Up close with a Garn Jr.

[heaterman]

Had an opportunity to get some shots of a Garn Jr the U.P. rep (Bob Barrons) had up at the Logging congress in Escanaba and figured I should share.....
Fire away with questions.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Can you burn one of these on a 1.5 acre suburban lot and not piss off your neighbors? I've always liked the simplicity of the Garns but a building to house it always priced it out for me. I could integrate this into my building and likely wouldn't even need a heat exchanger.

 

[heaterman]

Can you burn one of these on a 1.5 acre suburban lot and not piss off your neighbors? I've always liked the simplicity of the Garns but a building to house it always priced it out for me. I could integrate this into my building and likely wouldn't even need a heat exchanger.

Anything will smoke to some extent or another if wood quality is poor or the unit is overloaded but I have to say if you can't burn clean in a Garn you won't be able to do it with anything else either.
Typically I'll see a trace of smoke on start up then nothing for the duration of the burn with a Garn. Some steam/water vapor yes, but smoke, very little.

 

[SolarAndWood]

That's a pretty compelling package especially if it could serve as the tank for my planned 1000 sq ft drainback system. Is it significantly cheaper than the 1500?

 

[shawntitan]

What's the btu rating on these?

 

[TCaldwell]

what is with the bolted manway cover and the vertical pipe next to it?

 

[heaterman]

That's a pretty compelling package especially if it could serve as the tank for my planned 1000 sq ft drainback system. Is it significantly cheaper than the 1500?

A garn is well suited for solar storage. We ran into one a couple years ago that had been in use since 1984 that was connected to a pair of ancient flat panels. The owner said the water temp in the Garn never got below 100-115* in the summer with no fire. It preheated nearly all the hot water for his small dairy farm and home for nearly 30 years.
Factory list price on the Jr is $10,995 plus the flue kit and chemical package so you are looking at roughly $11,600 complete. I think all areas of the country are the same price + freight.
The 1500 is about $3,000 above that.

 

[heaterman]

what is with the bolted manway cover and the vertical pipe next to it?

On the Jr. they deleted the normal manway opening found on the 1500-2000 and went with a metal plate that bolts down. It can be easily removed for access if ever needed. (You can see the plate laying under the Garn in one of the pictures)
The small coffee can size fixture next to the manway opening is where the atmospheric vent pipe terminates just like the vent/overflow on your 1900 Tom. The overflow drain comes out the front just like the other models.

 

[heaterman]

What's the btu rating on these?

The burn rate is around 200,000 if I recall. As with all batch burn/storage combinations though, the burn rate doesn't really mean much because you are heating from storage rather than a fire that is cycling on/off all the time.
The only reason the BTU rating would be a concern is if you had a load that was larger than what the unit would produce on a continuous fire basis.
The Jr was designed to match up with a typical residential application where the heat loss is under 100,000 btu/hr at worst case conditions. Most "normal" houses are in the 50-60 range in the typical Midwest climate.

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

Heaterman:
So this would fit in a 8'x 12" insulated shed with 8' ceiling height?

what would you recommend for rvalue of insulation?

Assume boiler will get insulated as the other boilers also.

 

[heaterman]

Heaterman:
So this would fit in a 8'x 12" insulated shed with 8' ceiling height?

what would you recommend for rvalue of insulation?

Assume boiler will get insulated as the other boilers also.

I don't see any reason you couldn't put it in something like that. The unit itself is about 7 feet long and about 60" or so top to bottom/side to side.
The insulation kit I had made up for the 1500 and 2000 is heavy 6" fiberglass so R-20 . They work well based on customer feedback. If your shed was insulated and then the Garn itself also wrapped up, you would have very little heat lost to the great outdoors.

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

Did they incorporate the anode rods in the JR?

 

[heaterman]

Did they incorporate the anode rods in the JR?

Yes there is an anode hanging in the tank. You can see a little of it in the thumbnail picture of the tank interior right behind the overflow pipe.

 

[MaineGuy]

First time posting here. I"ve been reading everything I can on the sight for a couple weeks now. I'm looking at upgrading my heating system next spring/summer, I've narrowed it down to a garn jr, or a wood gasifier (haven't settled on a brand yet) and adding storage. I'm finding that it will cost me about the same amount of money for either set up. I was a little scared off from the garn when I read the operating manual online. It sounds like there could be a lot of maintenance from reading the manual? Is there really? or is the manual just over cautious?

I currently have one of those older smoke dragons (heatmor 400 series), which has worked fine for me (especially since it's heating my house and my inlaws so I only had to pay for half of it) We've been burning 20 cord of wood a year to heat both houses, and my house is probably using 3/4's of the heat that actually makes it to the houses. My father in law decided he didn't want to burn wood anymore and I refuse to process what I figure will be 15 cord to heat just my house by myself. Which is a little over 2800 sq feet. The garn would be a pretty easy install for me since I think I can just unhook my owb and hx, and replace it with a garn jr, and possibly a different hx. I've alway thought the ports were too small on my current hx, and I want to move my wood burning operation closer to my house. (like behind my garage instead of 250 foot towards my in laws house).

I realize that it probably varies by installation but what is your best guestimate on wood consumption on a garn jr?

Any information I can get on the Garn Jr. would be greatly appreciated. I'm hoping to go look at one this weekend at a fair I think there's supposed to be a dealer there.

 

[heaterman]

Actual field results based on customer feedback when switching from an OWB to a Garn usually run toward cutting the wood consumption by half. At least that's what has been reported to me on the ones we have done. I wouldn't think you'd be any different when switching from a Heatmor. I used to sell those back in the day when I was oblivious to anything different.

 

[MaineGuy]

If I could cut my wood consumption in half that would be a no brainer for me. I've had my heatmor for I think 7 or 8 years. It's paid for it self a couple times now so I don't feel too bad, especially since I only paid for half the setup and I cut all the wood off my land. I Just want to have to cut and burn less wood. And not have to wade through the snow to put wood in. Gasser's were pretty new to the seen when I got the heatmor.

Can you recommend an hx? What information would you need? I have a 50 plate hx right now with 1" ports. The thing I never liked about it was my system is set up so all my return water goes through the heat exchanger before it re-enters my oil boiler. (which I can control with a valve for when I am burning oil) The main return line I think is about 1 1/2" pipe, so its reduced down to go through a 1" port. I don't know the technicalities behind this, but common sense just tells me it's restricting my flow? My oil boiler is a utica starfire 3, I believe it's roughly 117,000 btuh. What little I've used it in the past 7 or 8 years it seems to heat my house just fine in the winter.

With the hx I have now it didn't seem like I could ever get the my water temps in my oil boiler above 160.

The other item that is steering my towards the garn is the venting options. I believe where I plan on putting it I could just vent it out the wall and not have to put up a vertical chimney? Are there any other gassers that allow this? Plus my oil boiler is just on the other side of my garage backwall so the run would be much shorter than it is now, and above ground and in an area that I plan to enclose, (my new indoor boiler room).


Oh btw thanks for the information, its very helpful. Sorry for all the questions. There's just so many options it's hard to decide on the best one.

 

[Fred61]

I have a brother-in-law with a Heatmor and the thing just keeps running forever. I don't remember now how long ago he installed it but I think it's been there for more than 20 years. He burns so much wood he had to build his own wood processer. When you said you were running a Heatmor I had visions of him loading dripping wet wood in the thing and getting away with it, overlooking the smoke.

A Garn or any other gasser won't burn wet wood so keep that in mind as you progress. If you don't have dry wood on hand right now, forget about the project for this year. Dry is a relative term. To my B-I-L it's "cut in Sept. and burn in Oct". Your wood should be down in the 20% moisture range for a gasser and you can't say "I'll struggle through this year with wet wood and will be prepared with dry wood next year". Gassers won't let you do that.

 

[MaineGuy]

It will be one more winter with the heatmor than hopefully I will be finding a new home for it. I'll just have to lie about how much wood it burns like the dealer did to me when I bought it....lol

 

[willyswagon]

If I would have know this was going to be on the market this year, I would have waited for it.

 

[StihlHead]

Not so amusingly, when I clicked on this thread an ad came up for the Garn Jr. in the header of this forum. And an ad for EKO at the bottom here.

Not that it matters, Garn and EKO, as well as all other indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are banned in Oregon at this time. And with the exception of Greenwood, all indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are banned in WA state as well. So its wasted advertising money on us...

And yes, to make certain people happy, they are technically not banned in either state. With the one exception of GreenWood in WA state, you just cannot buy or install an IWB or OWB in either state at this time. In the case of WA state, they have to be EPA certified and tested to WA state emissions levels, and then apply for WA state approval. In the case of OR, the OR DEQ is waiting for EPA regulations regarding wood boilers before they will be allowed to be sold here again (if ever).

 

[heaterman]

Not so amusingly, when I clicked on this thread an ad came up for the Garn Jr. in the header of this forum. And an ad for EKO at the bottom here.

Not that it matters, Garn and EKO, as well as all other indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are banned in Oregon at this time. And with the exception of Greenwood, all indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are banned in WA state as well. So its wasted advertising money on us...

And yes, to make certain people happy, they are technically not banned in either state. With the one exception of GreenWood in WA state, you just cannot buy or install an IWB or OWB in either state at this time. In the case of WA state, they have to be EPA certified and tested to WA state emissions levels, and then apply for WA state approval. In the case of OR, the OR DEQ is waiting for EPA regulations regarding wood boilers before they will be allowed to be sold here again (if ever).

What about pellet boilers and stoves?

 

[StihlHead]

What about pellet boilers and stoves?

According to the DEQ when I talked to them earlier this month, pellet boilers and stoves are exempt from any limits in OR, and thus are allowed.

In WA state, cat/non-cat pellet boilers and stoves are required to pass the same state particulate maximums as non-cat wood stoves and boilers (cat: 2.5 gr. per hr., non-cat: 4.5 gr. per hr.). As of their latest update, there are only 3 indoor pellet boilers that are certified in WA state, two from Kunzel and one from Harmon. As for pellet stoves in WA state, there is a large list that are approved for sale there (similar to wood stoves).

 

[stee6043]

If only that thing was around 5 years ago.....

Does anybody run a Garn with a typical vertical chimney arrangement? I'm just curious since this Garn Jr may actually open the Garn up to basement installations. The direct vent isn't feasible for us below-grade burners.

Thanks for the pics! I bet the leaves are getting close to changing up in Escanaba?

 

[maple1]

That's a catch-22. There are not many basements (relatively speaking) that you could get this thing into.

But if I had a basement that I could get it into, it would definitely be on my short short list of choices.

 

[stee6043]

That's a catch-22. There are not many basements (relatively speaking) that you could get this thing into.

But if I had a basement that I could get it into, it would definitely be on my short short list of choices.

I have a walkout and this beast would easily fit through my slider....so the flue would be the only catch in my case.