the longer you can heat off it. Storage in the area that your heating is best as you will always lose a small amount of heat and you might as well get some use off it. My storage is in my barn as I didn't have room in my house but I did insulate it allot so I don't have that much standby loss. Storage is not mandatory, but it makes life allot easier.

 

[Chris S]

Assuming you get freezing temperatures in your area, I would say insulate the boiler room. Do you have a boiler in the home? If so then I would install a piece of electric baseboard in the boiler room with the wood boiler so that if you're on vacation, sick etc . The boiler is safe , and your other heat can take over , and you don't need to heat your wb with water heated by fossil fuel. Does all of that make sense?

As for storage, I fired an eko40 in January & it was great until the house heated up, and zone valves started to close, and the boiler reached temperature, then the inefficient burning began. We added storage in March, and it operates cleaner & more efficiently now.

 

[flyingcow]

I have my boiler in a insulated room, inside my garage. I would recommend insulating it. I haven't had to run any extra heating units out there. The boiler and piping lets off enough heat to keep room above freezing. In the dead of winter I usually build a fire about 4pm and maybe reload about 8/9ish if i need to(boiler will burn out about midnight). This will charge the storage and heat the house until the following day. Room stays warm enough. I've got a 2 inch pvc conduit between house and garage. I've been planning running a temp probe out there, and put the readout in my house. I'm going to use one that will have an alarm, so if it gets below my set point, it'll alert me. Got alot of $$'s invested, don't need a freeze up. Plan on putting an electric heater out there. But till want to know what the temp is.
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my garage is 24x36 and the boiler room is 8x12 with a 10ft ceiling.
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What part of the country you located?

 

[Chris D.]

Thanks for the information. I am in northwestern Virginia. We see siginificant snowfall (3 or more inches) maybe 3 or 4 times a year. The main heating system in my house is forced air burning gas.

I would be locating the unit in a building about 60 feet from the house. How elaborate does the flue have to be coming out of the building?

 

[stee6043]

The actual installation and system design for the EKO shouldn't be much different than a typical OWB assuming you don't go with any thermal storage ("holding tanks"). The EKO has a supply and a return water connection. Same as a Central Boiler. If you wanted to you could run one just like an OWB. The complexity comes from trying to make these units perform like they were designed to perform. All the tweaking and tuning you read and hear about is from crazy people like us trying to heat 3,000 square feet on 3 cord of wood per year. It can and has been done by people on this forum. That's where thermal storage and well tuned boilers can get you...as opposed to 9+ cord with a typical OWB...

 

[Tony H]

I am in northern illinois and my EKO is in an UNINSULATED metal shed about 75' from the house The piping is insulated and I have had no problems in the last 2 years. I will be building a bigger shed and will insulate when I do that. I am running glycol in mine to prevent freezing and I also will run the pump while gone to keep water moving. I also am connected to a gas forced air furnace with no storage and it works great of course storage would be better but that also is a future addition.
The chimney I have is double wall SS with a T off the back and 9' of pipe up to a rain cap and I am adding a draft fan just to keep from getting smoked out when reloading while a burn is going.
The preference of course would be an insulated shed with storage but the system will work without them and they can be added as funds become available.
Two of the items to plan for now are great insulation on the buried pipe and a large top quality exchanger in the furnace.

 

[68dodgeramman]

I also am connected to a gas forced air furnace with no storage and it works great of course storage would be better but that also is a future addition.

Hey Tony, does it smoke real bad out the chimney?

 

[Tony H]

No , when I am running full speed it is quite clean however when idling it throws out a little smoke . The only time it smokes alot is when I am starting or restarting from coals and then only for a few minutes.
That's the way is should work and does work unless I use some wet wood or too many small pieces of wood then it smokes quite a bit as expected.

 

[68dodgeramman]

Thanks Tony. The plumber just left. He wanted to look at our set up and see what he'd have to do to give us an estimate on installing the EKO 40. I have more questions for you but I can't think of them right now. Mind if I post some a little later? Thanks again.

 

[Tony H]

Another option for installation is an HVAC tech , I had my nephew do the furnace metal work, furnace wiring and the inside piping while I did the building, buried pipe, PEX ,and electrical and plumbing at the boiler. Then he fixed my leaks and we did the chimney.
The advantage as I see it is not many plumbers know how to do sheet metal and furnace work but alot of commercial HVAC boiler techs are master plumbers.
Post away they are tons of knowledgeable folks around this place.

 

[68dodgeramman]

I guess I should clarify, he is an HVAC guy. Not just a plumber. Anyway, would I even need a heat exchanger in my garage? It's 840 sq ft, attached and well insulated. The piping would go up the wall behind the boiler about 5 ft. take a 90 and go about 5 ft over our rear entry door. Then down the wall into the basement. Will the boiler and pipe give off enough heat by themselves or do we need the heat exchanger w/blower? The boiler would be located in the rear corner of the garage closest to the house. Maybe I can put up a diagram to show you better. Thanks.

 

[Gooserider]

I guess I should clarify, he is an HVAC guy. Not just a plumber. Anyway, would I even need a heat exchanger in my garage? It's 840 sq ft, attached and well insulated. The piping would go up the wall behind the boiler about 5 ft. take a 90 and go about 5 ft over our rear entry door. Then down the wall into the basement. Will the boiler and pipe give off enough heat by themselves or do we need the heat exchanger w/blower? The boiler would be located in the rear corner of the garage closest to the house. Maybe I can put up a diagram to show you better. Thanks.

You might get enough heat off the boiler and piping to heat the garage, hard to say without doing the experiment... I would say plumb in stubs and valves so that you can add it later if needed, and then try it to see if you do... Actually my tendency would be more to insulate everything as much as I can, and then add the unit heater, as I don't see much point in wasting heat on the garage when it isn't needed...

One other issue, have you verified with any inspection authorities you have to deal with, and / or your insurance company to see if you are OK with putting the boiler in your garage? Generally solid fuel burners aren't allowed in garages...

Gooserider

 

[stee6043]

I guess I should clarify, he is an HVAC guy. Not just a plumber. Anyway, would I even need a heat exchanger in my garage? It's 840 sq ft, attached and well insulated. The piping would go up the wall behind the boiler about 5 ft. take a 90 and go about 5 ft over our rear entry door. Then down the wall into the basement. Will the boiler and pipe give off enough heat by themselves or do we need the heat exchanger w/blower? The boiler would be located in the rear corner of the garage closest to the house. Maybe I can put up a diagram to show you better. Thanks.

I have about 15-20' of exposed 1-1/4" pipe coming off my boiler. My boiler room is roughly 200 square feet. My piping doesn't give off nearly enough heat to keep my boiler room warm in my basement. The boiler itself is barely warm to the touch, except for the doors, when in operation. I think you'll want an HX with blower if you want any kind of real heat in your garage....

 

[Medman]

I have my EKO installed in the garage in a separate boiler room, all pipes insulated. In my case, I put in the tees and valves to add a unit heater for the boiler room if needed, but I am finding I don't need it and in fact the room (14'x24' insulated R30 walls and R50 ceiling) is too hot because of the 6' of doublewall flue pipe running between the EKO and the ceiling thimble. I have little heat coming off the pipes or the EKO itself, but the flue puts a lot of heat into the room, even when flue temps are down around 300*.
Once my storage is in place it will be in this room as well, so I will have additional heat from the tank. At this point, I don't think I will need the heater in the boiler room. I will be putting one in the car bay next door, though.

 

[68dodgeramman]

Ok, this is the set up that I have. We plan to put it right where the current natural gas heater is. We'll run the stove pipe up using the hole that's already in the roof for the gas vent. We'll just have to make it bigger. You can see that the water pipes will have to go up and over the rear entry door. Which shouldn't be a problem. I hope this give you a better idea of our set up, everything is well insulated. I've already talked to our home owners insurance and they don't have a problem at all. tomorrow morning I'll be talking to our county bldg. inspector. And my HVAC guy will be talking to the state inspector and Dave Rush at CozyHeat. I'd like to have it set up by deer season, but I doubt that'll happen. But we'll see. Thanks again.

 

[Gooserider]

Maybe I'm missing something? I see an "Existing furnace" in the center of the dark grey section on the left of the picture - if this is where you are talking, why do you need to do anything near the rear entry door? :-S

Or is there another heater where you are talking about the vent to the right of the entry door, that you are planning for as a location?

Gooserider

 

[68dodgeramman]

The "Exsisting Furnace" is the natural gas forced air furnace that is currently in our basement. It heats the house and basement. In the garage to the right of the entry door is where I have a small natural gas heater that heats the garage. That's what the gas vent or chimney pipe is for. I want to put our wood boiler in it's place. But just this morning I ran into a snag. The HVAC guy talked to the state inspector today. The inspector, when told the boiler was from CozyHeat, said absolutely not because they are not ASME certified nor are they UL listed. He said that there are a lot of people in Michigan that will have to pull them out. My question; Now what? Are there any wood gasification boilers out there that are ASME certified and UL listed? I don't know what to do now.

 

[Tony H]

I think the Econoburn units are UL listed and at least one other MFG has a UL and non UL model might be the woodgun. I would also check Tarm and Garn
I installed my EKO in a shed so the insurance company and building inspection folks are ok with the idea .

I would also ask Dave what he has available and maybe he can offer you a discount to save the deal and get you the type of unit you need.

 

[Gooserider]

The "Exsisting Furnace" is the natural gas forced air furnace that is currently in our basement. It heats the house and basement. In the garage to the right of the entry door is where I have a small natural gas heater that heats the garage. That's what the gas vent or chimney pipe is for. I want to put our wood boiler in it's place. But just this morning I ran into a snag. The HVAC guy talked to the state inspector today. The inspector, when told the boiler was from CozyHeat, said absolutely not because they are not ASME certified nor are they UL listed. He said that there are a lot of people in Michigan that will have to pull them out. My question; Now what? Are there any wood gasification boilers out there that are ASME certified and UL listed? I don't know what to do now.

I've been through this in MA, as we have the same kind of STUPIDITY in our state. First off, ASME and UL are two different certifications, though they kind of overlap a bit. The ASME Cert requirements were not written for solid fuel boilers, but are being used on them anyway, and impose a huge amount of added expense and headaches for manufacturers and consumers without adding ANY meaningful benefit to consumer safety. If you do a search on ASME certification you will find a few threads where I've gone into this in the past. I've also posted a copy of a paper that BioHeat sponsored back when they were fighting this battle in MA, and lost (because we have a bunch of ASME hacks and employees of ASME shops running the state boiler rules committee) It compares the EU and ASME standards.

The current situation, is that the "Euro-boilers", Tarm, EKO, Atmos, Froeling, etc... are all built and certified as meeting the EU's CE and EN-303-5 standards by different testing facilities in the different countries. EN-303-5 is a standard that was specifically written for solid fuel boilers, and is a VERY tough spec to meet. The CE standard is roughly equivalent to a UL listing, and at least some of the Euroboilers have gotten cross-listed to be covered by UL as well.

The two major US gassifier brands, Econoburn and Wood Gun normally make boilers that are certified to UL standards, but NOT ASME. However, as an extra-cost option, they will build ASME certified versions, which will typically cost you between $800 and $1,000 extra. The boiler companies don't make any significant profit on this, the upcharge basically covers the not very useful (and arguably bad) extra modifications to the design required by ASME, the added paperwork, and the fact that they have to pay to have an ASME inspector on site to watch the boiler being built... This last "Live inspector" requirement is probably the biggest reason why the Euroboiler makers don't get ASME certification, as the costs to fly an inspector to the EU and have him watch them build boilers would be prohibitive.

In 47 states, the Euroboilers are currently quite acceptable, in three states they aren't...

There is one possible loophole however... The ASME requirement applies ONLY to "pressure vessels" - which by definition requires a closed system. If you have an open system, in theory there should be NO requirements for anything other than possibly a UL listing. See the various discussions about what I call the "European Open" style systems where you have a system that has a high mounted expansion tank that is open to the air, resulting in a system that is technically "open" but acts like a closed system....

Gooserider