About to buy an outdoor wood furnace... advice?

[thecfarm]

Not much to look at,but a couple wanted pictures.Here's one coming through the cellar wall

 

I used expandable foam to seal all around the pipes and inside of them too.Then I used hyd cement on the outside to give that a good seal.Tared around the outside edge and all over it too,just to make sure.


This one is of the heat exchanger.No more than a radaitor with a fan behind it really.This is rated for 86000.Has been nice and warm in the cellar.Have one the same size in the garage.Have to get that insulated before I can heat it.
I also have a heat exchanger put into my forced air hot duct work with no fan to heat the house.I use the fan on my oil furnace as the fan.Works good,we are warm.


 

[thecfarm]

This is the view of the back of the furnace,


 


I left an extra zone when and if I get my garage.

[thecfarm]

I mentioned about building 3 trailers.I only have one done.Will be building the other 2 later.


 


I need another one just like this one and than one to haul any wood that will be split.This trailer is about 10 feet long from post to post and will hold almost a cord.Any big wood on the trailer has been cut 2 foot.The small wood is all 4 foot.I used a ½ ton truck axle,$50 and a trailer jack $20.I need tubes in the tires,$10 each.All metal I got from work that was being thrown away.It will be painted too.I park this beside the furnace and remove the wood as needed to fill it.I want one on each side of the furnace.When one is emptyed I will still have one full on the other side.

[SPIKER]

 
great idea having two trailers for the wood to set on!

around here ya can get the old mobile home axles for dang near free, old truck axles would be same.   would work great to put the wood on in the woods and pull home & park by burner.  I think I might end up doing just that    

I have the in floor feeder circuit tubing run now and waiting to get the concrete done until spring again.   will do it this year for sure just need to get all my ducks in a row.   I'm still debating what thickness of styro-foam under the crete I already have the foil reflective insulation on-hand but want to add foam boards too as it may be overkill but ya can only put the floor in once HOPEFULLY ......   Once I get that all figured out I'll have to make up my headers for # of in-floor circuits I'll need and will also add extras for hot water and upstairs forced air or baseboard, not sure which will be best.  I don't think the in-floor for wood floor is worth while on the 2nd floor so will add a propane fired forced air furnace with A coil for AC and an extra hot water coil for primary heating & the propane will be for backup.

I'm also thinking I might add some solar to the south side after reading some posts about it here & at TBN site

mark M

[Corley5]

A couple pics of my new boiler.  It's a warranty replacement.  My original one began leaking at the seams because mild steel wire was used to weld the stainless steel.  The manufacturer paid for the 1st repairs and after the second round of leaks agreed to replace the stove but they wanted to replace it with a reconditioned one.  I've heard bad things about rewelded stainless and I already had a leaking piece of scrap.  The new one cost me half of what a new would have plus my old one as a trade.  I'm pleased with my new stove it's better than the old one ever was.  It's also a Heat Master SS rather the Crown Royal brand that the old one was.  The manufacturer replaced the stove as the distibutor of the old stove wouldn't even talk to me    They still sell Crown Royal Stoves but they are manufactured by someone else.  It's been a real run around the last 6 months getting this done 

[analog kid]

Getting ready to install a Central Boiler, and I have a question.  I don't plan on running it during the summer, so should I leave the water in it over the summer?  Is it better for the unit to drain it when you're not using it for a season, or to leave the water in?

[blueox]

We were investigating Outdoor furnaces. We have a friend pushing us towards Woodmaster, but reading this thread not one of you mentioned Woodmaster...why??

Thanks Laurel

[SPIKER]

Blue Ox:

don't worry too much, about SPECIFIC models and or name brands.  looks for specific parts that are the same universally and or upgrades that you would awnt, items such as material it is made of

1.   "S.S 304 vs Boiler Plate construction" (NOT 404) if it is 404 then stick with Boiler Plate 404 is prone to heat induced cracking when there is a high degree of hot/cold on one side or the other)

2.   "Force Fed Blower"
3.   "Large Door Opening"
4.   "Large Water capacity" (some claim that they burn very hot & have no smoke usually this means that you have to have an external holding tank for a high volume of water this is good and bad less smoke is good having to buy extra tank is bad)

5.   "Water Cooled Door" (not a major plus but will save heat loss at the door and may prevent some warping 2nd best is cast iron door less warping and hardy lower cost no hoses to worry about)

6.   "Auger or Ash Pan" are upgrades usually some say good some say bad I haven't made up my mind on this one but thinking towards ash collection will be easier in long run? )

7. "Basic Size of Burner/Wood Holding capacity"  larger is better if you are burning wet stuff vs dry stuff and able to load larger amount but mostly depends on size of place you are heating...  Also effect burn times, (TARM has small holding capacity and very little water holding but is very efficient vs normal types.) 

8.   Price compare apples to apples, and dealer location is probably MORE important than actual NAME BRANDS.  this said look in close (less than 100 miles) for what you think you want then start looking at what is offered locally <25 miles.   then tell them you want something that will heat this size Sq Ft with XXXX heating capacity & see what they have to offer.

hope that helps

P.S. feel free for anyone to add to my (off the top of my head) list..


mark

[Engineer]

Going off on a tangent here.

Occasionally I have access to a lot of free pallets.  I use many of them to store my firewood on, but occasionally one breaks or gets rotten enough that I want to burn it.  It is a hassle to tear them apart and try to remove all the nails, so I hack them up enough to fit in the wood boiler and then worry about the nails later.

Well, I spent a recent Sunday hand-sorting through about 60 gallons of cold ashes, picking out nails, staples and all kinds of other bits of metal (plus some rocks) that managed to make it into the firebox.  There has GOT to be a better way.  If any of you burn pallets, do you take them apart?  How do you separate the nails?  I'd like to think that a magnet would work but it would still involve sifting through all the ash, no?

[Dan_Shade]

tossing some water on the ashes makes the metal easy to find....

[Radar67]

What do you do with the ashes? Seems to me if you used them for soil improvement or just dumped them in your woods, the nails would rust eventually into nothing.

[Engineer]

I put some of them in my compost, although I try to limit the amount.  That's where I don't want the nails.  The rest I'll dump in the woods or bury them, I know they'll rust away eventually (most of them) there's always the galvanized ones that seem to last forever.  I just don't want my tractor tires to become pincushions as a result of carelessness with the nails.  The last batch I mentioned, I took 10-15 pounds of nails and screws and staples out of the ashes, and I bet I missed a few.

[Radar67]

I use a sifter (designed for gardening) to run my compost through. You could use something like window screen or 1/8 inch hardware cloth to make a screen for the ashes. Should seperate the nails fairly easy.

[stonebroke]

Go down to tractor supply and buy a magnet on a stick. These are meant for picking up metal in a driveway but it wokrks pretty good in ashes too.

Stonebroke

[SPIKER]

we used to burn pallets as well, same problem, what we ended up doing was to use the water and good magnet method.   pour water through the ashes (while they are held into a bucket/barrel and mix into a slurry, left over wood parts will float and ashes metal sink, use the magnet to pull the metal out of the bottom of the slurry while mixing it up.   it needs to be thin enough to let the metal separate easily...   then once you think you have it all out pour watery part off into compost then the last bit where rocks/junk may still be can be dumped else where...

also we broke them down using a big spud bar with a horse shoe type part welded on end simply put the bar on the lower nailer and slide the U under the board & pry up pops board off fast leaving the nails usually in the nailer which you can burn and or remove the nails or

Mark

[thecfarm]

Spiker,sounds alot like a Heatmor.Really comes right down to dealer.I have a Heatmor dealer and another just about the same distance away.I did not like the other guy at all.I spent almost $8000 on that thing.I ask questions,I expect answers and no BS either.Don't run down all the other guys either.I went to quite a few shows and saw and spoke to alot of the dealers.The Heatmor is a very simple set up without a lot of fancy readouts and controlers.If I have trouble with mine I can go to the hardware store and buy what I need except for the 2 blowers,but I doubt both would go at the same time.One would get me by.And the circulators.I like things simple with as few moving parts as possible.The dealer I got mine from was great.Answered my questions for 3-4 years before I bought.Something about all the others I just did not care about.Just about like husky and stihl.They all get the job done.The Heatmor I saw in use too.That really helped out alot.I also spoke to a few people that had them too.

[SPIKER]

I posted above about ashes and water, also we did it in more smaller batches not the 60lbs someone mentioned!   we usually did it for not only removing metal but also putting out any embers that may have been in the bucket...   usually was done in 5 gallon plastic bucket, yes there were some holes but we had a lot of buckets, I have two brothers that do drywall    BUT the water & ashes will set up pretty fast like concrete so rise out anything that has the water slurry mix in there.  you can over flow the bucket with water while stirring as well to remove a lot of the ash/wood /charcoal chunks. also I used a old car speaker magnet screwed to a 2x2...   once satisfied it was mostly free of metal the bucket was dumped of wet stuff with some goo left in bottom. 

mark

[OneWithWood]

Getting ready to install a Central Boiler, and I have a question.  I don't plan on running it during the summer, so should I leave the water in it over the summer?  Is it better for the unit to drain it when you're not using it for a season, or to leave the water in?

Use the water treatment that comes with the unit and leave the water in.