Outdoor Boiler Site Placement

[Norm]

We are buying a Central Boiler Classic CL 5648 outdoor furnace to heat our house and a pole barn in the future. I got the heat exchanger that goes with our forced air furnace.

How far away from our house should we install it? I have an excavator so trenching is not an issue, I don't want to lose too much heat through the pipe loss either. Any other tips about installing one from those of you that have done it yourselves would sure be appreciated.

[redpowerd]

this is a question i have too, as ill be putting one in hopefully before winter

how did you decide on that boiler, norm? im really having a hard time deciding on what to get.

[dewwood]

Norm,

Where you place your furnace in relation to your house considering your prevailing winds is more important than how far away.  Mine is 150' from the house and almost 200' from the shop and the heat loss is very minimal not really a consideration.  But they do smoke at times so placement from your home is something I would give much consideration.  You probably do not want it too close that could be a problem, I placed mine on the northeast quadrant of our building layout and so far it has worked pretty well as our prevailing winds are from the west southwest.

They do a good job and make an excellent place to go with my slabwood, I told the LP man to give me a summer fill and I would call him when and if I needed more gas.  I do not think we will because I burned ours all summer for our hot water so we have not been using any gas.

Best of luck!

Dewey

[Norm]

Thanks Dewey, I was wondering the same myself about the smoke. I'm one of those foks that sleep with a window open hot or cold (drives Patty nuts) so not smelling it would be nice. Of course with 12,000 piggers just a half mile away it'd have to compete with them.

Jon I read all I could on the archives here and other places. I just felt the way CB were built and designed was best for me. Well that and they're located almost next door in MN, I like to do business as local as I can.

[Brad_S.]

Norm-
I have a Taylor that I installed the piping to but had a factory rep connect to our gas boiler, radiant heat system. I basically put the stove in the most convient place, which is 110' from the house, with another 20' running in the basement to the gas boiler. The location is out of sight of the road and has a stone drive right up to it. I cut my  wood at my shop by holding slab bundles over my truck and letting the pieces fall in, then backing up to the stove at home and dumping them. That is what made that spot convient. I used a vinyl tubing made for these systems (I forget the name) and wrapped it with that foam insulation you buy at any hardware store. I put 2 of those assemblies  (feed and return) and a 12 guage wire inside of a 4" flexible drainage pipe. That was the hardest part of the process. I didn't bury it because I thought we would move soon, but we haven't. Been that way for 4 years now. I'm sure I loose some heat, but it has been a nonfactor so far, and last winter was cold.

[EZ]

As far as how far away from your house depends on you and the manufactural. I moved mine once cause it was to far from the house.   I fill mine once a day, in the evening before I come in from outside and sometimes I would forget and have to go out in the dark and fill it, so I move it closer so the boogy man dont get me.
Like Dewwood said they do smoke at times, I didnt worry to much about where to put it as far as the wind dirrection. We have this crazy down draft that it doesnt matter were you stand the smoke will get ya.
We burn wood and coal in it so thats why it will last 24 hours.
We use to burn only wood until my wife went out to throw some wood in it and smast her thumb pretty good.  
This is all we heat with and I really like it.
The only bad thing I can say about it is I wish I would have bought one 25 years ago.
EZ

[redpowerd]

i tried to search out the outdoor boiler thread that was here last year, but came up blank. really need to get moving on putting a system in the cabin, heating 3000 square feet with a fisher and passive solar aint gunna cut it again this year! last year with the 35 below and the wind, i could barely keep the house above freezing.

hey brad, did ya notice any snowmelt around them pipes? what made you decide on a taylor? i have also been thinking of corn stoves. the combine is easier to run than the chainsaw.

[Brad_S.]

Snow may cover the pipe for a while, but yes, it does melt away and clears the ground around  it. Grass even grows a little in the middle of winter. I just throw more slabs in. Water still enters the house close to the 180 degrees the stove is set for, and those radiator pipes really creak when the pumps turn on.

I didn't really "choose" a Taylor. I kept driving by a house and saw the stove surrounded by weeds for at least a year. I finally stopped in and offered the guy $300 for it. He said he'd give me $200 back if I got the g(osh) d(arn) thing out of there.    Tried the same trick again else where later and got another for $500. Was going to run kilns off it, but went with de-hu instead, so I sold it for $800. Both of us were happy!

[ElectricAl]

Norm,

Straight east of the house. An actual east wind is rare and short term. SE is a different story.

The real question is where are you going to build the new shop?

Dewwood is correct about heat loss if tubing is installed correctly.

Are you dealing with Glenn Teadimen?

[redpowerd]

norm, i trust your judgement and have been leaning twords a CB for a while. they offer the firebox alone without the building, and im thinking of installing it in my shop. gunna have to heat it anyway. i cant wait to use this fisher for astetics only!

im getting cold just typing about stoves

[wiam]

Red
I have had a CB for about 7 years.  I would NOT put one inside a building.  When the door is open there is a lot of smoke that comes out.

I have had no problems with this boiler,  but the dealer that I bought mine from has switched brands because of problems with the newer version with the circulator on the boiler.  He told me that there is no problem heating one building but heating more than one is a problem.

I installed my own like the dealer suggested.  I put in a 10 inch ads pipe(black plastic culvert).  Inside of this there are 2-1.5 inch copper pipes with the heavy duty insulation on each one.  The electric wire is inside the culvert also.

Mine is only 20 feet from the house and with 15 feet of stack, it is rare to have smoke in the house.

William

[jgoodhart]

I would suggest getting a boiler that is multi fuel type. I burn wood most of the time and coal in the dead of winter. I haven't done it yet ( going to someday ) put the oil burner in it so I'm not married to the boiler all winter, if I get home late the water will still be hot and the house warm, just need to restart a fire. bury your pipes below the frost line for you area and insulate them good, I don't think it's possible to insulate them that the snow don't melt off. Smoke can be a real pain on them days the air just ain't movin it out of here. The name for the ployethalene pipe is PEX, save yourself the trouble just buy the crimpers up front for the pipe because you will have the boiler hooked to every dang thing buy the time your done. Heated concrete floor in the garage is a good thing  

[redpowerd]

hey william, do you think your smoking problem may be the 15' smokestack? actually this is made to go inside a building, and if you have to fuel it once or twice a day, how much smoke would she have to belch to fill a building with 3 large overhead doors?

is the problem with the circulator is that it is too small? if the stove is rated to heat 5,000 sqft, it better have a pump to get the heat to that much space. i can see how radiant heat could strain a system more than the forced air.

it will have to be a few years before i can get the pipes under the frost, but my basement and shop both have an entrance for pipes under frost.

[Corley5]

http://www.northlanddistrib.com/royal.html
This is the stove that I've settled on as best meeting my criteria.  Shaker grates was the biggest selling point along with the 20 year warranty.  The insulation factor was also key and it has been upped to R-50 in the roof and R-30 in the sidewalls.  I have a 16'X16' pole barn wood shed that the furnace is going to be partly installed in.  Partly being about six inches of the business end so I can fill it etc. inside out of the elements.  I should have my firewood finished by this coming weekend and hope to get the stove set the next with any luck.  The big job will be installing the hot water baseboards in the house but they can wait until the stove is set.  I've never had any heat other than a woodstove with a blower before this so this is gonna be really nice.  No more mess in the house and free hot water  Here's a good link about things to consider when buying an outdoor furnace.
http://www.outdoorwoodfurnaces.org/guide.html

[Mark M]

Norm

I am in the process of installing a wood boiler too. Mine is in the garage so it isn't an outside boiler. I have learned a couple of things that you might want to consider and these deal with the size of the pipe and circulator. I'm doing this from memory as my books are at work but I'll check tomorrow and correct any errors.

1" pipe works well for flows up to about 8 gpm
1.25 for 14 gpm
1.5  for 22 gpm
2" for 45 gpm

You should figure 1 gpm flow for every 10,000 BTU so if you have a 150,000 but boiler you will need 15 gpm of flow. The pump manufacturer's have charts that show the flow as a function of head. Figure 6 feet of head for every 100 feet of pipe. I'm using Taco 007's and 2 1" Pex-Al-Pex tubings going each way so I have 16 gpm capacity. They are in a box made of 2" styrofoam insulation.

For a unpressurized system you should use a bronze body pump as iron will corrode quickly. Barrier tubing is required for pressurized systems but not for open systems.

If you want some really good info go to http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm and read some of the articles. This Dan Holohan writes some really good books, I can recommend: How Come? Hydronic heating questions we've been asking for 100 years (with straight answers!), Primary-Secondary Pumping Made Easy!, and Pumping Away and other really cool piping options for hydronic systems.

I'm am plumbing mine as a primary-secondary configuration with the primary pump on the hot side after the expansion tank. Most systems have the circulator on the return side but there are some very good reasons to put it on the supply side pumping away from the expansion tank.

Hope this helps

Mark.

[Norm]

Great information folks! Thanks for all the links and tips for do it yourselfer's, I'm going to install it myself. The price on these darn things have gone up a bunch in the last couple of years, but the thought of not wearing long underwear and two sweatshirts to keep warm in the house during the winter has me biting the bullet. Last time I was warm during the winter was when my grandma was still alive. She kept her house at something like 90 degrees. After I get this thing hooked up I'll post pics of me lounging around in my underwear.  

Well maybe if you all kick in a few bucks for the install I'll refrain.

[Gary_C]

Norm

You think we should pay so you would not look foolish "lounging around in your underwear?"

I see the Central Boiler unit you are going to buy does not have the forced draft that is strongly recommended. Is this not as much a problem as is stated in the references?

Gary

[Norm]

I'm not married to central boiler so if anyone feels that there's a better model out there please feel free to say so. Patty called and spoke with the folks at northland that corley spoke of. Their price is less than CB and they have some nice features as well. One of the things that made me kind of hesitant about the CB dealers were they all said to not buy the stainless steel model but could not give me a good reason why. Northland uses a high grade SS as do some of the others.

Geez this is turning out to be harder making up my mind what to do than I expected, haven't sent any money out yet so back to my homework.

[Mark M]

Norm

If you have a choice I would go with a pressurized system for the simple fact that they are much less prone to corrosion. When air can enter the system some serious corrosion can take place in a hurry so it is necessary to use and maintain corrosion inhibitor. If you don't have any iron in the system then this isn't an issue.

We had an Aqua-therm unit when we lived in Minnesota and it is still going strong after 12 years. My new boiler is a Alternative Heating System wood gasification unit that is supposed to be very efficient. I don't know how well it works since it hasn't been fired but it is a stainless unit and very well built.

CB has some really good information but whenever I talked to the salesmen at their HQ they were smart-asses who seemed too busy to help with my questions and they pithed me off. From reading the literature of other manufactures I seem to remember something about certain types of stainless cracking. With a pressurized system you should not have the corrosion problem that makes stainless more desirable.

Here is the link to Aqua-Therm

Here is the link to AHS

Good luck

Mark

[dewwood]

Norm,

A couple of things I did not mention earlier:  when I said I have very little heat loss I did not mention that I used a product called LogStor which is a fully enclosed plastic pipe with the water lines fully encased in foam insulatin and separated from one another.  It also has a tough outer layer of plastic to protect it.  

I have a Heatmor furnace primarily because it is stainless(of which there are different grades) and it has grates so the ash clean out is below the fire chamber.  I don't have to dig the ashes out  of the fire box.  Depending on how sophisticated your system is going to be, I would do some checking with someone who has installed some of these units before and has some experience with them.  Little things can make a big difference in performance.

Dewey