So how does Greenwood boilers stack up anyway?

[Richardin52]

I was just taking to a guy this morning that has heavy equipment. A couple of years ago he built a large insulated equipment garage with slab heat and bought the largest outside boiler made by central. He heats his house and this garage. Anyway last year he used 30 cords this year he’s used 40 so far. Real efficient, if your goal it to make smoke.

Anyway we’ve been talking about gasification boilers and he just came in this morning and told me he was talking to a guy with a Greenwood boiler and the guy said he had to feed it often and that it also goes through a lot of wood. Anybody had one going for a couple years that can enlighten us?

 

[tigermaple]

I'll burn 9 or so real cords before I shut down this year to heat my large uninsulated farm house and shop in upstate NY. If you load a gw to the top, load n/s or use split wood you burn more than you need to. That seems to be a lesson one has to learn the hard way in the first season.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

This was my first 'full season' and I burned 5 rows of 18" 30' long and an averge 6' (?) high. Cherry, red oak, white oak, white birch, ans some yellow birch and some aspen. I am still learning . . . I believe I pushed too much wood through it. I heat 4k [] of new construction with pex radient.

After only a lil less than two years with the Gw - and based on a LOT of OWB observation, esecially CB's - I would bet that, done properly, I could run the CB VSF too.

For what its worth

 

[antos_ketcham]

CB VSF? What is that Jimbo?

With my GW 100 I am just about at 5-6 cords for the winter. If I had kept my CB my sense is that I would have burned more.

Pete

 

[DKerley]

Since commissioning my system Dec 15/07 and shutting it down April 1/08, I have burnt about 9 1/2 cord of spruce (@16,000,000 btuh/cord). I am heating a 2000 sq ft house exposed to winds and low temperatures in addition to a poorly insulated shop that uses about half of the fuel of the house. When I first enquired about the greenwood, I asked the sales rep how much wood will it take to replace an annual propane consumption of 8000 litres (2113 US G) burning white spruce and pine. The number that I was given 10 1/2 cords. Now I know that I did not start the unit at the beginning of the season, but to greenwoods credit, I went through a very steep learning curve that had me experimenting with shop temps/dumping heat etc. My unit is presently oversized for my application when the temperatures are above about -5F. I am anticipating that my annual consumption next year starting at the beginning of November through until the beginning of April, after making a few modifications to my system, should hopefully be around 12 cords. In addition to that, I expect to use about 400 gal of propane for the rest of the year's heating and DHW needs.