Looking to install a wood fired boiler.

[Aqua-Andy]

I have done some searching and someone recommended Glenwood boilers. I was looking at the model 7030 to be exact. I have heated primarily with wood for the past 13 years using a Dutch West wood stove and have been very happy with it. we are in the process of selling our house and purchasing a house that is of a design that will be hard to heat with a regular wood stove. The EPA phase 2 outdoor wood boilers are kind of pricey and have been problematic from what I have read. I started looking at indoor boilers and the Glenwood came up, from the research I have done I found that it uses automatic controls and can damper down the fire so storage tanks are not a concern. One other nice feature is the boiler uses White-Rodgers and Honneywell controls so if there is an issue parts are radially available from local sources. I have serched and not seen many threads here pertaining to Glenwood. Is there anyone using there boilers ind if so how are they working?

 

[begreen]

What is the current heating system in the new house, boiler or warm air furnace? What fuel?

 

[Aqua-Andy]

Sorry, boiler/ forced hot water baseboard fueled by oil. House is 8 years old and is very well insulated. House is 1650sf but I plan on insulating the garage and finishing part of the walk out basement. So the final total will be close to 3000sf to heat.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

The more I read the more confused I become. I like the design of the Glenwood boiler mostly due to the simplicity of the design. I also like the fact that it dampers down the fire once the water temps are up so no thermal storage is necessary. The vendor I talked to clams the units meet EPA phase 2 regs and even when dampered down they don't produce smoke. Everything I read here says the way to go is to batch burn and store the heat as hot water in insulated tanks. Is there any reason I can't add a heat storage system to the Glenwood boiler later on down the road if I feel the need arises? I guess I am just kind of old school in my thinking. Yes some of the upside down burning gasification units will provide better efficiency but I see many drawbacks also. Some of the drawbacks I see are the quality of wood and the size you have to split it to, the electronics on these units (from what I have gathered) seam to be proprietary products and they seam to be finicky to operate. The part availability aspect of the overseas units tends to scare me off a little bit also. I work for a German based company and it takes two to three months to source a part out of Europe at times, I would not want to go without the unit that long.

 

[maple1]

Have you seen proof of the epa phase 2 thing?

 

[Coal Reaper]

expand your research and the confusion will clear up. getting kinda late to be rushing an install for this season. definatly if you dont have wood ready. yes, they do need dry wood, but less of it. sourcing fancy parts is definatly a consideration. reputable dealer can make the difference up.
is it detached garage? option to put boiler out there? look into what your homeowners insurance allows. mine didnt care since it was in an outbuilding, but most wont let you put a solid fuel burning appliance in a location where a vehicle can be parked in. it is really nice to be able to bring a winters worth of wood into the barn.

 

[muncybob]

Not ALL boilers require storage to function but I think ALL would benefit from it. While mine has operated at an acceptable level for going on 5 years now I wish I had the $$ (and more importantly the room) to put in 1000+ gallons of storage. I don't think there are any parts on mine that cannot be obtained locally or for that matter you can create yourself. I'm not so sure about the newer models. I would imagine storage can be added at any time, plan for it at initial installation time to save headaches and $$ later. From what I have read, most of the dealers that sell imported units have a decent supply of parts on hand that are normally needed.

Dry wood is the way to go not matter what you are heating with. Some will market you can burn 30% mc...sure you can, but not efficiently.

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

I have done some searching and someone recommended Glenwood boilers. I was looking at the model 7030 to be exact. I have heated primarily with wood for the past 13 years using a Dutch West wood stove and have been very happy with it. we are in the process of selling our house and purchasing a house that is of a design that will be hard to heat with a regular wood stove. The EPA phase 2 outdoor wood boilers are kind of pricey and have been problematic from what I have read. I started looking at indoor boilers and the Glenwood came up, from the research I have done I found that it uses automatic controls and can damper down the fire so storage tanks are not a concern. One other nice feature is the boiler uses White-Rodgers and Honneywell controls so if there is an issue parts are radially available from local sources. I have serched and not seen many threads here pertaining to Glenwood. Is there anyone using there boilers ind if so how are they working?

This model is rated at 135,000 BTU/hr for wood burning.
This will be way to big for your 3,300 SF well insulated home without thermal storage.
It will smolder a lot!!

 

[maple1]

This model is rated at 135,000 BTU/hr for wood burning.
This will be way to big for your 3,300 SF well insulated home without thermal storage.
It will smolder a lot!!

Yes but it dampers down the fire. End of problem.

 

[flyingcow]

See if you can find out how much oil the previous owner used year round? this will give you a ball park of how much wood you'll burn in a year.

You really need wood seasoned, no matter what you have for a wood burner. I have had wood split and stacked in may and it dries down to 25%, not ideal, but it burned ok. By the turn of the year the wood had dropped to 20/22%. now I'm burning stuff thats 18 months old, must be in the mid to upper teens in mc. . I get a lot more heat out that stuff.

Do you have your own wood supply? Or do you have to buy it? The reason i ask is that the price of cordwood is very close to the price of pellets, per million btu's. Might want to look at pellet boilers. Your in NH, go take a trip see Tarm's wood and pellet burners. They are on the mid to upper level price range, but you can see gassification wood burners in operation. I would assume the same with pellet boilers.

Another option, look at craigslist or Unclehenrys. I just bought a tarm solo mk II 60kw used boiler. It had burned wood for 6 yrs, probably about 50 to 60 cord thru it. Good condition, just had new nozzle put in it. I paid $1700 for it, kind of stole it actually. I would guess and say it was a $8 or $9k boiler when new. The owner's were switching to a pellet boiler. A lot of people made the leap into wood burning about 8 to 10 yrs ago, due the the rise in oil prices, including myself. Now the price of processed wood is up and combine that with fact handling and burning wood...........well it's lost it's newness and fun, people are making the switch to pellets or air sourced heat pumps.

With pellets you don't need to purchase/store a yrs supply ahead, like you do with wood.

Air sourced heat pumps, you pay for the electricity after you use it. I have two HP's installed a year ago. perform well in the north. But you want to figure 3to4k for a HP. Might be worth looking at just for fun.

Back to gassification boilers. I have not cleaned my chimney since I've had this boiler. Thats been sine 2008. These units burn clean. No smoke. Clean a bit of fly ash out of the base of the chimney once in a while. Take a trip to Tarm or somewhere you can watch one in action. pretty neat stuff.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

Thanks for the info and please keep it coming. I have ruled out pellets for several reasons, one being price around here varies quite a bit depending on demand and the mood of the manufacturers. We have heated our house for thirteen years with wood so I don't mind the work. I am moving about three cords of wood to the new house and the owner of the house is leaving about two cords. Going by past oil usage will not work because the current owner heated with a woodstove in the basement, using fans and blocking off parts of the house. So I take it no one around here has used the boiler from the manufacturer I'm looking at? I did talk to the folks at Tarm Biomass and the prices discussed were way out of my budget, close to $16K all said and done. From what I have been reading here My best bet would be to use my current woodstove on the first floor and be done. In 13 years heating 1600sf the most wood I have burned was 3 cords and that was one cord of pine. My avg year using hard wood was 2.5 cords. Using my Dutch West catalytic stove my house stayed at 70 degrees all winter and would burn for eight hours. All the posts here are listing five to seven cords as avg fuel for a season. Are these new gassification stoves that less efficient than my twenty year old stove? I'm not trying to start an argument, it's just the numbers do not add up. I consider a cord of wood to be 128cf of wood when stacked if that makes a difference.

 

[Coal Reaper]

1600sf is a low heat load for a boiler, especially without storage. I will speculate that must of us with boilers are over 2500sf, several with an outbuilding.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

1600sf is a low heat load for a boiler, especially without storage. I will speculate that must of us with boilers are over 2500sf, several with an outbuilding.

Our current house is 1600sf. The house we are in the process of purchasing will be closer to 2200sf of heated area and I plan on adding heat to the garage that will add another 700sf. I would probably keep the garage around 50f and bump the heat up to 65 or so when I will be out there playing. This http://woodstoves.net/glenwood-heaters/the-glenwood-7030-automatic-multi-fuel-boiler.htm is the boiler I was looking at. After talking to the rep from Obadiah's I found that they are the distributor for Glenwood stoves. When I spoke with the owner of Obadiah's he seamed very knowledgeable about boilers and how they work. He even went as far as to say if I did not like it he would take it back. Most of the other manufacturers I have call just refereed me to there websites for info.

 

[Coal Reaper]

I just reread this thread. Dude, you are talking about heating 1600sf with three cords. Fine. Now you are going to 3000sf. Thats double. So double the wood. Now your at six cord. Right on track with most of us. I went through six cord last winter.

 

[Coal Reaper]

If your lifestyle is accepting of bringing wood into your living space and reloading a woodstove as often as you need to then run with that. Likely will be much cheaper option for you. But now ur missing out on the garage and basement. Heating water is nice because now your BTUs are easily moved to where you need them.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

Dude, sorry I have never done a study on the size of other peoples houses. Looking at some of the recommended systems I would have at least a least a 15 year payback and that is if I had no maintenance costs. I guess I just cant justify that kind of expense for the payback time.

 

[flyingcow]

If you only plan on using 3 cord for your total heat, that's a low heat load. I wouldn't bother buying anything to burn wood.

 

[Fred61]

You'll almost always burn less wood with a woodstove because you are only heating part time. eg; Load up the stove at 10:00 PM and if you don't want to creosote your chimney you set the draft accordingly. So by doing that your fire is burned out by 1:00 AM or thereabouts. Coast 'til you rise at six or so to a cold house. With a gassifier you will most likely burn all night if it is sized correctly sized and wake up to a warm comfortable house so therefore more wood is consumed.

 

[Coal Reaper]

I hope you are not taking offense to my use of 'dude' . All i was getting at is you need to compare them correctly. You are looking at double the space now so figure about double the wood. Maybe less if you are getting to better insulation. (Btw, how did you come to the determination that your new house is wellninsulated?). Furthermore, you should be studying the size and heat load of every burners house here that has been kind enough to share that information throughout various threads. Just type some different types of boilers into the search and see what comes up. Then compare to what you might expect. All of this goes back to the very first question begreen asked. Nobody is here to steer you wrong. Again, a boiler may in fact not be the best option for YOU.
I have never heard a bad thing about obadiahs.
As far as payback, pleasse share how you came up with 15 years. Burning wood is saving me about $4k/yr in oil so i am running a 3.5yr payback, but i did most of the work myself. I understand your will be longer but 15yrs sounds extensive. Dont foget that you can heat DHW with a boiler.

 

[Coal Reaper]

Fred! Great to see you around

 

[flyingcow]

DHW can acct for 30% of heat load.

 

[maple1]

Thanks for the info and please keep it coming. I have ruled out pellets for several reasons, one being price around here varies quite a bit depending on demand and the mood of the manufacturers. We have heated our house for thirteen years with wood so I don't mind the work. I am moving about three cords of wood to the new house and the owner of the house is leaving about two cords. Going by past oil usage will not work because the current owner heated with a woodstove in the basement, using fans and blocking off parts of the house. So I take it no one around here has used the boiler from the manufacturer I'm looking at? I did talk to the folks at Tarm Biomass and the prices discussed were way out of my budget, close to $16K all said and done. From what I have been reading here My best bet would be to use my current woodstove on the first floor and be done. In 13 years heating 1600sf the most wood I have burned was 3 cords and that was one cord of pine. My avg year using hard wood was 2.5 cords. Using my Dutch West catalytic stove my house stayed at 70 degrees all winter and would burn for eight hours. All the posts here are listing five to seven cords as avg fuel for a season. Are these new gassification stoves that less efficient than my twenty year old stove? I'm not trying to start an argument, it's just the numbers do not add up. I consider a cord of wood to be 128cf of wood when stacked if that makes a difference.

I use about 7 cords (half that is windfall spruce), for year round heat & hot water, for our 2700 sq.ft. 20 year old two storey that sits on an exposed hilltop. Family of 5. There is no way I could keep our house warm with a stove. Or two stoves. No matter how much wood I was to run through them. And I would kill myself trying to do it, and keep up with maintenance & cleaning. And wood handling.

The main thing that gets overlooked when comparing stoves (space heaters) to boilers (central heat), is that there is no way you can get the comfort of central heating from a space heater. You will have cold spots & cold times with a space heater - along with hot spots and hot times. Depending on when & where you are in the house. Of course that all depends on exactly what you've got for a house & heat loss - you might do something adequate with a wood stove or stoves, but how adequate that comfort is likely depends on how small & open it is & how much of the house you really want to be comfortable. And what one deems comfortable. 60° isn't comfortable. 72° is.

My boiler is only actually burning for 6 to 10-12 hours a day (depending how cold it is out) - a wood stove would need a constant fire and everything that comes with keeping the fire going.

 

[maple1]

DHW can acct for 30% of heat load.

Zoinks - I guess some people use lots of hot water.

I burn 6 to 10-12 hours a day for heat in the winter, and somewhere around 6 hours a week for DHW in the summer.

 

[jebatty]

Whether it's 1500 or 3000 sq ft, a wood gasification boiler makes lots of cent$ and is very convenient with reasonable storage. My pole building shop is 1500 sq ft, "well insulated": 2" foam perimeter and under the floor, 6" fiberglass in the walls, 12" plus blown in fiberglass in the ceiling. With pex in-floor, constant 61F temperature setting, never burn more than once (about 6 hours) every other day with the Tarm Solo Plus 40 (140,000 btuh rating) -- that's what 1000 gal of storage allows. The wood is pine and aspen, about 4 cords each winter, in a cold north-central MN climate. The 1000 gal storage, a re-purposed old LP tank, added $900 to the cost.

A wood stove also makes lots of cent$, if someone is around to keep it fueled, and either my wife or I am around to do this. Our house also is 1500 sq ft, heat with a wood stove in the living room. Same amount of wood as used in the Tarm, nearly all aspen. Main living area is kept about 70F, bedrooms cooler. Outside temperatures range into the -30'sF for brief periods during the winter. Average January temperature is around 0F.

As others have said, "damping down" does not really work for wood, unless it is a sophisticated control system, and then only to a limited extent. The Kuma Vapor-Fire forced air wood furnace does this very well.

Cost: local markets govern, our wood is from our land, "free" with lots of labor to c/s/s 8 cords every year and start each heating season with 16 cords on hand, 8 cords to burn the current heating season and 8 cords for next year, well-seasoned wood. Work the math to get the answer. My alternatives were electricity, currently about $1600 year for each of the shop and house, and about $1300/year for each with propane at $2/gal. Both electricity and propane are subject to price increases, and the propane price has been quite volatile (up to $6/gal last winter).

A decision to burn wood is also a sustainability decision. Wood is carbon neutral and sustainable. It also is clean burning in an efficient wood boiler/stove.

 

[rrwoods]

Aqua Andy, I was also looking at the Glenwood 7030. As with you I like the simplicity and the fact that it has a waste oil burner add-on available. But I have also seen some negative reviews - mostly just people saying how the gasifier stoves are so much cleaner and more efficient.

Did you end up getting a 7030 and how is it working for you?

(yes I know the thread is 5 years old )