Woodgun E100 or the Classic CL5648 OWB in an old schoolhouse

[cowboy3500]

Howdy fellow woodcutters,
I'm finally joining the forum instead of lurking in the shadows reading all of your informative writings. I'm looking for a little direction/opinion in heating a big old schoolhouse on which I have closing next week. This house is a 3800 sq ft place with 13 ft ceilings and a lot of windows(thermal glass). and 3800' basement. It has been nicely renovated, seems to be well insulated but I have a strong feeling it's going to take a lot more heat than my current 1000 ft place that I've heated with a small Hearthstone(which I love). Currently heat distribution depends on some radiant in floor heating but mostly it has hot water radiators connected to a big old oil boiler in the basement. The boiler is connected to the buildings 2 story masonry chimney. Now, I have learned a bit in my short life about heating with woodstoves but I don't have much experience with boilers. I'm looking at several options, one would be to convert the old oil boiler to wood, it has a huge burn cavity and I could easily fabricate a grate to hold the wood. I'm not sure if that's smart though since it seems to be a pressure(steam?) boiler and may be on it's last leg. It has heavy rust(no data plate), am I asking for an explosion of some sort? I've also considered installing a wood boiler beside it and keeping the oil burner as backup. I've heard something somewhere about the combination of acid soots eating out the masonry. Is that true?

On to my real questions, the stoves. I might as well start out by saying that I'm limited to what stoves I can find used on Craigslist etc, since my budget doesn't currently allow for a 10k new stove but the two models I'm considering are: an old unused Woodgun E100 and a used Classic CL5648 outdoor boiler. Is the Woodgun super efficient as the manufacturer says, less than the current model E155? Or the same? I'm assuming the Classic is going to use more wood but I kind of like the idea since I could keep the oil boiler as backup with no flue conflicts. Anybody have any efficiency thoughts on the classic. I'm planning to burn pine lumber scraps from a truss plant since this place won't have a wood lot so efficiency isn't quite as big a deal as when you're cutting and splitting logs. You might get the feeling I'm leaning toward the Classic, it's a good bit cheaper and I find at least some aspects of the outdoor part attractive.
Thank you much in advance

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

I would not even consider anything that had to do with turning your oil boiler to some type of wood burning appliance. I used a conventional outdoor wood boiler for 5 years. It was a hardy h4. I heat a 225 year old house in New Hampshire. I was going through 12/13 cords of wood per year. It was fine it first but I got tired of processing so much wood. I bought a heatmaster g200 last year which was expensive($9400). I can't say enough good things about it though. Ran 7-8 cords last year which is about 35-40% less wood and this was with wood only seasoned 6 months. I should decrease wood more this year with my over a year seasoned wood. I would certainly look for a wood gasification boiler. Your other option is a coal automatic stoker boiler. I would probably own one myself if I had found one on clist before I found my first hardy h4 outdoor boiler for $500.

 

[muncybob]

Some questions....are you also heating the 3800 sf basement? Even if the answer is no you may want to contact AHS to see if the 100 is up to the task of the 3800 sf living space and a lot of glass. I would guess that is the upper limits of the E100 unless you are running with a large amount of storage although it is probably desirable have a smaller unit if not running with storage.

How is it that there is an old "unused" WG? How old is it? Is it SS? Can you check either of the boilers in question for pressure retention? We also considered a used boiler some time ago but there were just too many grey areas in the ones I looked at to pursue it.

 

[cowboy3500]

I would not even consider anything that had to do with turning your oil boiler to some type of wood burning appliance. I used a conventional outdoor wood boiler for 5 years. It was a hardy h4. I heat a 225 year old house in New Hampshire. I was going through 12/13 cords of wood per year. It was fine it first but I got tired of processing so much wood. I bought a heatmaster g200 last year which was expensive($9400). I can't say enough good things about it though. Ran 7-8 cords last year which is about 35-40% less wood and this was with wood only seasoned 6 months. I should decrease wood more this year with my over a year seasoned wood. I would certainly look for a wood gasification boiler. Your other option is a coal automatic stoker boiler. I would probably own one myself if I had found one on clist before I found my first hardy h4 outdoor boiler for $500.

Thanks for the response. This kind of user experience is exactly what I'm needing. I've been leaning toward the Central Boiler but I'm finding reviews from users where they rusted out in short order from the outside in due to Central spraying urethane right onto the bare metal of the boiler. This boiler looks to be in great shape and pretty new, the price is low enough that I'm suspecting the owner sees trouble and wants to get rid of it. (broken link removed to https://morgantown.craigslist.org/for/5687695078.html) So I'll keep looking. I'm dreaming of coming across a good outdoor gasifier used.

 

[cowboy3500]

Some questions....are you also heating the 3800 sf basement? Even if the answer is no you may want to contact AHS to see if the 100 is up to the task of the 3800 sf living space and a lot of glass. I would guess that is the upper limits of the E100 unless you are running with a large amount of storage although it is probably desirable have a smaller unit if not running with storage.

How is it that there is an old "unused" WG? How old is it? Is it SS? Can you check either of the boilers in question for pressure retention? We also considered a used boiler some time ago but there were just too many grey areas in the ones I looked at to pursue it.

Okay, that's exactly what I've been hoping to find out- how much heat the WG-100 actually throws. I'll be heating the basement to some extent, half of it is underground, but it will still suck heat I suppose. The owner says it was simply never installed but he won't say how old it is and I don't even know what years they were made. It isn't stainless- he's asking $4k
Thanks

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

I really would try looking into a anthracite coal auto stoker boiler. Head over to the nepacrossroads forum. They are all coal stoker boilers. I ran anthracite rice coal in a coal autostoker stove in my last house. I heated my 1500 sqft house on 3 tons of anthracite coal for the whole winter. My friend has a keystoker kaa4 auto stoker boiler . He loves it. Best thing about it is he loads the hopper once per week and the stoker does the rest.

 

[muncybob]

Coal stoker certainly does have it's perks...the hopper being the best. I also would consider coal stoker if you will need to buy your own firewood, if you have access and the time to go "free" firewood then maybe it's a toss up unless yuo want the absolute least expensive route which of course would be the wood option.
If the WG is not stainless then it is several years old as I believe AHS went 100% SS about 6 or so years ago? We have the E100SS and easily heat about 2200 sf. Heat loss from the unit itself heats our basement and the living area above it to some extent, but our basement is maybe 1/4 the size you have.
If indeed the 100 is not used and you can inspect it enough to be sure the steel is not rusted then $4k is a decent price. While AHS went SS, I have been in touch with people over the years that have run non SS units for 20 years or so. There is always a learning curve with any new boiler and it took me a complete heating season to get my unit to run the way I had hoped it would from day 1.

 

[maple1]

You need to decide on indoor vs. outdoor, for starters.

How much wood are you ready to get ready each year? An outdoor burner will burn more. Other stuff too, like proper underground piping is $10+/ft. Is the basement conducive to wood handling? There are also things to consider if using an unpressurized OWB with a pressurized distribution system - like heat exchangers. If you go OWB now without fully considering everything, you might be tieing yourself to more work each year than you are expecting. And they do make smoke out there.

Bottom line - don't just be looking at the boilers themselves. You need to live with whatever you get, well beyond just getting a boiler & installing it. It's the years afterwards that are most important, once you get that first fire lit.

(Also, by the sounds of it - I would not only forget about trying to convert the current oil unit, I would likely replace it all together with a new cold start oil boiler. Maybe before I did anything else).

 

[cowboy3500]

I really would try looking into a anthracite coal auto stoker boiler. Head over to the nepacrossroads forum. They are all coal stoker boilers. I ran anthracite rice coal in a coal autostoker stove in my last house. I heated my 1500 sqft house on 3 tons of anthracite coal for the whole winter. My friend has a keystoker kaa4 auto stoker boiler . He loves it. Best thing about it is he loads the hopper once per week and the stoker does the rest.

Thanks for that input. Read lots on nepacrossroads and thought about coal for a few days. The low maintenance aspect is very attractive but I found out that coal is rare here in VA, it's over $300/ton picked up in bulk which tipped the scale back in the favor of wood. Thanks though.

 

[cowboy3500]

Coal stoker certainly does have it's perks...the hopper being the best. I also would consider coal stoker if you will need to buy your own firewood, if you have access and the time to go "free" firewood then maybe it's a toss up unless yuo want the absolute least expensive route which of course would be the wood option.
If the WG is not stainless then it is several years old as I believe AHS went 100% SS about 6 or so years ago? We have the E100SS and easily heat about 2200 sf. Heat loss from the unit itself heats our basement and the living area above it to some extent, but our basement is maybe 1/4 the size you have.
If indeed the 100 is not used and you can inspect it enough to be sure the steel is not rusted then $4k is a decent price. While AHS went SS, I have been in touch with people over the years that have run non SS units for 20 years or so. There is always a learning curve with any new boiler and it took me a complete heating season to get my unit to run the way I had hoped it would from day 1.

Now that's great! real-life user info/success story on the Woodgun. I'll try to determine if the owner of the E-100 can tell me at all what age it is to try to determine whether it's SS or not. On the other hand, I've been looking at the Biasi 3wood line. They seem pretty attractive for several reasons. New price on the largest model is under $4k. They seem very simple- no electronics/manual controls, etc(less breakdown points hopefully. From what I've been able to tell it's not exactly a gasifier but about as efficient as you can get without having that 2k degree burn chamber(I get the idea that can create some maintenance issues, fireblocks/nozzles to replace every couple years). And the smoke goes up not down so hopefully it would smoke up the house less. I have found an almost new 3wood 5 model on CL for $1500 that is rated at 90k btu. If there are any 3wood users on here, I would be greatly obliged for any insight on this boiler. With extra storage could the 5 model hope to hold a fire for 8 hours in my 3800 sqft? Or is that not even worth considering?
On another note, thanks to all the input from you guys, I've given up on converting that old oil burner and probably saved many headaches and possibly my life- thanks! Also, I am planning on free wood- as in trailer loads of pine scraps from a truss factory so that's what my calculations are based on.

 

[leon]

That wood gun should have a identification plate welded to it
somewhere so I would look for it if your concerned about its age.