Out door boilers, distance to the house

[Quartlow]

How far are some of you pipping water to get to the house?

Ohio's new laws say we have to be 150 feet from a building, other wise the stack has to be 5 feet higher than the highest peak within 150 feet. I got luck in one aspect. from my boiler to the cousins house is 150 feet 2 inches. Good thing since mine is down hill from his house and its an old two story farm house.  I would have probably needed 50 feet of stack

[farmerdoug]

Mine is about 150 feet because I heat my greenhouses and have much more pipe going into them. :

[Dave Shepard]

I know someone who put one about 10 feet from his house, that PEX tubing isn't cheap you know. :D I haven't heard how well he likes it there yet. A lot of towns are really cracking down on the outdoor boilers around here. People are burning too much junk in them. I don't think people realize how inefficient they become if you don't use good dry fuel. What is the longest practical distance to pipe hot water with these things? We would like one to do the barn and house, but it is probably close to 200 feet from the barn to the house, and under a road. I think we could probably get the road bored at a decent price. We are spending something like $800-900 for hot water per month on the barn alone. (Thankfully we only have one hot water heater now, not two like before. )


Dave

[ronwood]

Dave,

I have it running about 190 ft. to my shop in one direction and 120 ft. to my house. Two different runs.

Ron

[wls]

the run to my house is about 75', plus 30' thru the crawl space, other run to my shop is about 33'

[thecfarm]

Maine is looking into a similar law.I still feel it depends on what you are burning for wood.I am burning some wood that has been drying for more than a year now.Produces ALOT less smoke than when I cut the wood in the morning and burn it the same day.I feel that if you dried the wood under cover,like you should for a regular wood stove,it cuts down a lot on smoke.I have been expermenting with differant kinds of hardwood,dry,green and have not noticed much if any differance in how much wood it takes.It might also matter on what kind of ODF you have too.I have heard how much more wood they take than a wood stove by a large amount.I don't agree.The way mine is set up I'm very happy with.I feel I have alot more control over how much my ODF burns for wood than I ever have with any stove I had,or my wood boiler I had in my other house.Mine is about 30 feet from the house.

[Dana]

Dave, when were you at my house? :D I putten feet from the house only because we were going to be moving to our farm the next year and I didn't want to waste the whole roll of pex. That was 3 or 4 years ago. :

Make sure that the chimney far enough from the house that you won't combust the roof or siding. I once had a fire that looked like a blow torch rising 8' above the end of the stack. The stack is 10' high.

[Engineer]

Mine has 80 feet of PEX to the house, but it's probably only about 45 feet direct from the nearest part of the house to the boiler.  We have pretty strict regs here too, but I got mine installed before they went into effect.   I don't think I could install one now.   Smoke doesn't seem to be a problem, I burn the dryest stuff I can find, I keep my "active" pile covered with a tarp (that's one month worth, about a cord, stacked right next to the boiler).  Once in a while I will smell some smoke in the house that comes in through the air exchanger but only on a day where the wind is coming out of the east.  The PEX is definitely expensive so if you can avoid the long runs you'll be better off.  Key is to find out which direction the prevailing winds are coming from and place your bioler on the opposite side of the house.  In my case, the prevailing wind is from the southwest, so my boiler is off the southeast corner of the house.  We rarely smell smoke or get it blowing back toward the house.

[ohsoloco]

The past few months I've read about several municipalities that have banned outdoor wood boilers, Bellefonte Borough being one of them.  According to the article, there is only one in the borough now.  I guess a lot of places are afraid of a big jump in the number of them since fuel oil is so high now.

[Dave Shepard]

No straight shot to the house Engineer? You couldn't possibly have any rocks in Vermont : : :D

I hear an old tire once a year really cleans out the ol' wood boiler, not sure I'd try it. Lot's of btus in one though.


Dave