What to do with an old wood boiler?

[tuolumne]

Hello all,
I am now wearing a new hat. In lieu of the structural engineering I did in CT, I am now working as a maintainence/do-everything person at a non-profit farm/youth program in VT. This has been a great change! The 5000 acres here are comprised of many smaller farms that were added to the trust over the years. The houses are generally used for staff, and we are undergoing a major heating upgrade to wood gasification units throughout the property. That will be a different thread.... In preparation for a gasifier in the first house I have pulled out the old wood boiler and I am wondering what to do with it. It is a 260 kbtu Van Wert that was in service from 1979 until a few years ago. As far as I know it worked (it was still tied in with no leaks) but was a pain to control and gobbled wood. Where should I be looking? My thought was a scrap steel center unless this is the sort of thing that others can use to some purpose. Thanks, Chad.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Considering the high cost of new boilers these days, there's probably more than scrap value in an old boiler, even though scrap prices are pretty high.

I guess it boils down to your conscience. I don't think you want to unload a dirty, inefficient pig on some unsuspecting soul who's trying to save money on their heating bills this winter. But on the other hand, somebody who knows what they're getting into and is willing to buy the boiler, might be the smart move.

 

[pybyr]

Hello all,
I am now wearing a new hat. In lieu of the structural engineering I did in CT, I am now working as a maintainence/do-everything person at a non-profit farm/youth program in VT. This has been a great change! The 5000 acres here are comprised of many smaller farms that were added to the trust over the years. The houses are generally used for staff, and we are undergoing a major heating upgrade to wood gasification units throughout the property. That will be a different thread.... In preparation for a gasifier in the first house I have pulled out the old wood boiler and I am wondering what to do with it. It is a 260 kbtu Van Wert that was in service from 1979 until a few years ago. As far as I know it worked (it was still tied in with no leaks) but was a pain to control and gobbled wood. Where should I be looking? My thought was a scrap steel center unless this is the sort of thing that others can use to some purpose. Thanks, Chad.

Chad- where in VT are you? the organization you're involved in sounds really interesting.

You'll find, if you haven't encountered it yet, that these VT hills are loaded with an immense proportion of population ( speaking in relation to the relatively small density per unit of land mass) of people with DIY ingenuity and frugality, ranging from farmers who've built their own ultralight planes from scratch to brilliant dabblers in some pretty interesting homemade alt-energy technologies.

Most of these folks don't blow their own horns all that loudly or widely about the things they build and experiment with , so you don't even know they're there, maybe just up the road from you, until you meet them by coincidence.

As long as you are up front about what you know about the unit, I bet if you do some local publicity that it's available, you won't have a hard time finding someone who's willing to accept its limitations and use it to start their own transition to wood heat-- someone who might not initially be able to justify the latest and greatest like a gasifier, but it could nonetheless start them in good directions.

 

[tuolumne]

We're in Danby, just south of Rutland. Yes, the hills are crawling with ingenious folks who have made do for generations. I someday hope to wear the "Woodchuck" title with honor!