Outdoor Wood Boiler Heating System

[jpuckett]

Any of y’all run a wood boiler to heat your home? Very curious about them. Is it worth it??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jstumbaugh]

I sell oil/gas/propane boilers. Wood boilers might have their place. In NY the cost of the boilers are pretty prohibitive. Do you have free access to wood? what kind of heat do you have in your house? Hydronic?

 

[dan33]

We had one in central NY when I was a kid. We would go through about 2 tri axles of wood per year. What kills your wood consumption is the really wet months in the spring. Imo if you have the time to do wood and let it dry out it is the cats meow

 

[Jimbee]

I bought and installed a Central Boiler system that heated my shop, garage, house and water heater. It worked pretty well until it started leaking after 5ish years and the pro-rated warranty was basically useless. I sold it all at a big loss. I could have bought a lifetime supply of propane. Some people have better luck and like cutting wood. I'd put a pencil to it and think about the time, equipment and costs associated with acquiring wood. How much is your time worth? How's your back? Who's going to babysit your woodburner if you're gone?

 

[dan33]

I bought and installed a Central Boiler system that heated my shop, garage, house and water heater. It worked pretty well until it started leaking after 5ish years and the pro-rated warranty was basically useless. I sold it all at a big loss. I could have bought a lifetime supply of propane. Some people have better luck and like cutting wood. I'd put a pencil to it and think about the time, equipment and costs associated with acquiring wood. How much is your time worth? How's your back? Who's going to babysit your woodburner if you're gone?

Those are all good points. Definitely a lot of work but imo the about of hot water you get is worth it. If the power goes out for an extended period you also have to kill the fire and possibly drain it or it will boil over

 

[taskswap]

We had one when we lived in the Northeast. It was an older used unit we picked up for a song from somebody upgrading to a newer unit. It was nothing fancy, basically these things are a simple boiler unit with a metal shed and insulation wrapped around them.

We saved a ton of money. At the time this was a VERY old, VERY leaky house with an oil-fired furnace. I'm not kidding, we spent $6000 one year (and that was in 2014 or so, so figure like $10000 in "today's money") on heating oil. Granted it was a bad winter but with that kind of spend it doesn't take much to have a payoff for an alternative.

Your wood source can be a big factor here. We lived in the deep woods and had tons of red oak to harvest, which is nice because it's super easy to fell and split. Wood boilers can usually burn just about anything and you don't need to process it much - as long as it's well seasoned, you can throw entire rounds in there, although we'd split a cord or two to help get smaller fires going in the "shoulder season." But lots of folks in NY buy what's known as "slab wood" which is totally different from the $300 "live edge" slabs folks are making tables out of these days. It's the outer few inches of logs cut off as saw mills process lumber. Folks would buy one or two truck loads of this, usually super cheap, and you'd see piles every winter in their front yards if you drove through rural NY. 5 minutes a day with a chain saw to lop off another 2' or so and that's one cheap, easy way to get it.

Installation can be a big deal. I assume since you're asking that your house is already set up for hydronic heating (baseboards or similar). You'll need to trench out to the boiler and it takes a few circulators and control systems to integrate it right. If you have the skill to do it yourself you can save a LOT of money here, but if you don't, it's not something you want to try after watching a few Youtube videos. There are all kinds of subtle problems you can introduce if you make mistakes like using the wrong kind of piping (you can't use normal PEX, it has to be oxygen-barrier, copper, etc), circulators (not sized properly for the load), not properly setting up water feeders, air separators, expansion tanks, etc. If your house isn't already heated hydronically in some way plan on a major addition for that as well - there are water/air exchangers you can add to forced-air systems but they're not as efficient.

In the worst winter we had there, we burned 12 full (not face) cords of wood. The boiler we had gotten didn't have a secondary (hey it was $500) so we found it was best to fully process our firewood, not try to burn whole rounds. It was a massive undertaking and took all summer to process and plenty of time each day during the winter to keep it fed. But at the time, we had very little money and we were warm all winter for basically nothing. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone, but it sure saved our bacon and I don't regret it.

Would I do it again? We're in a more modern house with a natural-gas fired furnace and well insulated, well sealed walls. I think we spend about $150/mo on LPG and we have a bunch of adults and kids taking showers and doing laundry so a fair bit of that is just heating hot water. I wouldn't do it here. But if I bought some old farmhouse on some acreage? Sure. Absolutely. A modern wood boiler with a secondary can run for almost 2 days on a single load of big rounds, if they're well seasoned, and I'd definitely do it again.

 

[Duckhunterbrad]

I have a hardy brand boiler that heated my 50x75 shop, 2500sqft house, and the hot water heaters for both the shop and the house. Wood stoves are great if you don't plan on leaving your home during the winter even for a couple days. I would fill my stove every morning and evening and never had any issues. We have a great source of hedge wood that burns long and HOT, and we used about 15 cords a winter to heat everything. My single biggest issue was finding someone to fill the stove if I had to be out of town for more than a day and that reason alone kept me from putting a stove at my new place.

 

[Jstumbaugh]

My back hurts thinking about 15 cords of wood. It costs me $1200 in LP a year to heat 3800sq. That includes hot water, dryer, generator and cooktop/grill. 7 ear old house. Spray foam and radiant heat in the floors. I burn a cord a year or so in our fireplace for looks. Definitely better ways to spend your time and money to improve what you are trying to heat/cool.

 

[Grumman]

I considered one on my new house build due to plenty of free wood on the farm and being independent from the grid if needed. I decided to wait and see what my actual energy costs are with a heat pump and duel fuel propane furnace. The wood boilers are so expensive it would never pencil out for me. I am glad I didn’t spend the money upfront and put one in now.

I also messaged a gentlemen on another forum who worked in the industry if he recommended them. He surprised me when he said he would never have one at his house. He said the last thing he wants to do is be married to preparing firewood and tending the boiler.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Can you just go with a wood stove?

 

[SamsonMan22]

I am happy with my wood boiler, I’m burning 6 cord and running it year round for our hot water. We were burning 4 cord in our wood stove heating just our house during the winter months. I have an unlimited wood supply so it makes a lot of sense for me. My parents used to have an older unit and that would take around 20 cord to run 12 months. These newer setups are very efficient and as long as the wood is well seasoned and dry they are nice to work with. I have heard a lot of horror stories with some brands, I’m using a heat master and have been running it since 2018 with minimal issues. I have had to replace a draft fan once other than that it’s just been a pump which is no fault of the boiler itself.

 

[HOT ROD]

My Dad has had one for at least 15 years and I am pretty sure it a Hardy boiler and he burns around 70 percent dead hard woods and 30 percent green hard wood witch slows the burn rate way down so he doesn't consume as much wood... He only fills it twice a day morning and evening...

 

[Lawnboi]

In the US the epa made these obsolete.

I couldn’t justify another after my older boiler I bought with our house failed, it was 19 years old. Was constant work, and constant maintenance.

A new one is looking like 15 grand for something that has an expected life of 5-15 years.

Plus the work of cutting wood.

The wood I burned over the last three winters could have filled my LP tank 20 times. A cord of dry hardwood brings a pretty good price.

They are cool, maybe a fun project if you have an extra 15 grand and want something to keep you busy.

If you had a farm and can get around the epa bullceap and buy one of the non efficient ones they make a little more sense.

 

[Silveroddo]

If you plan to heat a large outbuilding and a dwelling from the same unit, you have access to cheap/free wood, and your time is worth nothing, it can have its place.
Generally if you’re putting in a new unit to heat 1 building and you are gainfully employed, it’s pure lunacy. Not only are you married to it but you will spend all kinds of time screwing around putting up wood, not to mention around year 2 or 3 old guys generally start dreaming about “how to build a firewood processor ” and will spend more time dreaming and dicking around trying to reinvent the wheel than it actually takes to put up 10 cords with an axe and a Swede saw.
I’ve burned wood, I had half a dozen coworkers that still burn wood. I will never get the time or brain cells back I lost listening to them talk about putting up firewood, or building firewood processors.

 

[gbflyer]

We have a central boiler. Same problems with the firebox failing. We put a new bottom in it. They suck as a company. The boiler works well, uses a lot of wood. All we have is softwood, pine and spruce. It would probably be much better with hardwood. Very smoky. Wouldn’t be cool in a neighborhood. We currently don’t use it.

 

[Rjk300]

All the people I know including myself that run older Hardy’s seem to have the normal wear and tear stuff go bad like the water pump maybe an aqua stat or relay but not often. I’ve only had to change my pump once in 10 years and I think my relay. My cousin runs 50% ethylene glycol in his so he just shuts it down when he goes out of town. I personally wouldn’t get one with the EPA bs on it because they seem to be a pain if your woods not seasoned and kept out of the elements. We for the most part don’t pay for wood but have dump trailers, skid steers, tractors with buckets and forks to pick up and move all our wood. Then there’s the cost of one or two good chainsaws, extra chains, a chain sharpener, you can use files, and a log splitter to process the 15ish cords a year used. Plenty of work hustling to get cut and split wood! If I had to pay for processed cord wood it wouldn’t be worth it to me since it seems to run around 300$ a cord here in NE Ohio.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ben h]

Our family cabin which is approx 4700 sq ft has been on 100% wood heat for about 10 years after our LP boiler crapped out. Initially we had both the "wood Dr." furnace that would work by itself or in conjunction with the gas boiler. We burn 8-10 cords of pine to keep this place warm. I think it's about $300/cord to buy wood, or a bunch of work and get it yourself; we do 50/50. We're in the process of putting in a new LP boiler back in that can be used in parlell or stand alone, like we had before. As others have said it has it's drawbacks and probably doesn't save much, if anything.

 

[bowkill]

As some have already said, it depends on if you have access to wood or not. If you are buying wood to burn, I would say it doesn't make any sense at all. We have had our Central Boiler for about 10 years. We usually go out once a week and cut mostly dead, blown down wood for a couple hours and we are good for the week. We don't really worry about seasoning the wood or any splitting. If it fits through the door, it burns. We have saved plenty on propane in our old farmhouse.
I have heard that the newer models definately are more finicky and the wood needs to be seasoned and dry.

 

[jpuckett]

That gives me a lot to think on. Thanks. We are planning on building a farmhouse out on the family land and I’m looking for ways to just make it where we aren’t so dependent on others. We have quite a bit of trees on the farm and I’m a firefighter full time, but plenty of days off for working on projects and working on the land. I might be better off doing a wood burning stove inside for just the enjoyment and to help offset heating costs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Grumman]

I wanted a wood stove inside once I ruled out the outside boiler. My house layout just wasn’t setup for it. We did do a propane direct vent fireplace as one of my wife’s must haves. She likes to just hit the remote and have a fire.

If I had my choice I would have went with one of the Quadrafire or Majestic wood fireplaces. My home insurance company has increased rates for a wood stove, but they had zero issue with a built in wood fireplace for whatever reason. So you might check on your policies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk