Outdoor boiler total saved.

Here after all work the numbers roll in .. I had it 4 years on outdoor boiler . I'm at the turning point now it's paid for itself . From now on its just putting wood in . Yes maintance was $30 for new bladder that's it in 4 years . Don't know how much easyer it can be . Living in actric Minnesota it's just only way it can be done . That's if you want a super warm house and endless hot water . Down size and living by natural gas line is only other way . But that cost even more . It's all about the math .


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Agreed, mine has paid 1/2 of purchase & install costs in the first winter based on a fairly good guesstimate of what propane would've been. The old wood furnace paid for itself in two months, but was far more time consuming. Load the boiler & set the stats where I'm comfortable. Reload in 12hrs & don't think about it again. No damper, no worries about being gone too long & building getting cold etc. Best investment I've made in a long time.

 

35 years of operation has paid for itself many times over.On a yearly average fire every fourth day .

Never have to clean the chimney .

 

That is a interesting diagram - aka rocket stove- modified of course. Beats the central boiler ( a shell of water surrounding the fire) and others of similar ilk by a long shot.

 

Here is stove that had 68,100 lbs of dry oak thru it .
Never even had to clean flu heated 6600 sqft . Last year . It was nasty cold winter in Minnesota. Yes it burned hot !!

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My boiler has paid for itself by last year. I am total electric 3500 square feet. Two furnaces. The first year, I probably got a third of the investment back, and then even more afterward.

Given a person didn't "spend" the money, but made a purchase on an item that still holds value. You could sell it of there was a reason to no longer use it. It also would be considered into your home value should you decide to move.

I always thought of it as an investment with an extremely healthy annual return. For me, it is thousands that stay in the bank, rather than going to the "customer owned" rural electric company. "customer owned", meaning they do everything they can to make it more difficult to add solar power to your home. Not really looking out for the "owner"

 

I was thinking the same exact thing. The central boiler design is pretty bad.

 

This is a our first boiler. It burned 22 cords in the first year of operation and I just could not picture trying to get 60 cords ahead, let alone finding space to stack that quantity of wood so it got sold.

This is a picture of a Tasso boiler that looks like our second boiler. It burned 16 cords in the first year and 10 cords in the second year when I connected it to 1,000 imperial gallon heat storage tank. Back in this period I did not understand the need for boiler water protection so creosote build up in the boiler and the chimney became a real problem; with the only way of keeping the chimney clean was to have a chimney fire once a week. While we owned the Tasso, I discovered the Jetstream and gasification. The Tasso got sold. The Jetstream was installed in its place and I have been happy every since. CLEAN CHIMNEY and ONLY burning 4 cords a year.

 

Storage & gasification are the game changers, yup. I went from on the roof with brush 3 (or 4) times a year to haven't touched the brush or been on the roof in 7 years.

 

What's funny years ago when guys dried there wood the right way they never had to clean chimneys. It was standard operating . Gasifier and new style stoves won't burn less woods drier ..so if guy just burn dry wood In the older stoves it be same deal . Yes this is true . New stove force you to only burn dry wood.. because I kinda figured this out the hard way .. I do remember glowing stoves at below 0f .. yes oak fence posts .. yes house was still cold . But gave you something to keep eye on

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My wood was always dry. My POS old boiler still generated big creosote with it.

 

Check and see what your heat load is ( tempture of water going out and coming in ) if woods dry it means heat load is to great . Water jackets to cold.



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The Jetstream achieves 98% complete combustion and heat exchange efficiency's of 85%. The picture below was taken at mid burn. The air coming out of the stack is just hot enough to be uncomfortable to breath with no hint of smoke smell.


Stoves like the one below would burn fairly clean with dry wood for one main reason that they were not airtight and would still burn briskly even with the draft and damper closed.


To my knowledge, the fisher stove was the first true airtight and could be loaded up with green wood an would smolder for 12 hours or longer with a full load.

 

My boiler still owes me money, and lots of it. I'm probably close to $12K deep and only 1 year in. That's fine though....it is much warmer in here and easier to stay that way over the old stove. Using a lot less wood too.

 

We keep our house 10-12 degrees warmer with our boiler than we ever could afford to on propane. So if you are comparing costs, don't forget that you more easier set that thermostat higher with your boiler than you did with propane or whatever your fuel was.

 

Had nothing to do with it. Boiler was kept at proper operating temp with a bypass loop.

 

I had my first outdoor boiler 19 years Heatmor 200 and second ones on year 4 years now . Second one was Heatmor 400 second one was money pit because I had replace bunch little things after first 19 years. So in reallity even the money pit is about even at 4 years . lol ya 12k is normal good install nowadays ..mine was right about at 10 k because lines and everything was there..

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If your getting creosote with dry wood.. only thing it can be. Slow smoldering fires, water jacket to cold , trench is loosing a bunch heat . Or you have air leak in your fire box when fire shut down.. There it has to be one of these. If your burning dry wood . What's operating temp ? 180f

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Dry wood can make creosote. No question.

Making creosote can be limited by burning in an inefficient boiler that sends most of its heat up the pipe & chimney. So that could be done. If you want to burn 2 or 3 times or more the wood you would otherwise have to.

I have an indoor setup so no trench. I could reduce the creosote somewhat by just burning it as wide open as it would burn, but that would only last a couple or few hours and then I would have a firebox half full of coals. And it would still creosote the pipe & chimney. Then by the time that burned down, my house was cooling off again. It was a real piece of work. Allan up above in post 8 also gave a pretty good summary of his history with other poorly designed boilers. Bad times even with dry wood and good practices.

 

We had a indoor wood boiler . It was called a volcano
We had same issue . To fix it put in a storage tank in so you can burn it harder .. I learned that after we took it out and bought a outdoor boiler . Cant say first hand if it really fix the issue but .. it be worth a try get a free electric hot warmer heater and use that .. I think if you kept water at 160 f in storage tank .. it heat house long enough so it make up for the 4 hour burn time .

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