Outdoor Boiler Site Placement

Norm · October 11, 2004, 08:06:54 PM

We talked to heatmor today, I like their unit also. Their warranty seems a little better but the proof is in the pudding so to speak. The CB unit is more expensive and the dealers close to us both are saying the price is the price. My guess is they are selling well this year because of high fuel prices so they are not wanting to dicker. I on the other hand think that their unit's too expensive, propane is not that high to justify the cost for replacing my furnace that's only a couple of years old. What to do..what to do.

Of course I know Gary's really wanting some pics of me lounging in my underwear, hate to dissapoint em. ;D

Bro. Noble · October 11, 2004, 09:01:51 PM

We have a Taylor on the way. Our Heating and AC guy has one himself and I trust him. I don't know anything about them. We have a heat pump with electric backup, but will depend on the boiler when cold weather gets here.

How do the Taylors compare to the others?

Gary_C · October 12, 2004, 12:15:38 AM

I have also been looking for a outdoor wood burner and this is good information.

I know from years of experience with large boilers burning coal, No. 2 thru No. 6 fuel oil, and natural gas that stainless steel is not the answer to corrosion problems. None of the large boilers I was around used stainless, but used a good water treatment programs for corrosion. However those were all closed, pressurized systems. Welding stainless introduces new problems of brittle welds and impurities in the welds that reduce the corrosion resistance regardless of the grade. The best way to weld stainless is by Heliarc with a filler rod of the same grade but there are few companies that have the people or ability to Heliarc weld. Most are just using wire feed with a stainless gas mix.

I looked at a Central Boiler system north of Green Bay, WI last month and was impressed with the fuel oil backup system. You can operate with four different modes; fuel oil backup, timed fuel oil assist when it calls for heat, wood only, and fuel oil start. However when I looked into it further, it takes only No. 1 fuel oil and there is no forced draft fan. Plus it is very expensive.

A friend sells Woodmaster, but he also cuts, splits, and seasons all wood or he has some burning issues that I don't like.

I have heard good things about Taylor, but they are also one of the most expensive. With the big increases in steel prices, they are all going to get more expensive in the future.

Like Norm, I am not taking my clothes off yet. Keep the good information coming.

Gary

CBRSLIDER · October 12, 2004, 01:07:03 AM

Nice to see that I am not the only one laboring over this issue. I have done research into the Taylor, Heatmor, CB, Eliminator, Mahoning, and Empyre. I have eliminated the Taylor, Eliminator, Mahoning, and CB. Two friends of mine have the Taylors and have been having problems with them. Maintenance issues mostly but the one stove, less than a yr old, had the shaker grate break. Real pain. Eliminator and Mahoning are wood hogs and just about a direct vent for the chimeny straight up from the firebox. The CB is a NICE unit but the salesman said that the warranty would be void if I burnt coal in it. Plus the lack of an ash pan or clean out is puzzling. AND the price is horrendous. I am stuck between the Empyre and the Heatmor. But have been having trouble chooseing between the two.

Both units are made of stainless steel. I believe one is 409?(heatmor) and the other is 3 something(Empyre),can't remember off hand the actual numbers. But their literature on both says that one stainless is better than the other. They each claim that their units are better against corrosion stress cracking and conductivity. It is really tough to know who is telling the truth or is being more accurate in their claims.

The Heatmor is a cheaper unit than the Empyre and has some nice features. Like the auger, water cooled door, and firebrick lined box. But what is the story with the openings on both sides of the grate where the unit needs to be filled with sand? I just don't understand that. Then what are the chances of the hoses bursting or melting that go to the water cooled door? Seems to be a risk to me. But the unit seems to be very well made.

The Empyre is a knock off of sorts on the CB. Supposedly the owner of Empyre is a former classmate of the owner of CB and copied his design when he moved his operations to Canada. The ripple top and baffle is nice, the water filled grates, and the modular designed shaker grate is appealing. Plus the 20 year warranty is nice. But the price is higher.

The dilema I face is that the Empyre rep is about 25 miles closer than the Heatmor rep(75 milers away) and when it's saturday night in the dead of winter, which one of them is going to come out for a service call? I have been leaning toward the Empyre mainly since the service is closer and because I can burn coal in it.

Now for the underground line, the Empyre/CB rep swears by the pvc style pipe that is wrapped with the hard insulation then coated with the hard black plastic coating. It is something like $6 a foot.OUCH!!!! But if your going to do it, no sense heating the ground with the wood that took all that hard work to accumulate.

I plan to have my stove installed about 75' from my new home on the southeast side of the residence. Just the best place for me to put mine.

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I hope that my ramblings helped someone.

Ray

EZ · October 12, 2004, 03:20:08 AM

Gee, nobody has even said anything about the Hardy furnace that I got. I kinda feel left out in the out field. ;D
Maybe my posts didnt show up, I take a look.

Yep, their on here. :

EZ
EZ
EZ
EZ

redpowerd · October 12, 2004, 06:57:28 AM

im afraid of the water jacketed door, seems like more to go wrong.
as for the sales lit., i cant beleive any. im pretty much basing my decision on my own research and opinions from you trustworthy ff members.

after this weddin stuff im going to compile a list of all stoves and make a simple checklist of features i like. price is a concern, but i dont want to settle on this large investment due to the fact its cheaper. plus im making wifey finance it ;D

dealer location is somewhat of a concern.

just need time to sit and do some math and make some phone calls.

charmaster is another wood/combo boiler that relies on a larger holding tank

jgoodhart · October 12, 2004, 07:11:33 AM

Ok I'll mension Hardy, I had one and it liked it's wood to. I now have a souped up tubo charged Mahoning heating 2850 square foot house. Took a cuttin tourch to it and welded it back together so it made better use of the wood. Couldn't do that with the Hardy. I have been still working on getting it to burn the wood gases and have alittle bit of luck but I can make it sound like a steam engine running. As for servicing the units on a cold night, I keep spare parts here at the house coil for 120 vac to 24dc, aquastat, pump, damper opener and a blower that all there is to the dang things and in less than a 1/2 hour any part can be changed. The ony part I have had fail so far was the aquastat and it failed in the lets make some steam mode.

beenthere · October 12, 2004, 07:35:06 AM

jgoodhart
What do you mean by 'let's make some steam mode' ?

Doesn't the relief valve blow before you make steam? If not, something bigger might blow, or is the 'boiler plate' heavy enough to build up some steam pressure?

My smaller unit shuts the draft damper at about 180*, and the temp may coast up a bit, but not much. Not sure just now what the relief valve is set at. There are a couple in the system.

My unit has been running since 1978, and never rusted out. Adding fresh water to the system without immediately heating it to 'de-gas' the water will cause rust. Automatic filler valves are the worst culprit. I have a manual valve, so I make sure I don't add fresh water to the system without firing it right away. Have not had to fix a leak in 25 years. My unit heats a two level home of 2100 ft sq even down to -20* (if not too windy). It has a 9 gal water jacket and functions well on 3 fillings of wood a day. Can't find one like it anymore. Have all gone to outside water systems, I am told, because the inside units have to meet steam boiler codes (makes them too expensive).

redpowerd · October 12, 2004, 08:33:00 AM

jgoodhart- how about hooking up a train whistle to the top so you know when its overfiring? :D hey, why not get some sheet metal and make it look like a big tea pot? :D :D

think you could get one to run a steam driven turbine to turn a generator? that would be REALLY neat. you might not want that hot of water running into your house, but making power with wood is something ive allways wonderd about. seeing as theres so much of it. ;D

jgoodhart · October 12, 2004, 08:35:15 AM

Steam mode is when the control that shuts the stove off at operating temp failed and the stove just stays running getting hotter and hotter till it starts pushing out steam. The Mahoning I have has a platic plug that pops up if you build pressure in the boiler and it relieves the pressure so things don't fly apart. It lost about 50 gallons of water till I came home from work and seen it. I got the stove used for next to nothing and it didn't have a over temp. shut down on it and since I have worked on it the burn temp is well over 1000 F in the fire box. Not sure how much over a 1000 it is because my metter only goes to 999F than goes blank. I have looked at specs on Tarm boiler thay burn off wood gas and they run at 1800 to 2000 deg F. There are abunch of BTU to be gained by burning the gas that comes off the wood when it is burned. I havn't seen Tarm boiler mensioned in this post but they are impressive on how they operate, a friend had a vidio on them, but there system as whole stinks in my opinion.

Mark M · October 12, 2004, 09:09:22 AM

The insulated pipe they sell is really convenient but the price is crazy. In both the installations I've done we used 2" Styrofoam glued together to make a box. In the one in Minnesota we also ran some 1.5 inch black plastic pipe up to my moms trailer that was about 300 feet away. For first 100 feet it was between the boiler lines and there was a little heat transfer. Mom always said she really like having a heated toilet! For pipe I use 1" Pex-Al-Pex which has an aluminum core to prevent oxygen permeation. Oxygen is the death of iron boilers and is one of the reason stainless is being used. In pressurized systems it isn't a problem because the oxygen comes out of the water when it is heated. As long as no oxygen can enter the system no corrosion takes place.

As for a water jacket door my Aquatherm had that and there were no problems. After 10 years the hoses were still in good shape and there were no leaks.

One word of wisdom for those who haven't used one of these boilers before: don't turn up the aquastat too much at one time. When I first fired my Aquatherm I had it set to about 140 just to test it out. The stove was full of some old boards that were pretty dry. Everything seemed to be working fine so I decided to set it at 180 and go into the house. I looked out a few minutes later and saw a blue flame shooting about 10 feet out of the stack! The draft blower was trying it's best to get the boiler up to temp! It look just like a jet engine and sounded like one too.

Mark

Buzz-sawyer · October 12, 2004, 09:20:22 AM

Hey Mark
It is apperent you have looked at most all the angles to these systems, so I wonder about anti freeze in the lines to inhibit rust, and prevent catastrophe in even of shut down..............
Why do think it is a good or bad idea.

P.S I have a propane powered boiler suitable for 2000 feet or so I am thinking of converting to wood/propane..so I find this all very interesting and educational ..thanks all

redpowerd · October 12, 2004, 09:36:30 AM

heres a list ive come up with, sitting here for an hour, not chopping corn >:(

Aqua-Therm
AHS, INC.
Central Boiler
Charmaster
Eliminator
Empyre
Free Heat Machine
Hardy
Heatmor
Johnson
Mahoning
Pacific Western
Tarm
Taylor

i think the only one i found not mentioned earlier was pacific western!

if anyone dosent see a stove they know or heard of please let me know so i can add it to my list. thanks so much for the help guys,
i really need to get busy fillin' the silo. ;)

Mark M · October 12, 2004, 09:50:47 AM

HI Buzz

I used automotive antifreeze in my system in MN and it worked well. Usually antifreeze only has a life of about 2 years in automotive cooling systems but this has been in use for about 12 years. The key is the exclusion of oxygen which when present oxidizes the glycol to form several organic acids, all of which lower the pH and cause corrosion. Most boiler manufacturers recommended using propylene glycol, I think mainly due to its toxicity. I used cheap ethylene glycol from K-mart and it worked just fine. Here is a pretty good link to some info on using Glycol.

I didn't re-read this article but there are some down sides to using glycol. It is a little harder to pump and it doesn't transfer heat as well as plain water. Also if you put glycol in a old system is can sometimes clean up the pipe and show you leaks you didn't have. I didn't use it for this reason but if I was did I would mix it at about 30 percent. This will give good freeze protection and you probably won't have to worry about head and radiator size corrections. For most systems that run a water to air or other heat exchanger you probably don't have to worry about these things anyway, I think it becomes more of a factor if you have a dozen cast-iron radiators in a 3 story house (like me).

For open or non-pressurized system you should use a corrosion inhibitor additive. Most automotive antifreeze probably doesn't have enough of the necessary additives. Diesel engine antifreeze does have nitrite that will provide iron corrosion protection. I think a hotwater boiler system is pretty similar to a diesel engine cooling system and should function well if maintained as such. I think that article does a pretty good job of discussing additives. This is another reason to lean towards a pressurized or closed system (as you can tell I am a little biased).

The thing I would like to know is can we use RV propylene glycol that is about $1.50 a gallon at Menards? The special boiler blend is over $5.00 a gallon and I would go broke filling my whole system. Another option that I considered is using a flat-tube brazed-plate water to water heat exchanger and use glycol in the outside circuit and water in the house. These are expensive units that require strainers to keep them clean but it is another option.

You mentioned the propane boiler, I used one of those for a backup and it worked well. If you need some ideas on how to hook it up I'll be glad to share what I know.

Good luck

Mark

PS - I forgot to mention - don't use glycol in systems with galvanized pipe. The zinc coating can react with the glycol to form sludge.

Buzz-sawyer · October 12, 2004, 10:09:02 AM

Mark
(have you S.Peterson?)
I was wondering if RV propylene glycol that is about $1.50 a gallon at Menards would hold up to the various variables heat, electric, so on, also.
What I have been mulling is simple building a steel fire box under the propaneboiler and using the propanne for back up ...if not that simply converting to wood fired......the boiler is way heavy built and I cant see why it wouldnt work??????

Mark M · October 12, 2004, 10:10:57 AM

Here is a couple more:

Aqua-Therm

Free Heat Machine

Anyone heard about straw-bale boilers? A fellow was telling me there is a device that burns big round bales. It is supposed to burn about 5 days on a bale. I've haven't been able to find any info yet.

Mark M · October 12, 2004, 10:36:29 AM

Buzz

Propylene glycol I think is a little better in the thermal breakdown department if I remember correctly. I have seen where it is recommended in cooling systems where high temperatures have caused breakdown of ethylene glycol. I think I will get some and send it into Cat's lab to see what additives are present. My biggest concern is that there might be some incompatible additives but I just can't imagine there are. It has to be compatable with everything in an RV water system. At the low price there probably are hardly any additives present which is good because then you can add just what you need.

As for your boiler idea, that should work as look as you don't cook the propane components by putting the boiler on top of the firebox. ;) Make DanG sure you got a relief valve if you intend to operate in pressure mode!

Murf · October 12, 2004, 11:08:36 AM

There was a story about a guy who built his own large round bale boiler in the last Farm Show Magazine, I seem to remember that it was based on a commercially available model.

I would caution anyone planning a new outdoor boiler to be very careful about placement, BEFORE it is installed check with neighbours, etc., or they could be in for a nasty surprise.

Someone not far from here was ordered to move their boiler after a neighbour complained about the smoke coming from a new boiler. I was told it cost this guy many $$$ to move it to a new location and instal new piping, etc.

ronwood · October 12, 2004, 12:28:40 PM

If anyone is looking to build an outdoor furnance there are plans that you can buy from Mother Earth News. Ken Darby of Darby Industries designed and built a funance call the HAHSA

The HAHSA, which stands for Heating And Heat Storage Apparatus, is both a furnace and a heat storage system; actually it is an air-tight firebox plus two heat exchangers contained in 14 tons of sand. This is located in an 8' x 10' well-insulated, block structure away from the house. The sand provides a storage mass that actually holdsheat, enabling the unit to be fired less often.

I am think about building one next summer. Not sure how well it works.

redpowerd · October 12, 2004, 01:19:02 PM

a buddy of mine installed one of them round bale smudgepots for a farmer in alex bay. i think he said it took three?
anyway it was a while ago, but ill be seeing him this weekend and will ask if i remember.

thanks for those two, mark ;)

ElectricAl · October 12, 2004, 05:33:33 PM

More information about the Heatmor water filled door.

The chances of an actual failure is slim. We did have a hose on the burner that runs all year long get soft. I went to a custom hose supply shop and bought their best and most expensive 3/4" heater hose. I replaced all four hoses on both machines. It's been fine for 6 years now.

We stock a few parts for just in case.
Pump, extra pump cartrage, draft blower, expansion blader.

By the way we also stock $500 in WM spare parts. It costs too much to be broke down.

Corley5 · October 12, 2004, 08:05:23 PM

http://www.globalhydronics.com/ There stove with grates is cool and the warranty is good too.

http://www.cozyheat.net/royall-wood-coal-heating-systems.phtml This guy sells both the Aqua Therm and the Royal not to be confused with the Crown Royal http://www.northlanddistrib.com/royal.html

chet · October 13, 2004, 08:18:37 PM

Here are a couple of shots of my central boiler and it's surrounding wood shed. This setup works perfect for me, I wouldn't change a thing.

Buzz-sawyer · October 13, 2004, 08:42:51 PM

Hey Chet
My woodshed told me that dat der woodshed is what it wants to be like when it grows up. ;)
great set up man

P.S Looks like a ELECTRICIAN put those light runs in to :D :D

wiam · October 13, 2004, 08:48:21 PM

I have had NO PROBLEM burning green wood in my CB with out a forced draft, and the only moving part is the damper. This also brings up another point. I get more heat out of green wood than dry wood.
Someone mentioned the lack of grates in a CB, which is one of the main reasons I went with it. Every other wood burning stove I have used has had grates burn out. This will not happen in my CB.

William