Realized Benefits of Storage

[phantomblack]

Perhaps I am just living in a cave, or just a bit slow (I have been accused of both) but Im just not seeing the benefits. I currently have twice a day fills in -10 weather, and once a day fills if it is 30. I also heat my DHW as well. I spend about 10 minutes a day with the boiler. I am just not seeing how that can be any easier.

I heat my shop with a secondary combustion wood stove, and tending that is a PITA. Lighting a new fire every morning, or having to re-kindle a fire almost every morning is a pain. To each their own I guess, that is what makes America great, the ability of choice. Stay warm my friends, and keep the oil man away!

Thanks again for you input.

 

[goosegunner]

Perhaps I am just living in a cave, or just a bit slow (I have been accused of both) but Im just not seeing the benefits. I currently have twice a day fills in -10 weather, and once a day fills if it is 30. I also heat my DHW as well. I spend about 10 minutes a day with the boiler. I am just not seeing how that can be any easier.

I heat my shop with a secondary combustion wood stove, and tending that is a PITA. Lighting a new fire every morning, or having to re-kindle a fire almost every morning is a pain. To each their own I guess, that is what makes America great, the ability of choice. Stay warm my friends, and keep the oil man away!

Thanks again for you input.

Not that it matters that much because you are happy with your system but from one of your previous post of loading 150lbs of wood I would guess that you are probably underestimating the amout of wood you load.

1 piece of cherry
13" diameter
17" long

cut from log form 6 months after being felled

79 lbs

After being in my warm boiler room for the winter and dried to 18% internally

44 lbs

Most of the Central boilers I have seen 3 pieces of wood that size would barely put a dent in filling them.

gg

 

[Frozen Canuck]

Any OWB owner will want to avoid adding storage. All one would accomplish is to add more stored energy for the OWB to bleed off to the atmosphere, as the OWB sits outside exposed on all sides. Very different scenario than a gasser sitting in a conditioned space hooked up to adequate storage.

 

[kopeck]

Any OWB owner will want to avoid adding storage. All one would accomplish is to add more stored energy for the OWB to bleed off to the atmosphere, as the OWB sits outside exposed on all sides. Very different scenario than a gasser sitting in a conditioned space hooked up to adequate storage.

I'm guessing you mean if the storage was outside as well?

If the storage was inside I could see it adding some benefits. Anytime you can keep the fire rolling, which storage would do, is a positive and with a OWB and the smoke issues that go with them that might be doubly so.

K

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

I would think there is a few concepts that maybe misunderstood here.

Would adding storage to your boiler help you?

Yes
If you enclose your OWB to avoid standby loss.
But then you would be running it like an "IWB non-gasser"
IMHO it will be inevitable for a replacement for your existent system at some point. so if you add a building around your OWB large enough to fit the largest currently available IWB gasser you will ready.

Current situation with additional storage:
Its the burn time that you will loose because you will use more wood to charge more storage. so when you get home your fire will be out or close. so the OWB will suck the heat out of your additional storage depending on timing of another hot fire. its all about the delta of temperatures with thermal storage. the delta of the OWBstorage will be greater than the delta of your indoor storage-they will try to balance in a negative direction plus your house load.

So extended burn time or idling for hot coals to relight will be less.

Batch burn is the technique that is being utilized with the new gassers. I think munchkin boilers has a video on youtube explaining their need to use a storage buddy with their high efficiency gas boilers.

In my mind"theory" if you burn dry wood in the OWB by batch burning to additional storage it should work well. What I question is: will the OWB handle the potential corrosion problem from the cooling inside the firebox?

So to sum it up:
new method: Batch burning to storage
old method: continuously burning and idling