# No Wood, Still Winter, Now What? Pg.-1



## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Ran out of wood yesterday.(burning oil grrr) Now I have 1875 gal of water and exposed plumbing in an unheated building in February? Yup, but I have planned for this. Now the test. It's crude, temporary and manual, at this point, but I think it's working. Will dress it up after I'm sure it works. It was 19 degrees last night. So far, so good.
     So I put the Garn in a corner of an existing building. Kept the boiler and all the plumbing within an insulated enclosure.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Pg.-2

I insulated the crap out of everything with fiberglass batts-


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## NYEDGE (Feb 28, 2011)

Hopefully the warmer temps will come soon for you.
No wood pallets in the area for free that you can burn?
Also, was the Garn un-insulated previously while burning?
At the very least you should have better heat retention when you start burning again.

Another thought: If you can run your pump several times a day even without the higher temps. in the line, it would
help not to allow the line to freeze.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Pg.-3

When we did the trench for the insulpex and control/power wires and water line we didn't want to undermine the old 40's vintage slab, so I ended up boxing-in a section of exposed line so it could go through the wall instead of the floor. ( Chris Holley thinking ahead) I boxed it with 4 inches of blueboard, then 2x10 PT, then painted aluminum (actually a piece of aluminum gutter I had). So as far as freeze-up protection, this is the weakest point.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Pg.-4

So, the key to the whole thing is that the Garn pump can be turned on from the house so circulation can be provided as freeze protection if needed AND saving back some wood to heat the tank up. I don't know how long the tank will stay warm with no heat load on it, but I'm gonna fine out. I'll keep you posted. It's suppose to go down to zero later this week.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Nyedge- it was insulated all winter, 2 winters actually. I just wanted to show the insulation pics. No free pallets around, but when the weather clears, there are some standing dead oak out back that I can grab.


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## TCaldwell (Feb 28, 2011)

Hi rick, Nobody said being a boiler operator is easy, there is always something to do! Do yo have oil or do you have to buy, bioheat fuel value calculator says if you buy oil at $3.44/gal=$460.00/cord.  The other way to look at it is if you had to pay $250.00/cord=$1.83/gal. buying more wood is cheaper even at 250 cord if you paid more than 1.83 for the oil in your tank, unless you are sitting home for most of this winter without a income and bought oil in the tank, like me.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> Hi rick, Nobody said being a boiler operator is easy, there is always something to do! Do yo have oil or do you have to buy, bioheat fuel value calculator says if you buy oil at $3.44/gal=$460.00/cord.  The other way to look at it is if you had to pay $250.00/cord=$1.83/gal. buying more wood is cheaper even at 250 cord if you paid more than 1.83 for the oil in your tank, unless you are sitting home for most of this winter without a income and bought oil in the tank, like me.



Hi Tom, You're right on the calc. I did some math on that too. They're getting 270 for wood around here right now and oil is 3+, diesel is 3.85
   I have 275 gallons of $2.79 oil bought last Fall. Plus, I'm a wood burning/cutting fool if my back holds together I can get out some standing dead oak. Really want to focus on next year and the year after while it's still good going in the woods though. Hopefully I can get a few cords ahead to sell some day. You're right. Always enough to do


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## Hydronics (Feb 28, 2011)

Rick,

If you can't get dry cordwood nearby have you priced biobricks in your area?


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

Hydronics said:
			
		

> Rick,
> 
> If you can't get dry cordwood nearby have you priced biobricks in your area?



Hydo- I'm not familiar with biobricks. How do they compare pricewise with wood? Where do you get them?


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## Hydronics (Feb 28, 2011)

Rick,

Tractor Supply here sells them for $250/ton, there is a place here that sells them for $200/ton in the summer. A ton is the equivalent of a cord but less volume, they're very dense.


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## muleman51 (Feb 28, 2011)

Rick if that's your skidder, you are one lucky man. I'd love to have a toy like that, all my wood is on downhill slopes and with all the snow we have its darn near impossible to get any now. I'm like you out of wood pretty much hand to mouth right now, spring could come soon. My tractors drags bottom now and even with chains its tough going, actually had both tractors stuck last weekend at least not both at the same time. My wife doesn't think I need toys like a dozer or skidder, so I just use longer chains and cables. I liked the old line shaft in the rafters above your boiler,we used to live on a farm that had one of those.


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## Rick Stanley (Feb 28, 2011)

muleman51 said:
			
		

> Rick if that's your skidder, you are one lucky man. I'd love to have a toy like that, all my wood is on downhill slopes and with all the snow we have its darn near impossible to get any now. I'm like you out of wood pretty much hand to mouth right now, spring could come soon. My tractors drags bottom now and even with chains its tough going, actually had both tractors stuck last weekend at least not both at the same time. My wife doesn't think I need toys like a dozer or skidder, so I just use longer chains and cables. I liked the old line shaft in the rafters above your boiler,we used to live on a farm that had one of those.



Yup, it's mine. Bought it a couple years ago. Kind of an odd situation. I want it to stay cold so my skid trails will hold up (lotta soft ground) so I can crank out a couple years worth of wood in a hurry (well, fast for a broken down 52 yr old), but the colder it stays the more heating fuel I'll burn. Am hoping this is the year I'll get ahead of the wood curve. Suppose to stay cold rest of the week after this storm goes through.


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## muleman51 (Feb 28, 2011)

At 52 I could cut wood all day, at almost 60 2-3 hours is a great plenty. Makes me wonder how long I want to keep cutting wood. I was hoping the last boiler I bought was going to last but its about shot now unless I rebuild it and I'm not that excited about doing that. The thought of buying another one and having to feed it for another ten years or hopefully longer is getting less exciting every year.


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## Whitepine2 (Mar 1, 2011)

Cheer up Fred in a few hours you will be out of Feb. you will never see Feb. 20011 again ever just something to think about to cheer you up. I have been cutting myself to get enough for next year but with rain it's hard to get away from mud. Better weather this week can give it he-- maybe,good luck.


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## EricV (Mar 1, 2011)

Are your lines isolated with valves?  Maybe you could just drain the lines, capture the water and dump it back in when you get warmer or more wood.  Maybe a small fire once in a while just to keep the boiler above freezing but you wouldn't have to worry about the lines.

I just bought 4 cord (logs) (12 face) for $400.  I hope to get a few more loads like that this summer.  Since I got the Geyser heat pump water heater from Tom in Maine I no longer burn in the summer so 4 cord will do me well for heat and hot water for the heating months.


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## RowCropRenegade (Mar 1, 2011)

Don't feel bad Rick!  You are not alone.  I ran out of wood Saturday.  Roughly 5.5 cords worth of ash, maple, black walnut and cherry.  Hate to see it gone!  Was too busy installing Garn last winter to get further ahead.  Good news is that I have about 10 cords c/s/s for 2011-2012 winter.

What I've been doing is burning pallets.  15 years or more ago, Dad got paid to haul pallets from a local company and dump them in his woods. 500 bucks a load!  The pile is monstrous.  All oak pallets and the Garn loves them, cause they are long.  Have to be careful with puffing, though.  They are very dry.  Double bang for the buck though.  Dad paid to haul them.  I feed them into Garn for btus.  Win Win!

Do you worry about the paper backs on the insulation so close to the flue?  I haven't seen any reason to worry about it but was wondering if you were going to use wall covering at some point?

Let me know how you get along with bio bricks if you decide to use them.  Attached pic rear of my G2000.


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 2, 2011)

Hi Rowcrop,

I haven't been too worried about that craft faced insulation touching the flue pipe. It's been like that since day 1. I guess it's ok. The pipe hardly gets warm to the touch. I had planned on covering that whole inside of the enclosure (I call it the control room  ) with OSB. Just hadn't got to it, but when I started the Garn up last Fall, of course, I had condensation running a stream down the back of the thing so was glad I could get at the insulation to take it out so it wouldn't get wet. Now that I say that, it occurs to me that if condensation can get out through there where the fluepipe screws on, why couldn't fire come out too if there were some kind of malfunction. Maybe a question for Heaterman. I said HEATERMAN!! lol. Maybe he's listening............

Wow, good for you on the getting wood ahead for next year. That's awesome!! AND that pallet deal is great. For you and your Dad. I have, I'm guessing, 8 full cords pulled out of the woods and about half of it cut to length, non split yet. I'm just gonna keep cutting trees and draggin em out till I start getting into the mud. I'm hoping to have enough for 2 years burning and some to sell.

I spotted some more standing dead oaks today out back so I think I'll snag a few of them later this week and fire the Garn back up. So I probably won't do the bio-brick thing. I'm too cheap. I don't know for sure if they are even available locally.

Great looking install!! Is that rigid insulation??


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## RowCropRenegade (Mar 2, 2011)

I know what you mean about being too cheap for bio bricks!  lol, installing a Garn will put you in the poor house for a couple years haha!  (Still would do it all over again)

I really like the rig you are using to gather logs with.  I bet you can handle some behemoth trees with it.  Dad and I went together to purchase a rig ourselves for variety of uses including firewood!  Picture below.

I suppose if the caulked joints on the flue wore out or the flue became disconnected would be the only cause of concern.  Highly unlikely but ya know Murphy's law.   

Hope you get her back online!  Winter is giving us a break here at the moment.  Hit 45 degrees.  20s at nite.  I'll take it!

That insulation is the "Heaterman Garn Sweater" insulation kit.  I like it very much, saved a lot of hassle in the installation process.


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## heaterman (Mar 2, 2011)

Last winter a guy who has the sweater on his 2000 took his family on vacation, leaving on a Thursday and coming back the week following on sunday. So figure 9 days. He asked me what to do and i told him to run it up to 190 or there abouts and shut off the sirc going to the house. The Garn sits in an insulated but unheated room and it was still around 100* when they got back. IIRC it averaged about 5,000 btu per hour heat loss.  

One of my boys just ran out today and had to go buy some dead oak. Around here that is not a big deal as he got 2-1/2 face cords (22" length) for $100. Delivered. Hardly worth the time and expense of doing it yourself for that money.
His old Hardy works great but eats wood like it's going out of style so he's stashing cash for a  Garn someday.


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## bpirger (Mar 2, 2011)

Rick:

I had the creosote running out from around the ring on the exhaust flue on my chimney as well during the first burn.  I also noticed on subsequent burns that I had some "smoke" coming out from beneath the welded on ring...right against the back wall of the garn and this ring.  Now, I had no silicone at all at that point.  So I put on the high temp silicone, then some aluminum tape over that, and then another layer of silicone...and then more tape.  I boxed around the flue giving myself about 3" of clearance...and I take a peak in there once a month or so.  I haven't seen any signs whatsoever of that "blow through".  

Garn told me that is what the silicone is for!  LOL  On the joints of the flue, and the flue to the ring collar....sure.  But I didn't expect to see that from the ring to the garn back plate surface......

I bought my logging winch for the 3PT....hope to get it on this weekend...so I hope to be skidding soon myself.  With smaller loads though than you can pull!


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 3, 2011)

bpirger said:
			
		

> Rick:
> 
> I had the creosote running out from around the ring on the exhaust flue on my chimney as well during the first burn.  I also noticed on subsequent burns that I had some "smoke" coming out from beneath the welded on ring...right against the back wall of the garn and this ring.  Now, I had no silicone at all at that point.  So I put on the high temp silicone, then some aluminum tape over that, and then another layer of silicone...and then more tape.  I boxed around the flue giving myself about 3" of clearance...and I take a peak in there once a month or so.  I haven't seen any signs whatsoever of that "blow through".
> 
> ...



I've never had creosote or smoke from around the ring, or anywhere else. What I have is pure clear water (condensate) when first starting up the Garn from cold (less than 70 degree) water. I think it's normal dew point science crap, but it's curious how it comes out, though. Maybe as the tank heats and expands, it just seals itself.

You'll love that new winch. Probably gonna have 60+ ft of maybe 3/8" cable. I'm dragging a 3/4" cable with 7 slides through crotch deep snow,, boo hoo


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 3, 2011)

Rick Stanley said:
			
		

> Pg.-4
> 
> So, the key to the whole thing is that the Garn pump can be turned on from the house so circulation can be provided as freeze protection if needed AND saving back some wood to heat the tank up. I don't know how long the tank will stay warm with no heat load on it, but I'm gonna fine out. I'll keep you posted. It's suppose to go down to zero later this week.



So, over five days of just sitting with no load on it, the tank temp dropped from 135-105. With predicted near zero temps last night, I built a fire.(it was +3 this morning) I was surprised to see that just ONE LOADING raised it from 105 to 140. #1- There was no load on it. #2- during normal operation I never let it get that cold. #3- When starting the Garn for the season, I never noted the rate of increase through that range. I just kept throwing wood in until it hit 190 or so. BUT, I'm willing to bet money that one load of wood won't raise the temp as much, starting from 140. We'll see tomorrow, I'll build another fire tonight. Stay tuned...........

ps- didn't Jim's report note poorer heat exchange above 140?


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## Jim K in PA (Mar 3, 2011)

Rick - I regularly get a 35-40 degree rise on a single load of wood in my 2000 with no heat load.  This AM I went from 168-192 on a single load of wood with the morning house load on it - in ~90 minutes.

You are correct that as the water temp rises, delta T is decreasing and efficiency starts to go down.  Not a lot, but some.  140-180 will take a bit more input than 105-140.


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 3, 2011)

Jim K in PA said:
			
		

> Rick - I regularly get a 35-40 degree rise on a single load of wood in my 2000 with no heat load.  This AM I went from 168-192 on a single load of wood with the morning house load on it - in ~90 minutes.
> 
> You are correct that as the water temp rises, delta T is decreasing and efficiency starts to go down.  Not a lot, but some.  140-180 will take a bit more input than 105-140.



Jim, actually I was referring to the other Jim's comparing of garn and wg....

Anyway, what kind of wood are you getting that much rise with? Last nights load was, now that I think of it, was almost all very nice red oak.  But during most of these past 3 months, I've burned some pretty crappy stuff. Lot of pitch pine and some red maple dead falls, some kinda punky with good red maple and nice red or white oak mixed in.
    But, better days are coming. Made 3 trips with the old skid-dog yesterday. 12 trees mostly oak. Restin today. Snow is deeeep!!
Anyway, whadiyaburnin?


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## sparke (Mar 3, 2011)

Rick, thought this might interest you...

http://maine.craigslist.org/zip/2240618543.html


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## Jim K in PA (Mar 3, 2011)

Rick Stanley said:
			
		

> Jim, actually I was referring to the other Jim's comparing of garn and wg....



Understood.  The change in efficiency (and therefore change in temp rise over time/burn) will happen with any heating appliance, GARN or WG, wood fired or oil, etc. as the water temp rises.



> Anyway, what kind of wood are you getting that much rise with? Last nights load was, now that I think of it, was almost all very nice red oak.  But during most of these past 3 months, I've burned some pretty crappy stuff. Lot of pitch pine and some red maple dead falls, some kinda punky with good red maple and nice red or white oak mixed in.
> But, better days are coming. Made 3 trips with the old skid-dog yesterday. 12 trees mostly oak. Restin today. Snow is deeeep!!
> Anyway, whadiyaburnin?



Probably burning 90% red oak at this point, with some black walnut tops here and there.  It actually is not as dry as what I started the season with, but it is still in the low 20s MC. 

I am just about to the end of my hardwood for this season.  I stack my wood shed so that I burn the EWP & Hemlock at the start and end of the season, with the middle 60% of the stack being hardwood.  Next week will probably be my last week of hardwood, then it's back to pine.  I actually love burning the pine.  Virtually no ash to deal with at all.  

All in all I did not burn as much this season as I was expecting to, considering how cold it has been this year.  I have probably gone through 5+ cord so far, including the pine from Sep->mid Dec.  Should be around 8 for the season.  If I ever get my butt in gear and get the storm windows built and installed on the house, and actually finish insulating it, I can probably cut another cord or two from the season. :red:


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## Kemer (Mar 3, 2011)

Jim How much wood do you put in each load.I'm starting to put more wood in each load and am seeing much better performance with just 2-3 more splits per load.


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## pybyr (Mar 4, 2011)

Regarding the biobricks mentioned above, unless they work far better in a Garn than the two types of faux-wood I've tried (ecobricks, and some round extruded Canadian product whose name I forget, but which seemed impressively dense and substantial) in my Econoburn, I'd skip them.  

The faux-wood stuff does not seem to create or sustain a good coal bed, at least in my experience, and perhaps because of that, it does not seem to net nearly as much heat output (in my downdraft unit) per unit of weight (going by nonscientific but fairly experienced armload savvy) as even semi-seasoned medium-grade (birch, cherry) hardwood.

YMMV in other appliances, but that's my experience to date, and I was so underwhelmed that there's little incentive to experiment further.  Mini-pucks like someone on here was trying might work better, in that you could more readily achieve and sustain a bed of hot embers.


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## TCaldwell (Mar 4, 2011)

I agree with trevor, bio bricks have a totally different burn profile than conventional wood. But in a pinch they mix well with less than optimal wood, kinda like beauty is only a light switch away!


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## bpirger (Mar 4, 2011)

You know Harry, I think that I have found that if I just put in say 3 or 4 splits trying to get up towards the 190 (say I'm at 170), I seem to get much smaller increase then I'd think.  I think typically we put in about 6-8 splits.  I do try to place a small piece "vertically" against the pile to deflect the air upwards from the lower intake.  Thsi does seem to make a difference.

If I put in more, I know it seems to smoke more.  If I put in too little, I don't seem to get half the rise.  I assume this is becuase of too much gas fuel and don't get complete combustion (too much wood) or too little gas fuel and perhaps it blows out more than complete burn?  Though I wouldn't think that would happen....

But it does seem like there is an optimum amount.

Garn says not to go over half high.  My wood is about 23" long, and push towards the refractory with a few inches from the back.  But the 6-8 pieces seems to be the sweet spot.  Pieces aren't very big, a 10" log would be quarted.  Next year I think I will try and leave splits a little bigger.  My splitter is only 24", so they won't get much longer, but hopefully be a bit more massive.


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## Kemer (Mar 4, 2011)

I think my sweet spot amount is 9 splits although I don't think I went to 10 yet.I watch my digital flue gauge and some times it goes up fast and some times not.If I pack too tight it goes slow but stays hot longer.The bottom line is if I get it close to 500 I get a big rise.most of the winter I only put 7 slits in If I did 9 I would of used alot less wood.By the way did you install your new controller?


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 4, 2011)

bpirger, kemer- What species? How dry?


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## Kemer (Mar 4, 2011)

mostly standing dead .Lots of oak ,black cherry,other hardwoods but I'm not good at identifying them yet


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## Jim K in PA (Mar 7, 2011)

Rick - I apparently fill mine much higher than most.  Probably more than the manual says, but I have excellent burn performance.  I have not counted the splits, and honestly my splits range from small half branches (2-3" diameter) to heavy splits (4-6" diameter) to ultra-dense butt-end pieces (also 4-6" diameter), so I doubt that measure is a good way to compare.  I usually fill the box up to about 8" or so from the top, but stack it carefully so there is plenty of side space too.  I want to make sure there is no interference in air flow from the upper nozzle to the rear of the fire box.  I suppose if I stacked it up against the sides, it would wind up being about half full +/-.  My splits are anywhere from 8" long to 24" long (longest I can get through my hydraulic splitter).

It was pretty warm the last few days, with 1 burn every 24-36 hours at most.  Got cold again last night though with sleet and snow.   :-S


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## bpirger (Mar 7, 2011)

Did you know that the ESC key removes a typed messgae?  ARGH.  I do now.

I've been burning mostly maple and red oak....pretty dry...sitting for over a year under cover and split.  No hissing or water seen...no meter either.  

I agree that "splits" isn't a good metric...but firebox volume also suffers from amount of ashes  in the bed.  I have a good 6" at the moment...time for a shovel out.

My key observation is that placing the short piece in front of the bottom air port really helps clean up the smoke.  Too much wood, a little smokey.  Too little, I don't seem to get the rise I'd expect for the amount of wood.  Perhaps this is becuase I'm trying to top off towards the 190...and the transfer efficiency is just lower.  Harry, I think looking at the flue temp is a good metric to use.  

Do you notice the flue temp being hotter with less temp rise on a second load of wood, becuase of the lower transfer efficiency?  Seems like the temp should be measurably hotter longer as the water temp rises.  But really a change in water temp of 50 degrees or so should be fairly small compared to a flue gas temp of 2000 degrees coming out of the refractory.  (2000-130)/(2000-180) ....just a few percent different.  So I really wonder if the refractory temp gets up to 2000 when the amount of wood changes.  That would be an interesting measurement...and I'd bet that with a smaller load of wood you don't reach that high temp.  Makes sense.  And hence there must be a sweet spot...


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## Rick Stanley (Mar 8, 2011)

sparke said:
			
		

> Rick, thought this might interest you...
> 
> http://maine.craigslist.org/zip/2240618543.html



Oops, missed this post and now, apparently, have missed the listing. It's gone. What did I miss?


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## 91220da (Mar 8, 2011)

TCaldwell said:
			
		

> Hi rick, Nobody said being a boiler operator is easy, there is always something to do! Do yo have oil or do you have to buy, bioheat fuel value calculator says if you buy oil at $3.44/gal=$460.00/cord.  The other way to look at it is if you had to pay $250.00/cord=$1.83/gal. buying more wood is cheaper even at 250 cord if you paid more than 1.83 for the oil in your tank, unless you are sitting home for most of this winter without a income and bought oil in the tank, like me.



Tcaldwell would you have a link to the biofuel heat calculator you mention in this post?  
Thanks,
Rich


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## Rick Stanley (Apr 2, 2011)

I am back burning again. Was down almost exactly a month. Been burning for 4-5 days. Managed to get some nice standing dead red oak cut and split.
    I seem to be getting tremendous heat transfer. Even better than I got at the beginning of the season. So good that I had forgotten how good a Garn is at putting wood heat into water storage. Three things may be causing this.

     1st- the wood is all red oak and very dry, but not like kiln-dried. A few sticks that still had some bark are a little damp, certainly not green but wet and some of the bigger ones are drier on the outside than the inside. It burns great no smoke and very little ash remains. Anyway may be the wood but I doubt it. 

    2nd- could be the way I load it up. Jim, I took note of your description of how you load your Garn and tried to mimic that. The diagram shows how I used to do it and how I have done it lately. Like yours?? Anybody else wanna comment on how to load a garn properly??

    3rd- I cleaned the flue-tubes while it was shut down. It was a mess. A finely packed black soot coated every surface of every tube. I mean it was PACKED, STUCK, PLASTERED really to the tubes. No creosote like a dirty chimney, just fine soot. Obviously enough to insulate the walls of the tubes. Also have a lot lower stack temps which indicates better transfer. So I want to warn guys about that because I'm not sure what exactly caused this and I'm not entirely sure that I got it clean enough LAST year when I cleaned it because I really had to work to get it clean. Last year I just went in and out with the brush followed by in and out with the vac one pass. I have the right size brushes from garn and a nice fiberglass rod and I had to really scrub back and forth over again to really get it CLEAN. And the reaction chamber was coated nearly quarter inch thick with gray ash material that was difficult to remove because the chamber material is the same color and kind of a soft easily crumbled material. This gray stuff was curled up like corn flakes on the surface. So, if anyone has comments on cleaning a garn properly that would be good also.


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## shoeboxlen (Apr 2, 2011)

maybe a dumb idea but i would have installed heat tape around the above ground portion and run the power wire in the wall where i could plug it in in case of this type of thing.


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## TCaldwell (Apr 3, 2011)

RICH, Bioheat usa, in new hampshire give em a call


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## Jim K in PA (Apr 7, 2011)

Rick - your diagrams are good, but the SRC tube is lower on the cross section then you depict it.  I typically do not stack it tight against the walls, but do stack the splits to about the height you show in "B".  Think pyramid-shaped.

I think your increase in efficiency is likely due to BOTH the (presumably) lower moisture content of the wood, and the cleaned HX tubes.  I also suspect that the wood you were burning was much higher in MC than you may have known or realized.  Do you have a moisture meter?  If not, pony-up the $30 and get one.  It will really give you a better understanding of what "feels" dry and what IS dry.


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## Sawyer (Apr 11, 2011)

Rick, I loaded mine full every load I could. My typical load was 150#-170# of 10-15%MC hard maple and yellow birch. I was getting about 6,300BTU/pound of wood. I weighed my wood till I left for vacation March 10th. These results were quite typical and gave me the opportunity to "top off" in the -teen temperatures without boiling.


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