Thermal storage 1000 gallon one tank or two

[Bnolin]

I was wondering if one is better than the other one big tank or two 500 gallon. I am aslo looking at a Attack 45 or a EKO 40 if any has any feed back on either.
I will be heating 3000sqft Log home with radiant half will be in concrete.

 

[cityboy172]

I would do 2 500's stacked. 1,000 gallon tanks take up a lot of floor space. My 1,000 gallon tanks are toughly 16' long by 44" diameter if i remember right. 500's are 10' x 37"

 

[ewdudley]

Two tanks will require more insulation because there's more surface area for the same volume, but what matters most is what works best for you in your situation. Sometimes two 500s one on top of the other is nice, sometimes two 500s vertically side-by-side. Or you may prefer a 1000 on the floor horizontally with storage above, or a 1000 up on a rack with storage below. If you're designing from scratch a 1000 vertical would be awesome. (There's no earthquakes in VT, right?)

(
Disregard the following if you're talking about the DPX 45 as opposed to the DP 45.
The DPX is a fire-tube boiler and appears to be directly comparable to a EKO.
)

I have a DP 45 and am very happy with it (in the end). But the DP 45 has no fire tubes, unlike the others. So if you just let it run flat out the flue temperature gets fairly hot, which means less efficiency. I made a nice tight air inlet valve to replace the flapper assembly that came with the boiler, and with it I can keep flue temperature steady below 325 degF. But this means now I have a nice efficient 25 kW boiler, not a 45 kW boiler.

The construction, welding, handles, hinges, doors, seals, and so forth seem well-conceived, robust, and durable on the DP 45. With no fire tubes in the back, the primary heat exchange surfaces are the lower chamber walls, which are easy to keep clean.

Also the exterior insulation on the DP 45 was not very good. The boiler room used to get quite warm before I added a foil-face mineral wool jacket.

If they had been available at the time I might have gotten a Varmbaronen for less than half again the money and would have saved some work.

 

[Coal Reaper]

one big tank if you can handle it and fit it where you want. not only less insulation, but less welds for potential leaks and less plumbing/fittings and you dont have to worry about balancing heat in two tanks or managing flow through both.

 

[woodsmaster]

Coal reaper posted all things I was going to point out.

 

[Tennman]

Ours is snug but if you have 10' vert this is a pretty small footprint for 1000 gal.

 

[graham7226]

I don't know about where you are but up here it would be cheaper to purchase one large used propane tank as apposed to two smaller ones. The scrap yard wanted $450 CAD for a 500 Gallon or $650 for a 1000.

 

[heaterman]

If you can do a single in your space it will definitely be less piping. Mounting either option vertically will give you the best stratification.

 

[Bnolin]

Thanks for all the input I have the room for a 1000 gallon horizontal tank. I think I"ll go that root.

 

[Bnolin]

Ours is snug but if you have 10' vert this is a pretty small footprint for 1000 gal.

View attachment 155644

Hi Tennman That looks like a nice setup you have I was wondering how you like your biomass 60

 

[Bnolin]

Coal reaper posted all things I was going to point out.

Hi Woodsmaster I was how many sqft you heat with your biomass 60 and how you like you boiler

 

[Tennman]

B, This is the only boiler I've ever owned or operated. I believe there are boilers with better design and customer support in the $8-12K range. But, if I was buying a 45 or 60 Class $6K boiler today I'd be looking at the Attack or BioMass again. The Attack line now offers lambda in some of their boilers. Essentially all the problems I had during my early years with the BioMass were either install/operator errors or poorly seasoned wood. Many are averse to the complexity of lambda controls, but I'd love to have auto mixture tuning and controlled shut down to leave a coal bed. Essentially everything I've had to replace were standard wear items; door seals and ceramics. I've probably spend ~$300 in 6 years on those expendable components with the original computer and fans all doing fine. Since our propane heating bills were huge we had payback on our non-storage system in less than 3 years. I did not fully understand the luxury of storage and finally got storage on-line in our 6th season. BIG MISTAKE not installing sooner. Had I appreciated the benefits we would have had it for the 2nd season. Do not repeat my mistake, go see one or two folks operating a boiler like you intend to install. Where we live I might have well been in the middle of the Sahara installing a gasification boiler. Without Hearth I might have thrown in the towel. The list is too long of the folks here who graciously provided "customer support". If you purchase one of the less expensive boilers DO NOT presume the distributor will properly size the components to fully utilize the energy potential of your boiler. 1" pex and a Taco 007 seem to be the standard recommendation independent of application. Read the BioMass sticky and you'll meet many successful users and Hearth as your customer tech support.

 

[woodsmaster]

Hi Woodsmaster I was how many sqft you heat with your biomass 60 and how you like you boiler

I heat a 1600 sq' house, it's an old farm that has had a lot of updates, but still not tight. I also heat my 34' x 40' x 15'tall shop. R-19 walls r-40 ceiling with two overhead doors. I heat all my domestic hot water, and the 12x14 boiler shed is always nice and toasty too. I really like the boiler , but I've never had any other boiler to compare it too. I know there are better ones out there, but they also cost more money. Overall I'm happy and would buy it again. I burn around 7 cord a year and that includes domestic hot water in the summer,

 

[woodsmaster]

Boiler porn, pipe insulation isn't to pretty, but it was free and it works for now.

 

[Tennman]

BTW Woodmaster, I was surprised how inexpensive the commercial pipe insulation was from a local industrial insulation supplier. I'm fortunate to be near some suppliers supporting local large chemical industries. This stuff has a reflective surface on the inside of the outer wrap to capture radiant. I can provide a product number if you're interested.

 

[woodsmaster]

BTW Woodmaster, I was surprised how inexpensive the commercial pipe insulation was from a local industrial insulation supplier. I'm fortunate to be near some suppliers supporting local large chemical industries. This stuff has a reflective surface on the inside of the outer wrap to capture radiant. I can provide a product number if you're interested.

I'm curious what kind of deal I could get on it ?