Geo Thermal / Hydronic / Radiant Heat / Indoor Wood Boilers

Geico266

Geico266

Touchdown! Greaser!
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In designing a new heating system I will have geothermal heating and cooling, and I am considering radiant floor heat and using a wood boiler for supplimental heat, domestic hot water and heating my garage approach and shop.

Anyone using wood boilers? Comments? Suggestions?

I currently heat with wood and use a Dutchwest stove with catalytic converter and I love it. It is skimpy on wood and heats the whole house.

Are there any good wood boilers with cat coverters?
 
Edit://. NM, I see that you already heat with wood, so youre used to the work, smell, etc.

I'll ask on Monday what my coworkers use, I know one has an auto damper with a cat, the other is a manual damper.

They do mention that they smoke out the neighbors occasionally, and the guy who uses it for primary heat goes through around 4-6 cords a wood a year.
 
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TripleZ said:
Edit://. NM, I see that you already heat with wood, so youre used to the work, smell, etc.

I'll ask on Monday what my coworkers use, I know one has an auto damper with a cat, the other is a manual damper.

They do mention that they smoke out the neighbors occasionally, and the guy who uses it for primary heat goes through around 4-6 cords a wood a year.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

This is why I am asking for wood burning pireps. With a catalytic converter the exhaust is burned again and it produces more heat and much less smoke. I love my stove, but want to get away from hauling wood to the center of the house. A central boiler in the garage uses water to transfer the heat to a manifod in the center of the house to heat water, floors, and the air. It is a very efficient way to heat, but environmentally "disturbing" without modern wood burner technology.
 
I have two geothermal heat pumps. Run feeds the forced air / cooling. The other feeds the hot water for the radiant floors (house and hangar). Don't have any experience with wood boilers, but once you've got the heat source for the water, the systems are about the same.
 
We have geothermal heat as well and wouldn't even consider wood heat now. Cost is substantially less and no need for loading wood or other fuel. The added bonus is that the geo works for both heating and cooling. As Ron noted you can use heated floors or standard central blower setup. Not sure how the radiant setup works with cooling??? We have the blower setup using 4 150ft copper groundloops and freon without the water intercooler. . . .

Frank

Frank
 
We installed a Central Boiler E-classic 340 gallon at the end of last year. Old uninsulated farmhouse. Insulation is next on the list! Two sections of the house have basements where we could access the underside of the living area floors. There we put in PEX tubing backed with aluminum plates and insulation to direct the heat into the rooms. We only plumbed the downstairs area hoping that the heat would rise up and be adequate on the 2nd floor. It works fine for the bedroom temps but the upstairs bath will need a baseboard or radiator to be comfortable.
We added hot water baseboard to the new addition, and placed an under counter (designed to fit in the toe kick area under a lower cabinet), in a step to blow heated air into the library.
Also put a heat exchanger on the electric hot water heater. Electric bill is down to half of what it was last year at this time with same average temp.!
So far on these first cold nights in MD (low 30's hi 20's) we only have to load it once every 24 hours. It keeps the floors nice and toasty. Before we had this running we had an oil fired steam radiator setup that with the thermostat set at 50' and the one end of the house being in the 40's we were paying an average of $7500/ year on oil!!!
We have a bunch of wood from the old trees in the fence rows we cleared out getting ready to plant grapes. So far this year (I started it up towards the end of Oct.) the temps have been relatively mild with some cool days thrown in, I've burned maybe a little over a chord of mixed hardwoods.
These units burn pretty cleanly, most of the time. Sometimes during start up or after loading it'll smoke some, (could be operator error. I'm still on the learning curve.)
$ wise I figure the payback to be 3 years! h
 
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Howard that is what we are thinking also. We are building a new house though and intend to do the entire house in pex including garage, drive way and shop. Use the excess heat from the wood boiler to heat the drive and shop.

You are using the same model I am looking at! :hairraise:
I like the idea of adding wood once a day! I would park my boiler in the garage so I have access to it without going outside. Do you see any problems with that plan?


Thanks all for the response. Keep the comments comin.

What would you guys that have it do differently?
 
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Fire in the garage is a bad idea. Especially if you use your garage as storage for chemicals, gas, or work consistently in there. I have a hanging NG heater with a open burner, I make sure not to use cleaning chemicals, or use the oxy torch when it's running. I've known people who've had flash fires due to heaters in the garage. I've personally had a close call with a kerosene heater.
 
Might want to put the boiler in a covered area out side. Sometimes when you open the door and/or are loading it you will get some smoke coming out of the box. There is a flue damper that you are supposed to open at least 15 seconds before opening the door. It draws the smoke up the chimney. But sometimes when the fire is damped down by the controls and you open the door the oxygen can get in there. Again there may be something I'm missing being new at it. I'm working on building a kind of picnic pavilion roof over the boiler, covering the area around it. It gives an area to dump the wood with the tractor bucket and I'm good for a few days.
The quality of the construction is excellent. With a new well insulated house and shop you may have a hard decision to make..... Heat the pool/hottub or deice the driveway:D h
 
Good point about using flamibles in the garage, but the way the new stoves are fed air I don't think it would be a major issue. No flame is exposed, but I certainly am not going to test it! :eek:

I heat my 130 year old farm house with a Wood stove in the middle of the house. Have for 15 years. I love the heat, and depending how much wood I want to burn I can make it as warm as I want. Usually 75f all day long.

There are many models being sold for indoor use. My buddy just bought one of these.

http://www.royallfurnace.com/products/indoor-wood-furnace/pressurized-boiler.html

I cannot find a source for coal locally even though 1,000's of rail road cars a day pass through here. Maybe be a business opportunity there. :D
 
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