Are the newer style gasification boilers less troublesome?

I’m thinking of putting a boiler in again since I fix saws for some tree services that will bring me free wood and also will have piles of slab wood from the bandsaw mill I bought last year. It will probably be a wood master which is now a central boiler company because they sell them where my wife works. They have the titanium stainless firebox in them and I think are the same as the central boiler internally. Question is how do I size them now old boilers gave a sq ft new ones are btu. Will be about 2000 sq ft house and 700 sq ft shop for now but I’m sure it will have more on it later. Can I burn the sawmill slabs ok as long as it’s dry? Will be a wide mix of slabs from pine and tamarack to hardwoods the regular main wood will be ash, maple and birch mostly

 

Slab wood should be fine if it is dry. As for sizing goes, the gassers don't like to idle as well as the old conventional boilers...they like to run hard and run often. I wouldn't oversize it too much. I'd go by their sq ft recommendations and size over if you have poor insulation, size at their recommendation if you are well insulated.

 

I'd imagine you can find a btu to square foot ratio for your climate online easy enough. As far as "newer" gassers are concerned, I have one that is 11 years old. Not sure if you consider that new or old but it's rated for 5,000 square feet and my house is 3,000. With our mild winter, it sits idle a lot and runs just fine. It will burn some green wood mixed in but prefers seasoned wood. I throw in all of the uglies, misshapen, rotten stuff created from selling firewood and it eats it all. Mine is Portage and Main. I used to clean it every other week like they suggested but now I'm lucky if it gets cleaned 3-4 times a season. It really has been bullet proof for me and I hope that continues.

 

These new central boiler/ wood masters have a setting for more green wood on them ect and some even can add on a gas fired burner to help light the stove or it will come on automatically if the fire burns out.

 

I mix wet wood in all of the time with dry wood in my Heatmaster and I haven't see any noticeable issues. If I do mix it in, it's always at the top of the triangular pile that I put over the nozzle. My thought is, the heat from inside the firebox will dry the wood out before it gets burned. One common problem that people do complain a lot about with the CB design is the air passages getting plugged up with creosote so I'd be very cognizant of how much wet / green wood you mix in.

As others have said, I wouldn't over size the boiler too much. They are already creosote factories, you'll end up with a bigger creosote factory with a boiler that's sized too large.

 

These newest ones have a completely different exchanger set up I guess, was changed in the last few years. They have the wet wood setting on the boiler but need to look into it more

 

I probably wouldn't try to run loads of 100% slabwood too often, but you certainly should be able to use some...especially if they aren't super thin (but maybe that doesn't affect the downdraft gassers as much?)
Since your wife probably can get a decent price on those, you are likely almost locked into that brand, which personally, would be my last choice of gassers...HeatMaster would be at the top, with Polar or Crown duking it out for second and third place (second place is the first loser though, right?!)
Unless they changed it, cleaning the HX on the CB is a real PITA...and they really crapped down their leg when they decided to not honor their "lifetime" door warranty on the old models...you know, the door that said "Lifetime Warranty" right on it?! That really frosted a lot of die hard CB customers...they've lost some repeat customers over that one...heck even our local CB dealer decided to not sell that brand anymore...he said it just isn't the company that it used to be, didn't want to rep them anymore.
But hopefully if your wife works at the dealership, she can get preferable warranty treatment, if needed.

I agree, don't oversize it...you want to buy the "right size" if at all possible...you could do a heat load calc on your house, or if you have ever heated it with 100% fossil fuel of some type (or electric) you can do a BTU conversion to figure out which size is best...without knowing their sizes, I'd bet the smallest one would be the one you want for 2000 ft plus a small shop...unless maybe your insulation/air sealing level is really bad.

 

Everything is insulated well and the exchanger and cleaning set up was completely changed a few years ago, in this area central boiler was viewed as the best

 

In who's opinion ?

Take a look at this video, pretty pizz poor design on the CB compared to the Polar. Guys on Facebook are always complaining about them getting stuck. One guy had to make a special tool to pull them out. The turbulators on my Heatmaster are cleaned by racking ( similar to the Polar ) a handle a few times before every load. Can't get much easier than that.

I'm not saying that the other brands are perfect or better by any stretch of the means. I'm just pointing out some of the known issues with CB. It's Chevy vs Ford vs Dodge, pick your poison and go with it.

 

I didn’t say I thought, I haven’t researched enough or owned one. I was just going by the general consensus of the local community. I know they updated them to make them better because they did have issues with the first gasification ones. And as far as old school classic boilers I know many up here that still run 25 years old and older. Cast doors and all, but this is what I’m researching right now if I put one in. I may buy a used old school one and install it, used to have an aqua therm growing up but the firebox let go. It’s trying to figure out if I want the hassle of a new one or go old school and burn whatever wood I want. And I think the new central boiler/wood master has a handle and they clean similarly to what your talking about but I need to do more research.

 

Honestly they all look like a pain compared to old school minus the 50% less wood. My wood will be free just lots of big stuff to cut down to size.

 

Living with the stinkin smoke cloud would be the biggest pain to me...my folks just replaced an old CB6048 at the family farm and that thing would smoke so bad when the cloud blew across the road people would have to brake to drive slowly through, embarrassing...when I drive past now you can't even tell when the new gasifier is firing (or not) and wood usage dropped to 11 cords, down from 22+ (heating 2 houses and 2 shops) and that was before replacing the junk underground line set last summer.
(not my pic)

 

Yes the old style are smoky I agree, had an aqua therm growing up, 240 gallon forced draft. Heating a house and a 24x28 shop required 18-20 chords a year. The old style plastic pipe wrapped in 2 layers of 2” foam board didn’t help us any. Could have grown a garden on to of lines all winter but was done the way they did it back then.

 

Hello Lehman. I just replaced a CB 6048 with the largest Heatmaster gasification unit last month. I had absolutely no problems with our Central Boiler we installed in 2006 but was looking to burn less wood in my advancing years. I was also apprehensive about a gasification unit being overly complicated but I am happy to say it has been a pretty simple process. I chose Heatmaster based on internet search advice & reviews which may have been dated if Central Boiler has updated their design. I will say that so far this unit has been straightforward to operate & I am burning significantly less wood so far. I guess what I am trying to tell you based on my limited experience so far is don’t be intimidated by a gasification unit as opposed to a older design unit I believe you will be thankful to cut less wood as time goes on & you get older. Even if the wood is free you still have to handle more volume day in & day out over the years & it adds up. Just my personal experience good luck with whatever you decide & keep us posted.

 

I agree with you and am still in planning stages I’m sure I can get stuff handled fairly well if I have issues because of where my wife works if I do get one. The system has been updated from the previous ones but still similar with the grate removal on them. Waiting for feedback from a few people I know. Definitely will save some money by buying a cb/wood master. But they’re plenty expensive, small one is like 12,000$

 

Might even put an old school used one in with the proper pipe and see what happens. I guarantee I lost several chords a year heat to the yard.

 

I had no idea the CB was this bad to clean....no thanks. Takes me 15 seconds a day and zero mess to clean my exchanger.

 

The investment in decent in ground insulated pipe will definitely pay for itself in less wood consumption. We have had no issues with our Central Boiler Thermopex pipe. I’m sure there are others as good or better.

 

The stuff I’ll use is the central boiler recommended stuff, less than 1 degree loss in temp per 100’. It’s double pex lines in a insulated tube.

 

Good stuff.