Furnace Costs

[JP11]

I am new to the forum.. but have been hanging out over on TBN for a while. Looks like this site has a lot of great people and good advice.

The wife and I are getting ready to close on 70ac of land in Central Maine. We are excited to get planning the house.

Im curious what the cost of a oil burning furnace is. What is the cost of a 120k BTU furnace setup. I am planning to use a wood boiler from HS TARM. www.woodboilers.com

Just curious how much of a premium I am putting on burning wood from my own lot. Looks like the TARM will be about 10 or 11k for the setup... not including the cost of the piping and circulators for the radiant floor heat.

Thanks for the advice in advance.

JP

[Pat]

Congrats on your plans. With petrofuels likely to sustain an uncertain but probably upwardly mobile price, burning wood, especially your own wood, may become more attractive.

Don't forget insulation and control of infiltration. Just because it is your wood that doesn't make it free or make efficiency and conservation of no importance. Wood is fun but can be a real hassle so the less you need the smaller the porltion of your life, money, and effort you''ll invest in its preparation and consumption.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[phxraptor]

My question would be,do you have an unlimited supply of wood to justify 10-12 grand for a unit like that? I don't mean one winters worth but a lifetime supply?

[JP11]

Yes, I really do believe I could consider the lot to completely sustain my needs forever. At the moment it is 100% wooded

My uncle is a forrester, and tree buyer. AFTER I sell off a whole lot of the oak and other hardwoods (clearing a driveway, power line, and building spot. I can easily count on 40 to 45 acres of timber. There are large sections that are completely overgrown with 6 to 8 inch trees. It HAS to be thinned out just to let some grow.

My uncle said somewhere around 1.5 to 1.75 cords of growth per acre per year. When I told him about my plans to burn 10 to 12 cord a year.. He said I would never keep up with it, and would have to have it cut off every 10 or 15 years as well.

But.. Back to my original question.. HOW MUCH of a premium is this type of a furnace? Am I spending double or triple what a regular oil burner would cost?

JP

[Jaeger]

How many square feet of radiant floor heat are you going to have?

Your boiler will be sized according to needs.

A good friend is one of the largest HVAC guys in my area he'll give me the info, but needs to know sq. ft., and total sq. ft. of home to be in the ball park.............J

[JP11]

Going to be about 2400sf of radiant heat (including garage)
and a total home sf of around 3000 i guess.

Haven't really gotten into house plans. Just want a ballpark "normal" home furnace cost. 120,000 BTU or so.

Thanks in advance

JP

[Chillimau]

I don't know if you are comparing apples to apples. The Tarm is a boiler which you know. What does a comparable oil only boiler cost? Maybe just me confusing the terms, but a furnace I think of forced hot air, a whole different animal than a boiler. You can still do forced hot air with a boiler or hot water heater and a heat exchanger in the air handler. I don't have specifics but an oil forced air furnace will be cheaper.

How much is just the HS Tarm unit? 10 years ago you could buy one for about $6,000.00. Does your 10-12 number include installation costs? If so, those are fixed costs and would apply to any "furnace". Need to figure out what the TRUE "premium" is for the Tarm.

Space is another consideration with the Tarm. Storage for wood and a 600-1000 gallon water tank is recommended for storing heat with Tarm. When burning wood you want to burn at the max rate to get the efficeincy out of the wood and you use the storage tank to store the heat after you have met the current heat requirements. Then later when you need heat instead of the boiler firing again you recover heat from the storage tank. Also burning the wood at a good rate helps get the boiler up to temperature and eliminate moisture and corrosion in the boiler from burning the wood. If you let the fire smolder while waiting for the call for heating you are letting the boiler cool off and produce condensation inside the fire box/heat exchanger and cause corrision, so best to burn the wood fire completely out and refire if needed. Tarm claims that you can go up to a week without the need to refire. I don't know about that. Maybe during the summer if you used it for hot water only. That is another concern if you use the boiler for hot water in the winter, I would, what will you heat with in summer? Can still use the boiler. Like others have said you have to WANT to burn wood.

[JP11]

Sorry if I confused my terms. I have a forced hot air furnace now. Could not hate it more. Noisy, dusty, uneven heat.

The options are thus. Oil fired boiler, or Tarm combination Oil/wood boiler.

I would without a doubt have the storage tank.. my prices were a WAG from their price list they sent me. From memory.. About 9k for the boiler. 1500 for the storage tank. Misc valves and options and whatnot.

I think if you take a closer look.. they say one good fire a day in winter.. and one good burn a week in the summer for domestic hot water. I would most likely put in a tankless hot water heater for summer (short in maine) but use the boiler as needed in the other three seasons.

I do genuinely WANT to burn wood. I plan to cut some good trails around the land.. The wood cutting is a plus on many levels. Expense (eventually) exercise, ecology, quality of heat.

I just need a rough idea of HOW MUCH of a premium I am paying for using a wood system. If a regular oil boiler cost 2k dollars.. Maybe I will plan for a wood add on at a later date. But if a oil boiler is 7k... and the tarm comes in at 11k... then I would probably set it up that way from the start.

Thanks for the thoughts.

JP

[Chillimau]

JP,

Sounds like you are up to speed on the Tarm. I don't know anything about this boiler in the website but here is a link to a boiler for $1,900.00 NTI Caprice .

There are also some good links on the floor heat page.

Gary

[JP11]

Thanks for the site.

BUT OUCH on the price difference. Assuming 3000 dollars for the furnace.. It's a big premium for the TARM. Now granted.. The TARM is two boilers in one box. But looking at that site, You can buy a wood boiler, AND a Oil boiler for about 6 thousand dollars. Now, Is the all in one package of the TARM worth an ADDITIONAL 6k. I don't know.

Now if I compare a tarm to a straight oil setup.. You are talking about a difference of about 9 thousand dollars. That is about what.... Call it 4 YEARS worth of heating oil. That is assigning ZERO cost to the wood. Granted, a chainsaw doesn't use a whole lotta fuel. The tractor will use some. Splitter rental possibly. It's going to take 5 or 6 years for the tarm to come out ahead.

Anyone else care to help out in the debate over this cost/benefit?

Thanks
Jason