Wood Master

[SpaceBus]

To be clear, I'm not advocating for more regulation at all, it will squeeze the smaller guys for sure. Look at car manufacturers in the early-mid 1900's. A slew of names gone.
My point is we still have cars to drive. There are winners and losers.

I am. Cars have only gotten more powerful, more efficient, more comfortable, more reliable, and safer. No longer are cars emitting toxic lead particulates that alleged experts, scientists, and studies all said would just harmlessly fall to the ground. If a company cannot keep pace with regulations then they don't need to stay around. I see a lot of fans of deregulation saying things like "survival of the fittest" but the fittest are the only survivors under new regulations. Wood stove manufacturers were not innovating and coming up with better stoves before regulations came in and forced change.

 

[E Yoder]

Times have changed, improvement is not optional.
What I meant was that I'm not advocating for more regulation further than the current EPA wood heater NSPS. It's pretty tight since 2020.

 

[Joncombat]

This would be an indication that you miscalculated your wood load in regard to temperature, a mistake most Garn owners only make a few times. On the front of the Garn is an over-flow tube that will drain hot water back at your feet if it expands too much, if a bucket is handy it can be caught and poured back into the tank once it cools down.

One misnomer above, I believe the Garn is the only true batch burner on the market today. A batch burner is designed to burn through it's entire fuel load without ever damping down the fire, which is by far the most efficient way to burn wood, flat out. A Garn can do this because it has enough built in thermal storage capacity to absorb all of the energy from the fire at the same rate it is produced. Other brands only begin to replicate this system by adding exterior thermal storage to a capacity of 1000 gals. or more.

my concern is the worst case scenario when you fully load the unit and the water is close to temp. Trying to find a system that I can load 1-2 times a day and not have to worry

 

[maple1]

my concern is the worst case scenario when you fully load the unit and the water is close to temp. Trying to find a system that I can load 1-2 times a day and not have to worry

If the water is close to temp you don't load. You wait until the water is not hot enough to maintain house temp then you make a new fire.

 

[Joncombat]

If the water is close to temp you don't load. You wait until the water is not hot enough to maintain house temp then you make a new fire.

If your home that would not be a problem. The issue is when your gone all day you would need to rely on propane. Purchasing and installing these units is very expensive. The goal save 85%+ on my heating bills and not have to babysit the boiler.

 

[SpaceBus]

If your home that would not be a problem. The issue is when your gone all day you would need to rely on propane. Purchasing and installing these units is very expensive. The goal save 85%+ on my heating bills and not have to babysit the boiler.

He is saying to time your fires. If you know the thermal storage will give you X hours of useable heat at Y temperature then you know when to load and how much to burn. There are generally speaking 7,000 BTU/LB of dry wood, no matter the species. This means in the shoulder seasons you load the firebox full of softwoods and in the middle of winter you load it full of hardwoods. If your boiler and storage are sized appropriately and you have the correct type of emitters for your home then you should be fine to load once or twice a day. There are some formulas that you can use to know how big the boiler and storage must be to only load once a day in the coldest part of the year.

 

[salecker]

If your home that would not be a problem. The issue is when your gone all day you would need to rely on propane. Purchasing and installing these units is very expensive. The goal save 85%+ on my heating bills and not have to babysit the boiler.

With thermal storage you problems are covered.You no longer are a slave to the fire box.
I spend very little time at home when we aren't in a scamdemic.
Usually i get home at 5 ish and start my fire,charge storage and i am good till next day around 5 ish.
I ussally have projects around the house that keep me busy for the evenings.

 

[maple1]

If your home that would not be a problem. The issue is when your gone all day you would need to rely on propane. Purchasing and installing these units is very expensive. The goal save 85%+ on my heating bills and not have to babysit the boiler.

Well, if not home it wouldn't be a problem either. You can't overload your boiler if not there to put wood in.

 

[Case1030]

Why not try without storage first... if you feel like you need install it later.

Or bite the bullet and do it all at once. @cumminstinkerer is running an econoburn with open system and thermal storage seems to be working great for him. You can incorporate storage with whatever boiler you choose.

So far haven't had the need for storage yet. I load it in the AM and PM in cold weather. Sholder season I do 1 day loads.

Remember with storage you will be loading the boiler multiple times (charging the storage) in a day depending on heat requirements... so after a 4 hour charge you load again...

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@Case1030 right now I get by building a fire every other to every three evenings, run her through about 3 loads and its done, now the last few days we haven't needed any heat at all, but in the next couple days we will need a bit and my house is terrible for heat loss. I fired Saturday afternoon for about 4 hours total and tank was still at 179 when I left this morning, knowing the cool day is coming I will probably fire it tonight just to be safe, otherwise i could make another day or two.

 

[Case1030]

That must work great in the shoulder season. Might put some storage in the greenhouse to help when it gets cold out to even the heatload while drawing off it in the shoulder season to get a day or two burns.

In the cold months how many times are you guys with storage loading per day?

 

[maple1]

My schedule, roughly, is light a fire late afternoon or just before supper prep of about half a load. Load it full once well established, maybe half hour later? Then reload full again (maybe not quite full depending on hear demand) maybe 3 hours later. That's it. Repeat next day. So say load two loads 4 hours apart. Fire is basically out when I'm heading to bed.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

I do very similar to @maple1 except I load twice more, but my fire box is small with the boiler only being a 100 btu/hr boiler