A friend of mine is running a Tarm Solo wood boiler and needs to get up in the middle of the night to reload the boiler. Can this be eliminate with the installation of a water storage tank?
Need for Storage Tank with Tarm Boiler
- Thread starter connerfur
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But he'll burn less wood overall. I fire my tarm in the winter time at 4 pm and load it once more unless it's below 0 then I load it twice more to heat my 1000 gallon tank.
In the summer I fire only every 3 or 4 days for my domestic needs.
In the summer I fire only every 3 or 4 days for my domestic needs.
connerfur, what Chuck and Eric say is absolutely true, however, I don't want you to misinterpret what they say. Adding storage to a wood boiler does NOT increase the output of the boiler. IF your friend has the opportunity to burn enough wood during the day to fully charge the storage tank as Eric describes, then storage will likely be a great addition to the system. If, on the other hand, your friend is burning fuel as fast as he can because the boiler is undersized and all the heat is going into the house, then storage will likely not improve the situation. Storage is a great improvement to any wood boiler installation, but it's value comes primarily in the shoulder seasons, not in mid-Winter. Please have him give us a call to discuss the options.
Chris
Chris
BioHeat Sales Guy said:
I'll second that clarification but take a little exception to the part about the value being primarily in the shoulder seasons. While that is true if you are using a boiler whose output is sized exactly to the load at design temps, meaning it's running flat out nearly all the time, running a unit with an output greater than the actual load allows you to charge your storage simultaneously with carrying the load of the structure. If a person has enough storage to carry for 10 or 14 or even 24 hours, using a boiler with "excess" output can be very advantageous. For most people though, that means an output of 200K and a minimum of 12-1500 gallons of storage. It's a trade off for sure.
Good point. Mine is sized to heat my house and my tank or shop in cold weather. I have not run to the shop yet so that has not been a problem. My unit is roughly twice my need at 30 below. In the 3 years I've had my system there have been a handful of times in real cold (-20 or more) that I fired a morning fire for the day. Usually on a weekend when we are home during the day.
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