Outdoor Boiler Site Placement

[EZ]

We have had are Harder stainless steel for about 8 or 10 years(I cant really remember how long we have had it because I'm to old, I guess), but anyway we havent had any problems with it.
Spend the extra money and get a stainless. My brother has a non-stainless and has welded on it already, he's had it for 3 years.
EZ

[redpowerd]

norm the more you write the more i relize im in the same boat you are.  the links provided by corley and mark are very helpful. it would be nice to find one that burned waste oil for backup.

[Minnesota_boy]

Just to throw a monkey wrench into some of the discussion.  
I used a Central Boiler to heat my house for about 15 years.  I sitted it about 75 feet to the south of the house, because that was where I had the space for it    I put it inside a building in a room that was 10X24 and whne I opened the door to fill it, the smoke would fill the room.
I used 3/4'" copper lines in a box I made from 2" high density polystyrene with a 2" piece of that foam separating the 2 lines.  The pump I used was an older low flow rate unit that I bought used.  With baseboard radiators, I kept my 28X28, two story house plus basement at about 65 degrees when the outside temperature was -57 F.  When it warmed up to only -45, the indoor temperature came back to 72 like it should have been.

I buried the lines about 2 feet below the earth's surface, in an area where the frost line should have gone to 8 feet.  If we had a deeper snow, you could see the depression in it above the lines and the snow would melt off there about a week earlier than the rest of the yard.

This was an open system and had no rust inhibitor in it.  The bottom rusted through with a few pinholes in about 12 years, but with some welding I kept it going for  more winters before I finally decided I didn't want to keep fixing it and went to electric with propane backup.  

If I can heat my home in northern Minnesota with only wood heat with the above parameters, why can't you do likewise?  The only one that has chimed in that has more sever winters is Mark M. and then only because of the wind.  

[wiam]

Red     I have run the CB with only 4 feet of stack.  There will still be smoke.  

My dealer was very addamant about using CB brand rust inhibitor and CB also has you test nitrates and ph of water.  My dealer had me fill with conditioned water.  All piping is copper, brass or pex.  Electrolisis is kept to a minimum by dielectric couplings between boiler and copper pipes.

William

[ElectricAl]

Ok Norm,

The real draw back on stainless steel is the thermal conductivity

Stainless is (i forget) 10-15% less

Plus side is: It won't rust

We have 2 Heatmors because when we bought them they were the only ones around with stainless.

We know the Central dealer as well as the Heatmor dealer.

Several of each machines over here.

Heatmor uses 2lbs of pressure, and Central vents.

Don't like the Central's cast Iron door.
Heatmor has a water jacket in the door
Also Heatmor has a 1.5" bung for great GPM off muliple pumps.
Central has 2 separate 3/4" outlets. Little small for me.
Now on the plus side for Central, they have the heat baffles and a easier to clean flu,  flew,   flue.   Whatever!

A blower is a must if burning green wood regardless of who's machine.

You are pretty close to the Heatmor rep in Dysart
Central rep is 10 miles south of Cedar Rapids.


Want names and numbers ?

[Norm]

We talked to heatmor today, I like their unit also. Their warranty seems a little better but the proof is in the pudding so to speak. The CB unit is more expensive and the dealers close to us both are saying the price is the price. My guess is they are selling well this year because of high fuel prices so they are not wanting to dicker. I on the other hand think that their unit's too expensive, propane is not that high to justify the cost for replacing my furnace that's only a couple of years old. What to do..what to do.

Of course I know Gary's really wanting some pics of me lounging in my underwear, hate to dissapoint em.

[Bro. Noble]

We have a Taylor on the way.  Our Heating and AC guy has one himself and I trust him.  I don't know anything about them.  We have a heat pump with electric backup,  but will depend on the boiler when cold weather gets here.

How do the Taylors compare to the others?

[Gary_C]

I have also been looking for a outdoor wood burner and this is good information.

I know from years of experience with large boilers burning coal, No. 2 thru No. 6 fuel oil, and natural gas that stainless steel is not the answer to corrosion problems. None of the large boilers I was around used stainless, but used a good water treatment programs for corrosion. However those were all closed, pressurized systems. Welding stainless introduces new problems of brittle welds and impurities in the welds that reduce the corrosion resistance regardless of the grade. The best way to weld stainless is by Heliarc with a filler rod of the same grade but there are few companies that have the people or ability to Heliarc weld. Most are just using wire feed with a stainless gas mix.

I looked at a Central Boiler system north of Green Bay, WI last month and was impressed with the fuel oil backup system. You can operate with four different modes; fuel oil backup, timed fuel oil assist when it calls for heat, wood only, and fuel oil start. However when I looked into it further, it takes only No. 1 fuel oil and there is no forced draft fan. Plus it is very expensive.

A friend sells Woodmaster, but he also cuts, splits, and seasons all wood or he has some burning issues that I don't like.

I have heard good things about Taylor, but they are also one of the most expensive. With the big increases in steel prices, they are all going to get more expensive in the future.

Like Norm, I am not taking my clothes off yet. Keep the good information coming.

Gary

[CBRSLIDER]

Nice to see that I am not the only one laboring over this issue.  I have done research into the Taylor, Heatmor, CB, Eliminator, Mahoning, and Empyre.  I have eliminated the Taylor, Eliminator, Mahoning, and CB.  Two friends of mine have the Taylors and have been having problems with them.  Maintenance issues mostly but the one stove, less than a yr old, had the shaker grate break.  Real pain.  Eliminator and Mahoning are wood hogs and just about a direct vent for the chimeny straight up from the firebox.  The CB is a NICE unit but the salesman said that the warranty would be void if I burnt coal in it.  Plus the lack of an ash pan or clean out is puzzling.  AND the price is horrendous.  I am stuck between the Empyre and the Heatmor.  But have been having trouble chooseing between the two.

Both units are made of stainless steel.  I believe one is 409?(heatmor)  and the other is 3 something(Empyre),can't remember off hand the actual numbers.  But their literature on both says that one stainless is better than the other.  They each claim that their units are better against corrosion stress cracking and conductivity.  It is really tough to know who is telling the truth or is being more accurate in their claims.

The Heatmor is a cheaper unit than the Empyre and has some nice features.  Like the auger, water cooled door, and firebrick lined box.  But what is the story with the openings on both sides of the grate where the unit needs to be filled with sand?  I just don't understand that.  Then what are the chances of the hoses bursting or melting that go to the water cooled door?  Seems to be a risk to me.  But the unit seems to be very well made.  

The Empyre is a knock off of sorts on the CB.  Supposedly the owner of Empyre is a former classmate of the owner of CB and copied his design when he moved his operations to Canada.  The ripple top and baffle is nice, the water filled grates, and the modular designed shaker grate is appealing.  Plus the 20 year warranty is nice.  But the price is higher.  

The dilema I face is that the Empyre rep is about 25 miles closer than the Heatmor rep(75 milers away) and when it's saturday night in the dead of winter, which one of them is going to come out for a service call?  I have been leaning toward the Empyre mainly since the service is closer and because I can burn coal in it.

Now for the underground line, the Empyre/CB rep swears by the pvc style pipe that is wrapped with the hard insulation then coated with the hard black plastic coating.  It is something like $6 a foot.OUCH!!!!  But if your going to do it, no sense heating the ground with the wood that took all that hard work to accumulate.  

I plan to have my stove installed about 75' from my new home on the southeast side of the residence.  Just the best place for me to put mine.  

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I hope that my ramblings helped someone.  

Ray  

[EZ]

Gee, nobody has even said anything about the Hardy furnace that I got. I kinda feel left out in the out field.
Maybe my posts didnt show up, I take a look.

Yep, their on here.  
EZ
EZ
EZ
EZ

[redpowerd]

im afraid of the water jacketed door, seems like more to go wrong.
as for the sales lit., i cant beleive any. im pretty much basing my decision on my own research and opinions from you trustworthy ff members.

after this weddin stuff im going to compile a list of all stoves and make a simple checklist of features i like. price is a concern, but i dont want to settle on this large investment due to the fact its cheaper. plus im making wifey finance it

dealer location is somewhat of a concern.

just need time to sit and do some math and make some phone calls.

charmaster is another wood/combo boiler that relies on a larger holding tank

[jgoodhart]

Ok I'll mension Hardy, I had one and it liked it's wood to. I now have a souped up tubo charged Mahoning heating 2850 square foot house. Took a cuttin tourch to it and welded it back together so it made better use of the wood. Couldn't do that with the Hardy. I have been still working on getting it to burn the wood gases and have alittle bit of luck but I can make it sound like a steam engine running. As for servicing the units on a cold night, I keep spare parts here at the house coil for 120 vac to 24dc, aquastat, pump, damper opener and a blower that all there is to the dang things and in less than a 1/2 hour any part can be changed. The ony part I have had fail so far was the aquastat and it failed in the lets make some steam mode.

[beenthere]

jgoodhart
What do you mean by 'let's make some steam mode' ?     Doesn't the relief valve blow before you make steam?  If not, something bigger might blow, or is the 'boiler plate' heavy enough to build up some steam pressure?  

My smaller unit shuts the draft damper at about 180*, and the temp may coast up a bit, but not much. Not sure just now what the relief valve is set at. There are a couple in the system.

My unit has been running since 1978, and never rusted out. Adding fresh water to the system without immediately heating it to 'de-gas' the water will cause rust. Automatic filler valves are the worst culprit.  I have a manual valve, so I make sure I don't add fresh water to the system without firing it right away. Have not had to fix a leak in 25 years.  My unit heats a two level home of 2100 ft sq even down to -20* (if not too windy). It has a 9 gal water jacket and functions well on 3 fillings of wood a day. Can't find one like it anymore. Have all gone to outside water systems, I am told, because the inside units have to meet steam boiler codes (makes them too expensive).

[redpowerd]

jgoodhart- how about hooking up a train whistle to the top so you know when its overfiring? hey, why not get some sheet metal and make it look like a big tea pot?

think you could get one to run a steam driven turbine to turn a generator? that would be REALLY neat. you might not want that hot of water running into your house, but making power with wood is something ive allways wonderd about. seeing as theres so much of it.

[jgoodhart]

Steam mode is when the control that shuts the stove off at operating temp failed and the stove just stays running getting hotter and hotter till it starts pushing out steam. The Mahoning I have has a platic plug that pops up if you build pressure in the boiler and it relieves the pressure so things don't fly apart. It lost about 50 gallons of  water till I came home from work and seen it. I got the stove used for next to nothing and it didn't have a over temp. shut down on it and since I have worked on it the burn temp is well over 1000 F in the fire box. Not sure how much over a 1000 it is because my metter only goes to 999F than goes blank. I have looked at specs on Tarm boiler thay burn off wood gas and they run at 1800 to 2000 deg F. There are abunch of BTU to be gained by burning the gas that comes off the wood when it is burned. I havn't seen Tarm boiler mensioned in this post but they are impressive on how they operate, a friend had a vidio on them, but there system as whole stinks in my opinion.

[Mark M]

The insulated pipe they sell is really convenient but the price is crazy. In both the installations I've done we used 2" Styrofoam glued together to make a box. In the one in Minnesota we also ran some 1.5 inch black plastic pipe up to my moms trailer that was about 300 feet away. For first 100 feet it was between the boiler lines and there was a little heat transfer. Mom always said she really like having a heated toilet! For pipe I use 1" Pex-Al-Pex which has an aluminum core to prevent oxygen permeation. Oxygen is the death of iron boilers and is one of the reason stainless is being used. In pressurized systems it isn't a problem because the oxygen comes out of the water when it is heated. As long as no oxygen can enter the system no corrosion takes place.

As for a water jacket door my Aquatherm had that and there were no problems. After 10 years the hoses were still in good shape and there were no leaks.

One word of wisdom for those who haven't used one of these boilers before: don't turn up the aquastat too much at one time. When I first fired my Aquatherm I had it set to about 140 just to test it out. The stove was full of some old boards that were pretty dry. Everything seemed to be working fine so I decided to set it at 180 and go into the house. I looked out a few minutes later and saw a blue flame shooting about 10 feet out of the stack! The draft blower was trying it's best to get the boiler up to temp! It look just like a jet engine and sounded like one too.

Mark

[Buzz-sawyer]

Hey Mark
It is apperent you have  looked at most all the angles to these systems, so I wonder about anti freeze in the lines to inhibit rust, and prevent catastrophe in even of shut down..............
Why do think it is a good or bad idea.

P.S I have a propane powered boiler suitable for 2000 feet or so I am thinking of converting to wood/propane..so I find this all very interesting and educational ..thanks all

[redpowerd]

heres a list ive come up with, sitting here for an hour, not chopping corn

Aqua-Therm
AHS, INC.
Central Boiler
Charmaster
Eliminator
Empyre
Free Heat Machine
Hardy
Heatmor
Johnson
Mahoning
Pacific Western
Tarm
Taylor

i think the only one i found not mentioned earlier was pacific western!

if anyone dosent see a stove they know or heard of please let me know so i can add it to my list. thanks so much for the help guys,
i really need to get busy fillin' the silo.

[Mark M]

HI Buzz

I used automotive antifreeze in my system in MN and it worked well. Usually antifreeze only has a life of about 2 years in automotive cooling systems but this has been in use for about 12 years. The key is the exclusion of oxygen which when present oxidizes the glycol to form several organic acids, all of which lower the pH and cause corrosion. Most boiler manufacturers recommended using propylene glycol, I think mainly due to its toxicity. I used cheap ethylene glycol from K-mart and it worked just fine. Here is a pretty good link to some info on using Glycol.

I didn't re-read this article but there are some down sides to using glycol. It is a little harder to pump and it doesn't transfer heat as well as plain water. Also if you put glycol in a old system is can sometimes clean up the pipe and show you leaks you didn't have. I didn't use it for this reason but if I was did I would mix it at about 30 percent. This will give good freeze protection and you probably won't have to worry about head and radiator size corrections. For most systems that run a water to air or other heat exchanger you probably don't have to worry about these things anyway, I think it becomes more of a factor if you have a dozen cast-iron radiators in a 3 story house (like me).

For open or non-pressurized system you should use a corrosion inhibitor additive. Most automotive antifreeze probably doesn't have enough of the necessary additives. Diesel engine antifreeze does have nitrite that will provide iron corrosion protection. I think a hotwater boiler system is pretty similar to a diesel engine cooling system and should function well if maintained as such. I think that article does a pretty good job of discussing additives. This is another reason to lean towards a pressurized or closed system (as you can tell I am a little biased).

The thing I would like to know is can we use RV propylene glycol that is about $1.50 a gallon at Menards? The special boiler blend is over $5.00 a gallon and I would go broke filling my whole system. Another option that I considered is using a flat-tube brazed-plate water to water heat exchanger and use glycol in the outside circuit and water in the house. These are expensive units that require strainers to keep them clean but it is another option.

You mentioned the propane boiler, I used one of those for a backup and it worked well. If you need some ideas on how to hook it up I'll be glad to share what I know.

Good luck

Mark

PS - I forgot to mention - don't use glycol in systems with galvanized pipe. The zinc coating can react with the glycol to form sludge.

[Buzz-sawyer]

Mark
(have you S.Peterson?)
I was wondering if RV propylene glycol that is about $1.50 a gallon at Menards would hold up to the various variables heat, electric, so on, also.
What I have been mulling is simple building a steel fire box under the propaneboiler and using the propanne for back up ...if not that simply converting to wood fired......the boiler is way heavy built and I cant see why it wouldnt work???