Hello everyone,
I have been browsing this site for the past 2 weeks as we have been researching the best options for a system upgrade to our current heating system. I was hoping for some specific advice about our system and would appreciate any feedback anyone can offer.
We are a Buddhist monastery located in Southern BC Canada - we currently heat our 10,000 sq ft main building, 2,000 sq ft outbuilding (of which only 700 sq is heated) and our DHW (with a propane back-up) with a Heatmor 150k btu OWB. The unit has been installed for the past 9 years and has worked exceptionally well for us. The prime motivation in replacing it is to use less wood (currently use 28-30 cords/year), smaller sized wood (currently load 4' rounds - all beetle kill pine) and increase overall efficiency.
We are looking at the Econoburn Outdoor model (EBW-200-O) as all the infrastructure is set up to place the boiler outside and we're not really keen on building another shed as there is already a wood shed right next to it that holds about 30 cords. The Econoburn is also really appealing because a dealer (who I believe is on this site) is just an hour away and I have had very good dealings with him thus far - via e-mail. We are still undecided about storage for our particular needs - is there any efficiency advantage to adding storage for our application, or is it more a matter of convenience? We would need to place the storage outside as there is no room in the house and re-plumbing the existing system inside would be a major undertaking.
The heat comes into the house (about a 50 ft run) into 2 plate hx - one going to the 2 lower floors, in-slab (basement 6" concrete with styrofoam insulation, second floor 1 1/2" concrete) and the other hx going to upstairs radiant baseboard with the DHW coil branching off first. A line branches off the main line at the boiler and goes to the outbuilding which runs directly through radiant baseboards.
During the coldest winter days we require an average of 2.5 million btu's/day to keep the buildings at 70. We are currently increasing attic insulation up to R90, adding triple cell blinds to windows that need to open and removable SIP panels on the outside of windows that don't need to open during the winter months. All of which will hopefully bring our btu demand down.
Our cir pumps are low wattage 'El-Sid's' which were bought because we are 'off-gird' and produce all our own power (80% through solar - 20% through a diesel generator in the dark winter months, all run through Trace Inverters and an 80 kWh AGM battery bank). Energy use is a major factor in determining anything we do here, we currently have our daily demand down to 10 kWh's/day...and falling!
Hopefully this basic info can elicit some feedback and advice from the community here.
Thank you in advance.
Dhammavaro Bhikkhu
www.birken.ca
I have been browsing this site for the past 2 weeks as we have been researching the best options for a system upgrade to our current heating system. I was hoping for some specific advice about our system and would appreciate any feedback anyone can offer.
We are a Buddhist monastery located in Southern BC Canada - we currently heat our 10,000 sq ft main building, 2,000 sq ft outbuilding (of which only 700 sq is heated) and our DHW (with a propane back-up) with a Heatmor 150k btu OWB. The unit has been installed for the past 9 years and has worked exceptionally well for us. The prime motivation in replacing it is to use less wood (currently use 28-30 cords/year), smaller sized wood (currently load 4' rounds - all beetle kill pine) and increase overall efficiency.
We are looking at the Econoburn Outdoor model (EBW-200-O) as all the infrastructure is set up to place the boiler outside and we're not really keen on building another shed as there is already a wood shed right next to it that holds about 30 cords. The Econoburn is also really appealing because a dealer (who I believe is on this site) is just an hour away and I have had very good dealings with him thus far - via e-mail. We are still undecided about storage for our particular needs - is there any efficiency advantage to adding storage for our application, or is it more a matter of convenience? We would need to place the storage outside as there is no room in the house and re-plumbing the existing system inside would be a major undertaking.
The heat comes into the house (about a 50 ft run) into 2 plate hx - one going to the 2 lower floors, in-slab (basement 6" concrete with styrofoam insulation, second floor 1 1/2" concrete) and the other hx going to upstairs radiant baseboard with the DHW coil branching off first. A line branches off the main line at the boiler and goes to the outbuilding which runs directly through radiant baseboards.
During the coldest winter days we require an average of 2.5 million btu's/day to keep the buildings at 70. We are currently increasing attic insulation up to R90, adding triple cell blinds to windows that need to open and removable SIP panels on the outside of windows that don't need to open during the winter months. All of which will hopefully bring our btu demand down.
Our cir pumps are low wattage 'El-Sid's' which were bought because we are 'off-gird' and produce all our own power (80% through solar - 20% through a diesel generator in the dark winter months, all run through Trace Inverters and an 80 kWh AGM battery bank). Energy use is a major factor in determining anything we do here, we currently have our daily demand down to 10 kWh's/day...and falling!
Hopefully this basic info can elicit some feedback and advice from the community here.
Thank you in advance.
Dhammavaro Bhikkhu
www.birken.ca