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I have been thinking about putting a wood boiler add on in my garage but I am new to wood boiler add ons. What is a good brand that I should be looking at? It will be tied into a oil boiler that is in my basement.
There is no one brand to answer that question with - there are a lot of them.
Do you burn wood now? Most important thing with a boiler is good dry wood - so you should have next years wood done up & ready the year before. Boilers also work best when burned flat out until the fuel is gone - so not the best if tied to a heat load that won't use much of the heat. That can be accomplished by also putting in storage with the boiler - gasifying boilers are the best, but a non-gasifying one that uses tubes for heat exchanging might be adequate with storage. You might find a used one locally.
So lots to consider - check out what people are using here & how, most have their boiler types in their sigs. The posting really tails off in the non-heating months, but there is a ton of good info to search through already.
Is your insurance person OK with burning wood in the garage? Most aren't.
I do not burn wood now, but I have access to quite a bit seasoned wood. That is a good question about my insurance company. I will have to look into it. I would be using it as my main source of heat with oil as a backup. How much do you think an indoor setup would run?
I could find a used boiler with tubes here, and some used propane tanks, and likely put together a boiler & storage combo (although non-gasifying) for $2-3k. Most of that would be the storage stuff.
What I ended up doing 3 years ago in my new boiler install set me back around $15k all together - including new hot water heater & electric boiler, and signficant added expense in just getting the boiler to me. So it runs the gammut (did I spell that right?).