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wood boiler
S Ebels
Member Posts: 2,322
Do yourself a favor and send the outdoor wood burner (it's not a boiler) back. I've been doing some math for my own curiosity and for customers on the payback for these things and it's not good. Basically, about the time you have amortized the cost of purchase and installation along with maintenance and wood costs, your unit will be at the end of its life. I'm not kidding and I don't have any personal "axes to grind". Nearly all of the outdoor type wood burners are horribly inefficient, returning from 25-40% of available btu's and the open design means lots of maintenance issues.
The "distributor" would obviously never tell you any of this and can probably refer you to customers who are happy with theirs...........yet.
To answer your questions:
No, I don't know of a website with piping details. Every job is different so it would be difficult to cover all the scenario's. It sounds like you are connecting to an exsisting hot water boiler. If so you simply need to install a heat exchanger in the return to your regular boiler to pick up heat from the ODWB as the water comes back from the house side of your system. If your "distributor" is worth anything he should know about this. Make sure to provide a way to clean out the HX when you install it.
No, it is not common to fill one of these with antifreeze for two reasons. Number one being few people like to spend $2,000 for boiler antifreze when they are "saving money" by installing one of these. Number two being that because your ODWB is an open system the antifreeze degrades rather quickly and you can buy it all over again in 2-3 years. Add that to your cost of operation and figure the payback.
It will pump but I would recommend that you keep a spare on hand. You'll burn through more than a few. I know people that have these usually buy them with a tubing setup from the dealer or distributor and it's nearly always 1" pex. Nine time out of ten, 1" is too small but the dealers sell it because that's what all their competition is selling and they don't want to be more expensive than the next guy. I'd recommend going with 1 1/4" pex and a lower head circ.
You need a mixing valve, preferably motorized with outdoor reset for your radiant floor. Don't choose the control area to try and save money. It will bite you in the long run especially if you have wood or Pergo type floors. You want to have constant circulation. If you are piping in series with your existing boiler, it should have these controls already in place. Then you would just need to install the FPHX as mentioned previously.
You'd be better off spending the same amount of money on improving your building envelope. The payback is much better.
The "distributor" would obviously never tell you any of this and can probably refer you to customers who are happy with theirs...........yet.
To answer your questions:
No, I don't know of a website with piping details. Every job is different so it would be difficult to cover all the scenario's. It sounds like you are connecting to an exsisting hot water boiler. If so you simply need to install a heat exchanger in the return to your regular boiler to pick up heat from the ODWB as the water comes back from the house side of your system. If your "distributor" is worth anything he should know about this. Make sure to provide a way to clean out the HX when you install it.
No, it is not common to fill one of these with antifreeze for two reasons. Number one being few people like to spend $2,000 for boiler antifreze when they are "saving money" by installing one of these. Number two being that because your ODWB is an open system the antifreeze degrades rather quickly and you can buy it all over again in 2-3 years. Add that to your cost of operation and figure the payback.
It will pump but I would recommend that you keep a spare on hand. You'll burn through more than a few. I know people that have these usually buy them with a tubing setup from the dealer or distributor and it's nearly always 1" pex. Nine time out of ten, 1" is too small but the dealers sell it because that's what all their competition is selling and they don't want to be more expensive than the next guy. I'd recommend going with 1 1/4" pex and a lower head circ.
You need a mixing valve, preferably motorized with outdoor reset for your radiant floor. Don't choose the control area to try and save money. It will bite you in the long run especially if you have wood or Pergo type floors. You want to have constant circulation. If you are piping in series with your existing boiler, it should have these controls already in place. Then you would just need to install the FPHX as mentioned previously.
You'd be better off spending the same amount of money on improving your building envelope. The payback is much better.
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Comments
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wood boiler piping
could anyone refer me to a web site that has detailed piping schematics for piping a wood boiler into a existing boiler system. I am having a hard time getting any info even from boiler distributor. also if the homeowner turns off wood boiler is it common to fill boiler side of heat exchange with glycol to prevent freeze up. the wood boiler also sits 20 feet below grade of building the water feed to boiler is zero pressure how can a circ. pump water up hill with no pressure. also to get two seperate water temps. one to satisfy DHW and one for low temp radiant off of one heat exchange without having to use a three way mix valve.0 -
Check this out...
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Floyd0
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