wood inside boiler

[ringwood]

Just joined the forum site, I burned wood in a Energy Mate for 17Yrs up till 1996, had an average use of 16-18 face cord per yr. House is about 2000 sq ft. Hot water heat. Installed a Weil-McClaine propane boiler in 96'. This year after feeding the gas pig, for the last 11yrs I am back to heating with a new Royal 6150 wood boiler. Hoping for less wood use and an warmer house. I have use the new boiler a couple of days in early Oct cool spell, seems to hold the heat real well. November will tell for sure when it finally cools down to wood burning temps.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Hi coop and welcome to Hearth.com and the Boiler Room. I ran an old (circa 1979) 6150 for three years. Replaced it this year with an EKO. Did you buy your Royall from Cozy Heat? I've been to Royall's factory in Elroy, WI. Really well made boilers; built to last (obviously). I couldn't get mine to burn (reliably) clean, but it puts out a lot of heat. It burns a lot of wood, too, but I found that as I learned how to operate it, my consumption went down. But don't be shy about building up the wood pile. Love the blower.

Anyway, stay in touch and let us know how it's working out.

Here's a couple of pics of mine. I basically built the boiler room around it.

 

[ringwood]

Good to hear from a fellow boiler user. Here in Mid-Michigan wood is readly available and easy to buy from guys who really like to cut. I hope to use about 15 face at the most. A face cord here can easily be had from $40 to $60. I do cut some though. Coop

 

[Nofossil]

When you talk about 'face cord', I always thought that you had to know the length in order to be able to compare apples to apples. Is there an assumed length? I cut my wood to 21", so I expect a face cord for me is different than it is or you.

I burned 3.2 cords for 2005-2006, and just over 4 cords for 2006-2007. That covers heating a 3500 sq ft house, hot tub, and hot water for roughly mid-November through end of March. We're in the Champlain Valley in Vermont - probably the warmest area in a cold state.

 

[Eric Johnson]

The first season with my Royall, my wood wasn't very dry and I had some inefficiencies in my system, and I burned about 20 full cords. That dropped to 16 the following winter, followed by 13 full cords last winter. That's about as good as I could get it. Bear in mind that I'm compensating for a so-so insulated old farmhouse with three additions for a total of about 3,000 square feet. Double-hung windows with aluminum storms. I didn't use the greenhouse any of those years because the boiler couldn't keep up. And the boiler was out in the barn, so I got no value out of the radiant heat off the pressure vessel or chimney, which I know from experience with another boiler to be significant. And my wife likes to keep the house between 75 and 80. So I suspect you'll burn quite a bit less wood than me with the same boiler, but that's my story. I also got no creosote at all, which tells you that much of my heat was going up the stack.

 

[ringwood]

A face cord here in Mi is considered to be 8ft. long , 4ft high and average length 16-18 inches. The price varies as to where you are buying it in the state. Up north could be $35 , but down by Detroit it could run as high as $75 per face from what I am told. If you buy a whole semi load you get about 22 face cord when it is all cut up. I have bought it that way a couple of times. The wood was mostly red and white oak on one load and all beech on another. The beech was the best burning I had ever used.