Hello everyone I live in central IL and i was wondering if there were any other central illinois residents burning wood in a indoor gassifer or indoor conv boiler, and what or how much wood i would be looking at to burn, i have all radiant floor heat and have to use a plate heat ex because of non oxy barrier pipe, the place is 3200 living and 1600 garage. thanx for any responce steve.
gassifer or conventional indoor wood boiler
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If you run a search for "EKO", "Tarm" or several other brand names you'll get loads of info on gasser's here. Many happy users.
How much wood depends on many, many variables. Could be 3 cord...could be 9 cord. Google "slantfin heat loss" and download their free tool. That's a great place to start.
How much wood depends on many, many variables. Could be 3 cord...could be 9 cord. Google "slantfin heat loss" and download their free tool. That's a great place to start.
If you do a search, you'll find a lot of threads that compare wood consumption. There are a lot of variables, but the best hard data that I've seen shows that with the same operator, the same house, and the same wood supply, a gasifier burns 40% less wood that a conventional indoor boiler to produce the same amount of heat.
Wood consumption is a big consideration, as is smoke production. You can get essentially smokeless operation with a gasifier most of the time, while a conventional wood-fired boiler will always smoke much of the time. If you have neighbors, that's an important thing to think about. You'll pay more for a gasifier upfront, but it's probably worth it in most cases.
I've used a non-gasifiying wood boiler once before (an early-series orange Tarm) (in a place I used to rent) and now have a gasifier.
The difference is night and day in terms of both cleanliness of burn and efficiency at extracting heat from a given amount of wood.
If you are planning to be/ stay where you are, the extra money spent on a gasifier is, in my opinion, a highly worthwhile long-run investment.
Gasifiers really shine their best if they have heat storage, so figure that into your decision-making.
If funds, time, etc., are limited (as they are for most of us), perhaps consider either putting in a gasifier now, with plans to add storage later, or else put in storage now, and find/ buy a decent condition second-hand non-gasification boiler (which you may be able to find fairly inexpensively), and plan on transitioning to a gasification boiler. Even a non-gasifying boiler should benefit- in terms of burn efficiency and your convenience, with storage.
My suggestion would be to _not_ spend the cost of purchasing a brand-new non-gasification boiler-- if you are going to plunk down a big sum of money, you might as well get the most efficient technology currently available.
The difference is night and day in terms of both cleanliness of burn and efficiency at extracting heat from a given amount of wood.
If you are planning to be/ stay where you are, the extra money spent on a gasifier is, in my opinion, a highly worthwhile long-run investment.
Gasifiers really shine their best if they have heat storage, so figure that into your decision-making.
If funds, time, etc., are limited (as they are for most of us), perhaps consider either putting in a gasifier now, with plans to add storage later, or else put in storage now, and find/ buy a decent condition second-hand non-gasification boiler (which you may be able to find fairly inexpensively), and plan on transitioning to a gasification boiler. Even a non-gasifying boiler should benefit- in terms of burn efficiency and your convenience, with storage.
My suggestion would be to _not_ spend the cost of purchasing a brand-new non-gasification boiler-- if you are going to plunk down a big sum of money, you might as well get the most efficient technology currently available.
Like pybyr I had an orange Tarm in the 80's. I was never in love with it because it had a REALLY small fire box and I think your wood had to be less than 18" to fit in. I found my self building a coal bunker to keep it the boiler hot over night. I do want to add that this was a quality product. It was the local sales rep that insisted that was the right stove for me.
We moved, and I put in a OWB made by Hardy, big fire box. Stainless construction, wouldn't go there again. OWB = smokey, my local volunteer fire DEPT loved me. All spring, summer and fall they got their frequent flier miles looking for the source of smoke. And, worse it was a wood addict.
That went off line about 5 years ago and I put in a Burnham oil boiler and a wood stove in basement. Was happy with that until the price of oil was going thru roof last fall.
Being part Scott and an arborist with and unlimited supply of wood and equipment I was not happy ! Talked it over with the wife and we did what we should have done when we bought the OWB. We got another TARM the Solo 60. We ran it last year with-out storage and loved it ! We did have to pay attention not to overload the wood. We would load it a little at a time. Our plans are to finish the system with storage this year.
I guess I am really trying to echo pybyr and say, try to step up to a gasification boiler. You won't regret it. Cutting and splitting is work. Cleaning out the stove and chimney is work. With a gasification your wood consumption goes way down and and the stove and chimney stays really clean in comparison to any thing else. And from what I'm reading on this site, with storage, my consumption will continue to go down and the stove will run even cleaner.
We moved, and I put in a OWB made by Hardy, big fire box. Stainless construction, wouldn't go there again. OWB = smokey, my local volunteer fire DEPT loved me. All spring, summer and fall they got their frequent flier miles looking for the source of smoke. And, worse it was a wood addict.
That went off line about 5 years ago and I put in a Burnham oil boiler and a wood stove in basement. Was happy with that until the price of oil was going thru roof last fall.
Being part Scott and an arborist with and unlimited supply of wood and equipment I was not happy ! Talked it over with the wife and we did what we should have done when we bought the OWB. We got another TARM the Solo 60. We ran it last year with-out storage and loved it ! We did have to pay attention not to overload the wood. We would load it a little at a time. Our plans are to finish the system with storage this year.
I guess I am really trying to echo pybyr and say, try to step up to a gasification boiler. You won't regret it. Cutting and splitting is work. Cleaning out the stove and chimney is work. With a gasification your wood consumption goes way down and and the stove and chimney stays really clean in comparison to any thing else. And from what I'm reading on this site, with storage, my consumption will continue to go down and the stove will run even cleaner.
EDYS68 said:
EDYS68, I'm just a half a step ahead of you. I am replacing my 15 year-old Kerr TW-200 non-gassifier boiler with a new Econoburn 150W.
For exactly all the reasons the others have stated. My Kerr is a wood-hog, slow to recover and smokes like, uh, a chimney? The Econoburn,
to be installed this month, is expected to burn less wood, give more heat, make no smoke (in gasification mode) and make me the envy of
all my wood burning friends. I'm already planning to add 1000 gallons of water storage next summer, when I'll start planning to burn my own
wood off my property (80% softwood, 20% hardwood), instead of buying tree length hardwood at $130 Canadian a cord.
Go with a gasser!
Happy burning!
A bit of further thought-- in addition to the old Orange Tarm that I mentioned, I've heated with wood in various other appliances of different technologies and vintages.
Although I'd agree that the old orange non-gasifying Tarm was well designed and made based on the technologies available at the time, my experience at the time made me swear that never again in my life, if I could help it, would I try to burn wood in a firebox surrounded by a water jacket.
Reason being that all fuels burn only when in a vapor state in which the combustible compounds can mix with the oxygen in the air. Gases (natural gas, propane, etc.) burn easily in a vapor state, because they achieve that as soon as they are let out of a storage tank. Fuel oil burns relatively easily in a vapor state, once it is run through a nozzle and mixed with a blower. Wood only burns in a vapor state if you take a log and manage to get it lit on fire, in which case the fire just beyond the surface of the log cooks some more vapor out of the solid log, which then burns. Take that burning log and surround with with a water-filled chamber that, by definition, can never get much above the boiling point of water, and you discourage that vapor formation-- and also condense out a lot of the otherwise combustible vapor-- which equals creosote build-up in firebox and chimney.
So, anyways, after swearing years ago that I'd never again burn firewood in a water-based heat system, and after using all sorts of other things (stoves, wood/ hot air furnaces) in between in order to avoid that- I'm at moments surprised to have put a lot of time, effort, sweat, and dollars into a wood gasification boiler, which, once again, surrounds the fire with water. And I could not be much more pleased with having done so- reason being, that wood gasifiers do a particularly good job of combusting volatile/ combustible products of wood with oxygen to get an efficient, clean, burn. I've never seen so much heat, per unit of wood, as with a gasification boiler.
Although I'd agree that the old orange non-gasifying Tarm was well designed and made based on the technologies available at the time, my experience at the time made me swear that never again in my life, if I could help it, would I try to burn wood in a firebox surrounded by a water jacket.
Reason being that all fuels burn only when in a vapor state in which the combustible compounds can mix with the oxygen in the air. Gases (natural gas, propane, etc.) burn easily in a vapor state, because they achieve that as soon as they are let out of a storage tank. Fuel oil burns relatively easily in a vapor state, once it is run through a nozzle and mixed with a blower. Wood only burns in a vapor state if you take a log and manage to get it lit on fire, in which case the fire just beyond the surface of the log cooks some more vapor out of the solid log, which then burns. Take that burning log and surround with with a water-filled chamber that, by definition, can never get much above the boiling point of water, and you discourage that vapor formation-- and also condense out a lot of the otherwise combustible vapor-- which equals creosote build-up in firebox and chimney.
So, anyways, after swearing years ago that I'd never again burn firewood in a water-based heat system, and after using all sorts of other things (stoves, wood/ hot air furnaces) in between in order to avoid that- I'm at moments surprised to have put a lot of time, effort, sweat, and dollars into a wood gasification boiler, which, once again, surrounds the fire with water. And I could not be much more pleased with having done so- reason being, that wood gasifiers do a particularly good job of combusting volatile/ combustible products of wood with oxygen to get an efficient, clean, burn. I've never seen so much heat, per unit of wood, as with a gasification boiler.
I really appreciate all of your input, the only thing that is deturing me is that without storage (from what i understand), you have to reignite the fire often, and nobody is home during the day (confused). am i understanding this correctly. Ive been reading some posts where they say gassifers dont idle well, is idle between calls for heat? thanks edys68
EDYS68 said:
Idle is indeed the mode that occurs when you have a fire lit in the boiler, but no actual call for or draw of heat by space heat needs or 'banking' the heat in storage.
I don't think there's any reason to conclude that gasifiers do any worse when idling than older non-gasification designs-- nor do you really have to light them more often than non-gasification boilers. It's just that, with storage, they achieve the maximum combination of both burning efficiency and convenience of when you can choose to build fires.
re: gasifiers don't idle well. That is true in that. The fire box gets a little gunky and they use up a little more wood than they should.
But, that is a small price to pay compared to the efficiency they have when they are on. As far as the stove going out that was never a problem for me. Even when the fire was burned way down you can usually get enough coals from the sides to get another fire going no problem. My biggest problem was trying to bleed off the heat. 1) I was careful not to fully load the wood box 2) I opened up the "no power, heat dump " zone valve 1/4 turn so some water was always circulating through my iron radiator.
When running with storage your stove circulator runs only when there is hot water to deliver to storage / zones. I have my system set now ( no storage ) so the boiler circulator runs continuously until the boiler temp drops below 160ish which hardly ever happens.
After you get use to your home's demand ( how much wood you stuff in the box ) you will be able to get 8 hours off a load and still have a warm boiler and probably coals to reignite a fire.
But, that is a small price to pay compared to the efficiency they have when they are on. As far as the stove going out that was never a problem for me. Even when the fire was burned way down you can usually get enough coals from the sides to get another fire going no problem. My biggest problem was trying to bleed off the heat. 1) I was careful not to fully load the wood box 2) I opened up the "no power, heat dump " zone valve 1/4 turn so some water was always circulating through my iron radiator.
When running with storage your stove circulator runs only when there is hot water to deliver to storage / zones. I have my system set now ( no storage ) so the boiler circulator runs continuously until the boiler temp drops below 160ish which hardly ever happens.
After you get use to your home's demand ( how much wood you stuff in the box ) you will be able to get 8 hours off a load and still have a warm boiler and probably coals to reignite a fire.
RobC said:
Thanks for this practical info, RobC. I've not installed or re-plumbed yet, and this gets me thinking even more for a few extra controls to keep my system running smoothly. I was thinking I may have to re-start a lot of fires this season, but your comments about the coals on the side of the firebox encourages me.
What size do you find best for your wood? I've read that I should split small (6" max) to burn best in a gasser.
EDYS68 - while I don't yet have the experience with my Econoburn to say 100% yes or no, I am 100% convinced I'm going down the right path, and that I'll see a great improvement with this new gasification boiler over my old standard water jacket beast. (But there was that one time I was wrong back in 1989....)
Thanks for the usefull info, now its a matter of finding the right, affordable gassification boiler, anybody have a good place to start, ive been looking at the attack dp or a eko 60.thanks again edys68
Econoburn is currently offering rebates of $500 on the EBW-100 $700 on the EBW-150 and $1000 on the EBW-200. We even threw in an additional couple of hundred bucks at the Empire Farm Days show this week. The additional $200 was for on the spot sales, which many folks took advantage of. The Econoburn's also qualify for the $1500 federal tax credit. Just as an example the EBW-200 (200,000 btu's) can be purchased for about $6200.00 right now after all rebate and credits.
Wood size. I've been splitting to 3" X 5" wedge shape . A 6" round I would probably split in 1/2. I burn almost 100 % Oak and it is really wet, so part of my split size is to help with drying. I find it more comfortable to place in stove a little smaller piece than one a little too big. Often wife or kids load if I'm gone in the smaller wood works better for them too.
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