I am currently putting up a shop, and will be building a new house in about 2 years. I am considering one of the Central Boiler wood fired hot water heating systems. These boilers are external from the house, and burn a fire approximately once every 1-2 days. The web site is:
They heat a supply of water for household heating, and can supply heated water for domestic hot water or a hot tub, via a heat exchanger. Additionally, outbuildings can be heated with the same source.
Questions:
1. Is anyone using one of these systems, and if so how do you like it?
2. What is the most cost effective hot water heat exchanger system in the house. I'm looking at radiant in-floor vs. baseboard, or any other possibilities.
We have had one for 4 years and my biggest disapointment is that we didn't buy one sooner. It is only used to heat a 1500sf log home using the water to air heat exchanger and a water to water exchanger for the domestic hot water. But someday I plan to build a shop and heat it. Central Boiler has been great to work with on any questions or minor problems.One thing I like about it is I can burn anything from green to half rotted wood in it, someday I will try a winter with good seasoned wood.The pic shows my setup.
Thanks for the feedback KC. I plan to put up the shop first, it will have a bathroom and utility room, which I plan to heat with baseboard HW. The remaining area (where we will live until the house is built) I plan to heat with one of the heat exchangers with a fan. The setup looks pretty appealing from what I see. We have 20 acres, with a mix of red fir, tamerack, and some white pine, cedar and ponderosa. This setup looks better for burning slash and marginal wood than most conventional systems, and can be had with a backup (oil in my case) heat source for when I am away for an extended period. I'm glad to hear that you like your system. Is your heat exchanger (water to air) the fan powered one, or baseboard?
I'd be interested in what you find out in terms of cost of the unit and installation costs too.
I briefy checked into one of these untis (or a similiar one) a while back and was suprised how much they were...at least compared to how readily I could pick up a halfway decent/used propane heater for my workshop. I'd love to add a wood boiler, and put a radiant floor system in the shop and also use it to supplement my heating system as well. I have so much wood on my land the heat would be free at least for my lifetime [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] ..its the upfront cost thats the killer. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]
Wish I could find a used one it good condition...also, love the fact that the "mess" all stays out side. A few cords of wood in the cellar, not to mention the dust and smoke and ashes, have a way of making a mess in the house.
Good luck...lets us know what system you end up with and what it ends up costing with all the extras for installation. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
kc, does your system burn a lot of wood? I was talking with someone that knows someone with a similar system (not sure it was Central Boiler) with in-floor radiant heat. He said that it took an awful lot of wood to keep the place warm, like 14 cords or so for one winter. I need to get in touch with more people with these systems.
I can't give you a good opinion on the wood usage because I don't have anything to compare it to.But I would have to say a little bit more as any heat loss on the boiler is out into the outside air but on a indoor burner heat loss is still used. I also burn some real crap for wood.the nice thing about central boiler is they use foam insutation that won't soak up water and lose R-value, some use fiberglass that will. So if I am cutting more wood it's not a lot and I still prefer the boiler.
Keep in mind that if the wood being burned is "green", or high in moisture content, then the volume of wood used to get heat is going to be greater. Wood has to burn to "burn off" the moisture before it can burn to give off heat. It takes a lot of BTU's to convert water to steam. All these BTU's are lost.
The tendancy with the outside boilers is to throw in large pieces of wood, or logs. These are not dry and will not burn efficiently, based on volume. It is a trade-off.
Good point about the quality of wood. I don't mind burning 10-20% or so more, given the convience involved, but if there is 2 or 3 times as much used it's another matter. It's tough to get a true back-to-back comparison, you'd pretty much need someone that had a conventional wood burner, then converted to the outside type and continued to burn quality wood.
I'm planning on getting hold of the CB rep in my area and talking to some of his references. Thanks for the input.
KC, I'm really looking hard at Central Boiler's smallest model, CL4436. I wanted to use it for domestic hot water, Radiant Heat for the first floor of the house and heating a 12x26 workshop attached to the garage. In your opinion would this model do the job?? I like you woodshed but why did you leave it open?? Dont you have problem with snow & rain?? Oh,The house will have 1700 so ft open to a loft and I will have a Soapstone stove for backup and just to sit around and enjoy. (overkill??) [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
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