Gasification Wood Boiler Prices- Are they worth it?

[Piker]

It seems like a good portion of the folks I talk to think that energy markets are going to be volatile from here on out, and I have been seeing quite a bit of interest in the gassers as of late, even with low oil prices. Add to that all the extra money rolling off the presses, and self sufficiency is gaining quite a bit of traction these days.

I, like you medman, am putting in some storage right now for next year, and to heat the DHW over the summer. I figure the storage is going to cost about $1100 (doing the work myself obviously) for all the piping, 2 propane tanks, and the 86 gallon expansion tank. The DHW hookup will probably run $500 or $600, as it will be zoned and hooked to a thermostat in the tank itself, plus I will circulate the DHW for heat exchange instead of thermosyphon. I think this setup will work best when using the thermal storage, though it is a bit more expensive.

Now if we can just keep the electric on, we're all set to go.

cheers

 

[sweetheat]

my payback is the warm fuzzy feeling I get every time I think how clean a burn I'm getting. living downeast I breath everyone elses fumes to the westard of me. Highest ozone levels around. My cost for everything was about $20,000. never burned any oil so can't imagine how the rest of you folks are making it. you know it's (oil) going up. seems like self sufficiency is the way to go even if you have to borrow the money. sweetheat

 

[Chris Hoskin]

penfrydd, you are correct, the Fröling must be used with storage.

Chris

 

[RowCropRenegade]

I know I could save alot of fuel oil by better insulating the house. No insallation in attic or floor. Have Anderson windows, so no problem there. But to properly redo this house the way I want would easily cost 50,000. Have to do it all at once to make it work. Don't have that kind of time and resources yet. But I would still have to be dependent on oil. I don't have to drive my truck around, but I DO have to stay warm. I'm in a unique situation too. I'll be using my heating unit for business purposes too.

My eventual plan is gut the house, install insulation in floors and install infloor head. As good as baseboard heat is, they are unttractive and limit what woodwork I can do.

Peak Oil Theory is REAL. Prepare now no matter what the cost. At some point we will have inflation, pay back debt with cheaper dollars.

 

[pybyr]

I know I could save alot of fuel oil by better insulating the house. No insallation in attic or floor. Have Anderson windows, so no problem there. But to properly redo this house the way I want would easily cost 50,000. Have to do it all at once to make it work. Don't have that kind of time and resources yet. But I would still have to be dependent on oil. I don't have to drive my truck around, but I DO have to stay warm. I'm in a unique situation too. I'll be using my heating unit for business purposes too.

My eventual plan is gut the house, install insulation in floors and install infloor head. As good as baseboard heat is, they are unttractive and limit what woodwork I can do.

Peak Oil Theory is REAL. Prepare now no matter what the cost. At some point we will have inflation, pay back debt with cheaper dollars.

You can do an awful lot in an attic without any massive training or capital investment using a good foam gun (about $40) plus a rented cellulose blower. And since heat (and hot air) tend to go upwards, this, if you have no insulation up there, is where you'll tend to get a lot of bang for the buck. Top and bottom of a structure, in terms of places to find and minimize air infiltration, are where you really make the _big_ difference, even more than insulation in the walls. Convective air loss loses way more heat than conductive heat loss through uninsulated walls. I not only know this from reading up on theory, I have confirmed it, to a degree beyond I'd have believed possible, from anecdotal experience. I insulated my walls, but then, when I finally discovered massive air leakage in a crawlspace under my porch, where 1830s mortar had fallen out of the fieldstone foundation, and sealed it up, it was virtually like buying a new house. Instead of needing net heat input on a 40 degree sunny day, I gain passive solar through the (ratty old) windows.

 

[WoodNotOil]

My eventual plan is gut the house, install insulation in floors and install infloor head. As good as baseboard heat is, they are unttractive and limit what woodwork I can do.

If you are talking about tubes under wood floors it is advisable to still have baseboards or radiators in the rooms. The floors react very slowly to temp changes and you shouldn't run wood floors over 85* which in severe cold weather may not be enough to keep the room at the temp you want. It is also hard in the shoulder season to not overheat the room with the floor heat, so switching to baseboards/radiators to maintain temp works better. With that said, I love my heated floors and wouldn't have it any other way.

Note that this does not apply to slab radiant as it has different response and temp variables altogether.

Peak Oil Theory is REAL. Prepare now no matter what the cost. At some point we will have inflation, pay back debt with cheaper dollars.

The cost of these systems looks very different a few years into owning them. I have seen the cost of the boilers nearly double and the cost of copper sky rocket since I put mine in. I have also seen the price of heating oil go from $2.65 a gallon when I installed my Tarm to $4.65 a gallon and then back down again. It is an amazing feeling to sit back and watch all that happen and not have it affect my cost of heating a bit...