We are burning A LOT of wood with our new Econoburn 100

[shepherdmoon]

This is our first season with the Econoburn. We started burning wood at the end of October when the boiler arrived and by the end of January we had gone through 5 cords. Those 5 cords were delivered in September ( the same time it was cut) so it was not seasoned very well so I am sure that has added to our wood consumption. We had two more cords (nice, dry wood) delivered February 1st and I am burning the last of it as I type. Two more cords are being delivered this weekend.

We have an Econoburn 100 with a Tarm storage tank that holds 650 gallons. we keep the boiler going round the clock so the tank temp stays at 175. The tank is in the basement of our 2,500 sq ft. house and the boiler is piped underground in to the house from a shed that we built just for housing our boiler. We live in town on a tenth of an acre. The shed is 8 feet from the house.

I am trying to project how much wood we should have on hand for next season. I totally thought 5 cords would do us all winter. I read on this site about a gentleman with an Econoburn 200 who heated a 5,500 sq ft house, domestic hot water, and hot tub with 10 cord/ year so since we have already gone through 7 cord i am a bit discouraged. I know there is a learning curve to these gasification boilers but I thought we had a good system down. We load up the boiler in the morning and check on it every 3 to 4 hours, tossing on a log or two if necessary and then load it up again before bed. the only time we had to get up in the middle of the night was when the temps were dipping below zero.

we store our wood stacked under tarps with the hopes of building some kind of wood shed ( if we can come up with a design that will hold 10 cords of wood and fit on our property with leaving a bit of room for the kids to play).

Any ideas of why we are going through so much wood? We keep the thermostat set at 66. Any wood storage ideas? We are smack dab in the middle of town... small lot, high visibility, I would love to do without the blue eye-sore tarps if possible.

Thanks for the help!

 

[taxidermist]

Face cord or full cord??? if you went thru 7 cord this year that means you had 21 facecord in stacks of 4 ft tall x 8ftlong x 16inches wide. Also the goal is not to keep the tank at 175* all the time. You need to build a fire and burn long enough to charge your storage and heat the house for x amount of hours. Example... I burn for 7-10hrs to charge my storage and heat the house. then I let the fire go out and run off storage. I can run off storage till my tank temp is about 120* then I need to start a fire. This will take 7to 10 hr to get back to 170*The wood that was not seasoned was not helping you any. My house is about the same size as yours and this is my first year using my eko and I have burned a little over 10 face cord this year since Dec 1st. I have a 1000 gal of storage and my boiler is a 140 feet from house. I keep the house at 70* and also heat my DHW. I know I will use less next year as I used a lot of my wood splitting it up for kindling to always start fires. I now have a ton of kindling for next year. We also had a killer winter with Jan never above freezing so that did not help the wood pile any.


















Hope this helps.
Rob

 

[Eric Johnson]

You'll always burn more wood the first season while you're getting hang of running the boiler. I know I always do when I get a new rig. Also, it has been a pretty over-the-top winter up here, so you need to take that into account. And finally, I've found that since our heat is "free" (if you don't count my labor), we tend to crank up the old thermostats, which burns more wood. You know you're hooked when 75 starts to feel a little chilly.

 

[Floydian]

How many gallons of oil did you use the previous heating season? Also, what kind of wood are you burning? It could take almost twice the volume of soft wood to equal the same btu's of hard wood. I have no experience with a gasifier yet so I can't offer any real advice but I have to believe you can get more out of your storage as taxidermist was getting at. But I guess that depends on what temperature water you need. OK, enough newbie rambling.

Good luck,
Noah

 

[Piker]

Frugal,

I can't say for sure, but an EBW100 in a 2500 sq ft home WITH 650 gallons of storage might be undersized... unless your home is very very efficient.

It also sounds like you aren't using your storage as storage is intended. Taxidermist pointed this out. If you aren't shutting the boiler down when the storage reaches temp, you are basically just heating 650 gallons of water for fun.

Check your wood quality. Floydian is correct when he states the differences between soft and hardwood. And if your logs were cut during september, you are still probably struggling with moisture content for sure. Make sure the "dry" stuff you got is actually dry. ANyone can sell you some wood and say it's "seasoned." Get yourself a $30 moisture meter.

Make sure you are keeping the firebox clean... ash built up on the refractory has insulation properties and will keep your boiler from gasifying. If you are adding wood every 3 hours without letting the fire burn down to coals where you can rake the ash into the bottom chamber, this might be an issue.

Also, consider insulating your shed if it isn't already. The bottoms of these boilers do not have any insulation... you can lose quite a bit of heat that way.

From the sounds of it, you are definitely using more wood than you should. I am projecting 5 or 5.5 full cord in with an EBW200 and 3700 sq feet of remodeled farmhouse. I expect that number to go down next year since this year about 1/4 of what I am burning is low quality aspen or pine, the rest is ash. Next year will be all hickory. I suspect around 4 cord next year.

cheers

 

[heaterman]

Lot's of variables there and comparison between two different houses is seldom valid. Heat loss via air infiltration can drastically skew the numbers even if both houses appear to be insulated much the same and are the same sq ft. The first thing i would point out is that you are wasting probably 25% of the available btu's in your wood by burning it green. The moisture in the wood has to be evaporated before it will burn and that heat is used there instead of being available for transfer into the water. Start cutting next winters wood right now before the sap gets up in the trees come spring and you won't believe the difference next year. The Econoburn is as good as any and better than most of the gasifiers I have laid eyes on when it comes to build quality. You'll find that properly dried/seasoned wood reaches gasification much faster than "wet" wood and gasification is the key to high efficiency wood burning. Wet wood is a waste of time and energy.

 

[Piker]

Lot's of variables there and comparison between two different houses is seldom valid. Heat loss via air infiltration can drastically skew the numbers even if both houses appear to be insulated much the same and are the same sq ft.

Good point.

This is absolutley true. We do tend to tell stories about wood usage here, and at the end of the day the stories don't mean all that much unless all the variables concerning heat loss are taken into account. It probably wasn't responsible for me to say the boiler might not be big enough... I was just relating what my experience has been thus far, which may or may not apply to this particular situation.

So... the question becomes, did you have a heat loss calc done?

If you have burned 2 full cord of dried hardwood in a month through a gasser, something is definitely up.
A few possibilities:
1) House has a HUGE amount of heat loss
2) Piping system/storage are losing heat
3) Wood too green and/or species is low Btu content
4) Secondary air out of adjustment on boiler

I would start with those. Any one, or possibly all are contributing to your troubles.

cheers

 

[in hot water]

Have you preformed a heat load calc? Without that you don't really know how much you should be burning to cover the heat load. Past heat bill or oil consumption could help determine the load.

A blower door test can be another telling test well worth the time. It will calculate and show where any infiltration leaks are in your home. there are usually more than people realize, even on brand new homes.

Underground piping dry and well insulated I assume? Could be a big loss there.

hr

 

[steam man]

Keep in mind all the suggestions mentioned above but also remember we have had about the coldest winter I can remember in a long time. I've burned way more oil this time than last year.

Mike

 

[heaterman]

Keep in mind all the suggestions mentioned above but also remember we have had about the coldest winter I can remember in a long time. I've burned way more oil this time than last year.

Mike

Very true Many of the local wood burning people who have a track record are saying they are using as much as 25-30% more than "normal" if there is such a thing.

 

[oldmilwaukee]

ash built up on the refractory has insulation properties and will keep your boiler from gasifying.

man, ain't that the truth. I just learned that this evening about 1 hour before reading your post. Couldn't get any heat or gasification flame out of the boiler. Then I scraped out 1/2" of ash-crust from the refractory in the lower chamber. 15 minutes later - bingo - hot and getting hotter.

 

[Piker]

ash built up on the refractory has insulation properties and will keep your boiler from gasifying.

man, ain't that the truth. I just learned that this evening about 1 hour before reading your post. Couldn't get any heat or gasification flame out of the boiler. Then I scraped out 1/2" of ash-crust from the refractory in the lower chamber. 15 minutes later - bingo - hot and getting hotter.

Yep... seen this quit a few times with customers, but mostly in the upper chamber. These boilers do require a little more finesse than some. One guy, and I posted about this a while ago, had about 12" of ash built up in the firebox... and the gasification chamber was packed almost solid. Once we cleaned that out, he was amazed at the difference. Like night and day. He now cleans his boiler out every couple days.

I generally let my boiler burn to coals before I fill it every time just so that I can rake the ash around a little bit and move some through the nozzle and into the bottom chamber. Makes a big difference.

cheers