Thinking of replacing my CB 6048 with something more efficient. Suggestions?

Hello all. Looking for some info/advice. I currently have a Central Boiler 6048 OWB it’s 12 years old & still works fine no issues. It does however use large amounts of wood. I have it between 2 houses that I’m heating about 180’ from each home, it’s in the middle between them. Both have hot water systems in them. We are getting older & still enjoy cutting wood but wood like to cut a little less as time goes on. Any advice/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you looked a heatmaster unit?
I have their g400 and despite a few hiccups I am happy with it,
Was having some troubles early in the season but got them figured out with the help of the owners at heatmaster

I am heating my 1100sq ft house with HE in furnace plenum, 4200sq ft shop with radiant floors
My guess is i use about 10 cords, but have not actually measured usage as previous years were a bit of a gong show for my supply

 

I have not. How long have you had it?

 

My third winter with it, this is actually the first winter I have fairly dry wood, right now I feed it poplar, when thats gone there's 8 cords of ash ready

 

Is this your first outdoor wood burner? I am heating a ranch house that’s pretty well insulated, 1200 square feet. Another older farmhouse about 1400 square feet. Not insulated quite as well, & a hanging heater & water heater in the milk house of our barn. Depending on the winter I use between 24-30 full cords of wood in a 12 month period. We buy tri axle loads of wood to keep up. Can’t get enough off of our own property.

 

Wow! Thats a lot of wood!
We were around a boiler growing up, also a woodstove inside
Its only when I built my shop that i got back into wood burning as heating with electric would be unaffordable

Just what I've noticed so far is that boiler likes dryer wood than previous 2 winters,but it went through greenish stuff no problem
Think used way more than i should have but stayed warm

My suggestion would be to look at numerous options from dealers around you and make a decision based on price, efficiency, and warranty

I chose heatmaster because of the fact the manufacturing facility is 10min away and my next option (portage and main) was 2.5 hours away

 

What do you have, exactly, for underground pipe?

 

Thermopex pipe bought from Central Boiler. It says thermopex on the jacket. 2 -1” waterlines encased in 4” of spray foam with a rugged black jacket around the outside. At the time they told me it was the best available.If I remember correctly it was quite expensive, $11.00 per foot.

 

Any other opinions/advice?

 

As you have read in another thread, I like my Heatmaster G200. I think you would be better served with a 400-series. There are other good brands and each have their supporters and detractors. If I had not gone with the Heatmaster, I was also looking at Portage and Main, and Polar. My experience with Central Boiler was not all good, although it did heat my house for 12 years.

I also bought pipe from CB when I did my original install but it's the older CentralPEX style which is basically a corrugated black shell with wrapped PEX tubing inside. For the run to my garage, I bought a coil of a similar product (PerformaFlex) from Z-Supply. This winter will be it's first use. Much more flexible than the old CB stuff. I've heard nothing but good stuff about the newer CB Thermopex, however. For the price, it better be outstanding.

 

A guy I work with is really enjoying his new E classic, the titanium firebox seems to be the ticket over the old steel ones.
It also has Wi-Fi so he can monitor the fire from anywhere in the world. Being a pilot, that literally could be anywhere.

 

That is a huge amount of wood. Wow. I was expecting maybe some or a lot of that was going into the ground - but Thermopex is the good stuff so that shouldn't be an issue. Unless it somehow got compromised, which would be a very rare thing.

Sounds like you use it year round? Do you know roughly how much you use heating in winter vs. DHW when not heating?

 

3 triaxles & a little more will get us from October 1 till May 1 on an average winter. Kind of hit & miss in the summer. Last few years I’ve been letting it go out in the summer to take a break. I generally supplement the 3 triaxles with a couple cords I get around our place plus wood people give me when they have trees taken down etc.
If I was to guess dhw use in the summer might be a cord or two. But that is just a guess. I have thermometers on my pecan tubing coming into the house before it enters the heat exchanger & it’s within 8 degrees or so of the temperatures at the stove do I don’t think I’m lothat much in the ground unless one of the thermometers is in accurate.

 

My father in law heats 3 big houses with a crown royal gasification OWB on 20 or so cord of wood per year. That includes DHW in 3 houses too.

 

8 degrees is actually quite a bit - if that is accurate. With good piping it should only be a degree or so - hardly measurable.

How hot do you keep the boiler? Does it maintain that easily? What do you have for circulators? 180' one way is pretty far for 1" pipe.

 

My parents put a 6048 in their old farm house years ago. I've since inherited the house and still have to heat it as there is no backup heat source.
It is poorly insulated and a BIG house.
It devours wood.
I get wood from tree services delivered free. Most everything under 16" diameter is cut to length. Stuff over 16" usually comes in log form which I cut to 40" lengths.
There is an overhead crane above the 6048 which will lift anything that will fit in the door (32x24 I believe)
With all that said I've kicked around 10 different scenarios/setups of better insulation and different type boilers but I can't justify the means to the end as far as the free supply of pre processed wood available and ease of loading.
Have you thought about leaving system as is ,, installing a jib crane and source free delivered wood to make your process easier?
I've been to auctions and seen jib cranes on eBay for under $1000
Free wood/delivered easier to load and not having to process smaller . All pluses.

 

Thermopex is rated to loose one degree F over each 100 ft. 8 degrees is high

 

Okay I’m going to check the thermostat differences more closely. I have 180’ of thermopex going to one house & 193’ of thermopex going to the other house. I also have 36’ of thermopex going to our milk house. It is all 1” pipe inside. We keep the boiler set @ 180 degrees in the winter. As far as it maintaining the temperature it does pretty well until the outside temperature gets down under 15-20 degrees. The first house we hooked to at 180’ has a taco 009 pump running between the house & stove that run perpetually. When we ran to the other house the Central Boiler recommended & sold us a taco 014.

 

I’ve never thought of a system like that . Guess I’ll have to google jib crane. How do you unhook the piece of wood once it’s inside the stove without getting burned or smoked to death. It sounds like a good idea if you have access to free wood.

 

I’ve often wondered if a different model pump would help.