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Thread: Wood-fired boilers

  1. #1
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Wood-fired boilers

    So I was to the Pennsylvania Farm Show this weekend, and I was looking at some interesting things like saw mills and alternate heating devices, some of which were wood-fired boilers and furnaces. The ones that really got my attention were the multi-fuel models, particularly the oil/wood boilers. I knew of the outdoor style wood boilers, but little about them. At the show I had the opportunity to do some comparisons. There are two that I like. One is the Mahoning Outdoor Furnaces wood/oil boiler, and the other is Benjamin Heating Products indoor wood/oil boiler.

    The smallest Mahoning was like $5000, but was jacketed in stainless steel and had a HUGE firebox with a huge loading door too. It also had a massive ash pan and door. This is a serious boiler, and probably WAY more than I need.

    The Benjamin I wasn't able to get a price on, but "should be" quite a bit less. It takes up much less space, has a closed loop domestic hot water coil, though a much smaller firebox, but it isn't grated. From what I've been told, non grated is good because when loading a grated version with more wood, you would knock most your ash, and the fire along with it, into the ash pan. At the same time, I see a negative of having to stop the wood burn the clean out once in a while.

    The key factor I was contemplating was the oil burner, and if it could be run on WVO. You already have the advantage of the boiler to preheat the oil, so . . . . .

    Has anyone ever attempted to feed WVO to a Beckett burner before? Can it be done?

    I'll tell ya, this would be a slick setup if you could. Heat your home and get your hot water with a practically free fuel source.

    Info links to these furnaces:
    http://www.benjaminheating.com/cc500_series.htm
    http://www.mahoningoutdoorfurnaces.com/morinf.htm

  2. #2

    Wood-fired boilers

    I saw this at the Seattle Home Show last year, several sizes were available. I would burn anything! Had gas/propane/electric backup, and a large water mass to absorb fast fires. Pretty cool - you go first!

    http://www.beselfreliant.com/heating/index.cfm

    Greg

  3. #3
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Wood-fired boilers

    Thats an impressive unit, but I bet it's pricey too. I'm wondering what amount of wood (or whatever fuel) is required to heat and maintain that much water.

    That Benjamin CC500 unit is starting to become really appealing the more I read about it. (not that finding information about it on the net has been easy) Even though the firebox is smallish, and it's only 40 gallons of water, so if it's well insulated, I'd guess that it wouldn't take as much heat to maintain temperature, compared to a large unit of say 200-300 gallons, with much larger surface areas of water jacket. Also, a big outdoor unit will have to deal with an additional 40 degree average winter temperature differential, compare to an indoor unit. At the same time I have to consider shock temperatures of a small capacity unit, verses a large capacity unit which have the ability to absorb the cold return water when calling for heat. Currenty though, I'm in a house with an oil boiler of similar small size, and it works exceptionally well. If real log homes are as efficient as Skips, would I even need to have a monster unit capable of heating the house, pool, hot tub, garage, walkways, driveway, etc, etc, etc? I don't want to have to be stoking an entire tree just so I can have manly amount of heat for the entire neighborhood. I only need to heat my 35x35 log home, and supply my hot water, so the little Benjamin has drawn my desire. The price (which I still haven't received) will be a determining factor though. It seems all too often these "alternative" units cost way more than they should, simply because the dealer is just trying to bilk every dollar they can out of the consumer looking to find a new way to lower cost heating. :evil:

  4. #4

    oil

    If the company wants too much for a woodburning stove and you want to use wvo anyway why not put a conventional oil furnace and run it off wvo. just make sure that you can get your hands on the amount of oil that you will need

  5. #5
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Wood-fired boilers

    Yup Cheam, getting that much WVO was one of the concerns I had with a fully dedicated setup. That's why this dual fuel boiler has my attention.

    I got to get an old used burner assembly and start experimenting. I have a feeling a lot of it comes down to the right nozzle and air band setting. (oh yea . . . . and warmed, thinned oil)

  6. #6
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Wood-fired boilers

    Dag gum it all!!!! :evil: I finally found a website willing to tell me what a Benjamin sells for, and naturally, it's just as I feared. The MSRP for it is . . . . . ya ready for it . . . . . $8000!!!!! :shock: What the heck?!?! I can get a similar sized conventional oil or gas boiler for $1000. It's just like I said earlier that they will bilk you for whatever they can get. :evil: :evil: :evil: I was thinking, "OK, I'd be willing to go 2500, maybe 3000 tops." Ha, jokes on me.

    Dang it. OK. I got some rethinking to do.

  7. #7

    Wood-fired boilers

    man that is steep, I was looking at a high efficiency gas furnace this month and they wanted 6500 for it. with prices like that I am leaning towards having a conventional wood stove in my living room, especially with firewood cutting permits running about $2.00 a pickup load.

  8. #8

    Wood-fired boilers

    Can the multi-fuel units use waste motor oil? Now that would really be neat. Most service stations are paying for the removal of the oil as do resturants for their wvo. Chris.

  9. #9
    LHBA Member rreidnauer's Avatar
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    Wood-fired boilers

    I wired a waste motor oil burning, hot-air heater for a garage once. It wasn't the prettiest thing. Simply hung from the ceiling, typical of a small commercial/industrial heater. It wasn't very clean either. A quick web search shows there are boilers available too. I also know Mahoning (mentioned at the beginning of this thread) makes a waste oil boiler, though, I don't know if that meant motor oil or cooking oil.

    I also just found out that Mahoning makes one size smaller than what I thought was their smallest, so I'm looking into prices for that. (and if it's dual fuel) I'd just like to have a dual fuel boiler for any and all circumstances.

  10. #10

    Wood-fired boilers

    $6500 for a gas furnace? RUN AWAY! I learned this trick from an elevator conversation with a HVAC salesman. I went down to the local Carrier warehouse, asked for their "scratch and dent" section, and they had about 15 units there for about $4-500. I said "hmmm.. is this all you have?" and he scratched his chin, said "I have a whole truckload of last year's units, was gonna send em back for credit, but you can have one for $500." Brand new, 80%, sure, but $500 bucks! :!: Put it in myself; it fit right in where my old furnace sat, with only minimal tin work. It has 2 speeds, runs at low about 90% of the time. I had to get a contractor friend to actually do the paperwork, but I paid him, he paid them, and I picked it up.

    One thing I found: in my 1977 tract home, the contractor put in an 80,000 BTU furnace. I did the heat calculations (on the web), and came up with 28KBtu, worst case. Seems they would just buy a bunch of big ones (about the same upfront cost, but more to operate), and install them; no complaints about underheated houses! My unit has 40K on high, and works great. DO THE MATH!

    Speaking of math, I priced the TurboBurn unit at 8-9000. Although your fuel can be free, that's a fair chunk up front. They (and the Home Show guy) claim just one hot fire, set and forget, in a day, dead of winter. The shed or room you build has about 2' of insulation, 3 tons of water to absorb all that heat. The physics look pretty good. Maybe they have a "scratch and dent" section! :idea:

    Greg

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