Outdoor Wood Stoves. Got one?

[bassman]

Something is wrong if your only getting 4-5 hours with green wood. When I burn green wood in mine I fill it about every twelve or so and it would actually last longer than that as there is always wood left when I refill it. With dry wood I find that if I pack it too the gills it will last about 24 hours depending on the outside temp.

It was heating a greenhouse only last year .
so at night it would call for heat and never keep up with green wood .
I was told that half the heat from the wood was being used to dry the green wood then heat the water.
I was able to get a half ton truckload of dry wood the same as my green stuff and it would hit 180 on the boiler and stay there for about an hour then fire for 10 and off again.
the green stuff would maybe hit 165 and the blower ran till the sun came out to help.
it also sounded like frying bacon when you opened the door.
so this year its dry wood or no wood.

shayne

 

[bwalker]

I have found that after the first time the forced air draft kicks on that wood is dry. Even with the greenest oak and cottonwood itwill only take a 30-45 minutes of forced draft before all the moisture is gone. As you say, you can hear it sizzle and see the water run out. My stove will run at what ever water temp I set it at. Regardless of wood type or outside temp.

 

[sloth9669]

question

You seem to know alot about the out door setups. Just wondering how much smoke is producced and how you find out if it is legal in your town ?

 

[Butch(OH)]

You seem to know alot about the out door setups. Just wondering how much smoke is producced and how you find out if it is legal in your town ?

I did not have such things to worry about here but if I did I would go to the Township (I believe "Town" in your part of the world) zoning board and ask if there were any regulations. How much smoke? that's entirely relative. I have never seen one smoke as seen on the government site pics that are used to promote regulations. As a matter of fact even though I live within a mile of 5 of them I never even considered smoke until I read about it on the Internet. Obviously there is some smoke or there would be no regulations but I suspect most are due to people burning crap other than firewood or people in row houses owning one. Now consider that this opinion comes from an area where people (mostly) consider our freedoms to be of high value. In an area where letting a TacoBell induced fart could land a person in jail with the blessings of the entire community a person would likely say, "the damned things smoke a lot".

 

[Butch(OH)]

Thats so werid I have been around this snice I was a newborn(didnt know anything) My dad was and still is a pipe fitter/boilermaker and i have been putting mixing valves in for a good 8 years mysle fand never had a problem. I am working on my boilermaker cert. Stamp R. Its hard but I think it will pay off.
Jack.
How do you do your hotwater heater kits?????

My manuals only show a simple cold water by pass with a hand valve to blend some cold water into the hot flow but a tempering valve sounds like a better deal. Could one of you experts check this link and see if one of these inexpensive tempering valves from Grainger will do the job for me? Thanks

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/productIndex.shtml

Rats, link doesnt work

 

[Butch(OH)]

sorry

Anyway Grainger has a list of inexpensive tempering valves, could one of you recomend a part number? thanks.

 

[Digging]

http://www.microflex.be/en/products/index.html

I can sell it to you for $10.50 per foot, Or where is it you live by in MI. I live near charlotte MI.

I was wondering, since you said there is polyurethane foam inside, if the outside were to get a split in it and if the foam were to become saturated the insulating factor would be lost.

Is the outside durable enough to not allow a crack or split in it?

--------------

Also if anyone is familar with the styrofoam that encloses the piping (specifically designed for this) if there has been any kind of recall?

This is the third time we are digging up and reinsulating our lines. The last time we used the styrofoam, but noticed heat loss (someone else also mentioned this) and the grass growing faster there in the spring.

We dug it up today to find out what the problem was, and it turns out the styrofoam is really heavy as if it is waterlogged (but not dripping). So if anyone else is using this product and you are noticing the same thing, it would be wise to consider inspecting it.

 

[MS-310]

The Micro flex has PEX foam as the insulation, I have had a chunk of this foam in a bucket of water for about a month and have not seen it even get more then a gram when i weight it. The out side of this microflex is like a coragated pipe (very strong). If you need some more help just ask.
Jack

 

[Digging]

The Micro flex has PEX foam as the insulation, I have had a chunk of this foam in a bucket of water for about a month and have not seen it even get more then a gram when i weight it. The out side of this microflex is like a coragated pipe (very strong). If you need some more help just ask.
Jack

Thank you for your reply. I have been doing some extensive research and should I need further assistance, I'll be sure to ask.

Thanks again.

 

[windthrown]

Central Boiler 4436...

Installed last year and we are very happy with it. Heating hot water and house with it. Plumbed into 1: pre-existing solar pre-heated hot water heater with a flat plate HX (using convection loop); 2: pre-existing pressurized hydronic floor heating loop with a flat plate HX (with Taco pump) and mixing valve to keep the floor temp at 100 degrees F. Used about 100 feet of PEX each way. I designed a PEX burial/outside insulated waterproof section using Pex, pipe insulation and 4 inch drain pipe. I sleeved the PEX with ten foot sections of foam and then stuffed it all into 4 inch corrigated drain pipe to keep it water-tight. It works great.

More than enough capacity for our needs. I keep the boiler temp set to 165 degrees F., mainly as the hydronic floor loop temp. only needs to be 100 degrees F. We have about 2400 sq ft of house and a 50 gallon hot water heater. The house is 5 yeard old and well insulated. But it has a lot of windows, and a lot of vaulted ceiling areas. 15 degrees F was the low the last 3 years, nothing compared to northeast or upper midwest, but cold for us! We burned 4+ (real) cords last year, but a lot of that was green, wet, rotten and light wood (lot of willow, cottonwood and grand fir). This year I have 5 cords (10 ricks, or face cords) of wood stored and dry (mostly medium density red alder and Doug fir). So we should have no problems heating this place this winter.

We save $200 a month in electric bills in fall/winter. The unit will pay for itself in 6 years of use. Less if electric rates go up more. We have gobs of free wood here on our 105 acres in eth heart of Oregon timber country. Mixed species; Doug and grand fir, red cedar, bigleaf and boxelder maple, black and white oak, willow, cottonwood, apple, plum, walnut, pear, hazlenut, red alder.. it all burns!

Good rapport with the CB dealer and factory. A few small things failed and were replaced this summer under warantee, no down time last year becasue of them though. A damper door mount warped and the LED display did not read out right. Now fixed. No rust. Simple to manage once installed. Not that much smoke. Far less than we expected. Standard steel. Natural venting damper (no forced air fan).

 

[Ants]

Who all has an outdoor wood stove (or wants one) and what type do you have? Do you like it? Do you think it eats more wood? I just would like to know. I have been doing wood stoves for about 6 years and been around them for a long time. I love other people idea's on them.
Thanks Jack
mine is a home built
and have a central boiler and timber wolf that I play with...

Hello I have purchased a brand new outdoor wood furnace. It is rated at 4,000 square foot heating capacity. I am heating a 2,200 sq ft house 35 feet from the furnace, And a 700 sq ft house 50 ft from the furnace. I am having trouble keeping the water hot enough to heat the 2,200 sq ft house. The one further away is fine. It has a forced air fan to help with the burn. But the fan seems to stay on all the time in cold weather. I have checked the thermostat, and its seems to be ok. When its below 20 it just can't keep up. It uses a lot of wood and the main house stays cold. Chimney has been so hot it caught the insulation on the top of the burner on fire. We have been using a mix of wood. From all seasoned to all green and everything in between and nothing works. Any help or ideas would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[bwalker]

Are your pipes insulated? What type of heat exchangers are you using? Whats your boilers high temp set at?

Mine is over 100 feet form my house and it works just fine.

 

[hydro2]

I heat two homes and one is 180 feet from the heater. We just came off a some sub-zero temps in the northeast and mine kept up fine heating two home. I have a 180 btu Hardy. There must be something wrong. Are you sure you have the correct amount (enough) water in it?

 

[hydro2]

I heat two homes and one is 180 feet from the heater. We just came off a some sub-zero temps in the northeast and mine kept up fine heating two homes. One is a 2200 sq feet and the other is 1500I have a 180 btu Hardy. There must be something wrong. Are you sure you have the correct amount (enough) water in it?

 

[Lagrue]

I have a Taylor 750. I am heating 3500 sq ft. maybe a little more. The house is over 100yrs old, Not the best insulated and has some cheap windows. I have been working on that. Overall I am very satisfied. I have 3 diff exchangers regulated by 3 diff thermostats. The house is zoned and very comfortable. Much more so than my old system. I replaced duck work and everthing. I am obvioulsy loosing some heat from the lines coming it. We got about an inch of snow a couple weeks ago, It melted the snow above the lines. the are only about 2 ft deep.

This is the 2nd yr with the stove. I have been very satisfied with it. I was averaging about 1400 gal of propane/yr, heating house and water. I but in a 60 gal marathon water heater and plumbed the taylor into it. I really dont have a good handle on how much wood I am buring. I have been burning dump truck loads of 6x8" blocks of oak from a pallet mill. 1 load is supposed to be the equiv of 7 face cords? for 120 bucks a load, he has recently went up to 160. I have benn buring about 3 loads of that. It seems to burn up pretty quick. Still a whole lot cheaper, than what I was doing, much more comfortable too. I am going to start cutting my own wood.

 

[Sprig]

" I replaced duck work and everything."


Don't EVER let ducks work with power tools, their work is shoddy and not all thats its quacked up ta be!






Sorry, I couldn't resist..................*hangs head*




Serge

 

[jeff2173]

I got a Hardy H4 just wanting to know is it best to run the pump all the time or let it kick on and off as it calls for heat?

 

[MS-310]

Jeff,

Let it run all the time you are using the woodstove to heat....

 

[thois]

Hot Water Heat Exchanger Question

Hi,
We have had an outdoor wood furnace (Central Boiler) for nearly 2 years and everything has been great until recently. The problem is that we are not getting any hot water out of our water heater. We had plenty of hot water until a couple of weeks ago when the water would be hot but only last a few minutes. Now the last couple of days it barely gets warm and only lasts for seconds. The pipes of the heat exchanger (shell-and-tube water-to-water) are hot and we checked our dip tube in the water heater for damage...it was fine but we replaced it anyway. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be?
Thanks in advance.
T Hois

 

[ktm rider]

Hi,
We have had an outdoor wood furnace (Central Boiler) for nearly 2 years and everything has been great until recently. The problem is that we are not getting any hot water out of our water heater. We had plenty of hot water until a couple of weeks ago when the water would be hot but only last a few minutes. Now the last couple of days it barely gets warm and only lasts for seconds. The pipes of the heat exchanger (shell-and-tube water-to-water) are hot and we checked our dip tube in the water heater for damage...it was fine but we replaced it anyway. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be?
Thanks in advance.
T Hois

Might want to start a new post for your question. You will get more interest. This post is pretty old.