Adding wood boiler

Hratchk

Adding wood boiler on my existing system. my system is only heating first floor on my main house. I would like to add other buildings to my new system.

hot_rod

what brand and model of wood burner do you have?

will someone be available to keep it going in the event if a power outage, freeze protection can be a concern

Hratchk

I am off grid. Wood boiler is Greenwood 100 at 100000btu. when I am not location LP boiler will take over.Existing system is on glycol.

hot_rod

That is a bit of a finicky boiler to operate. A different approach to a gasification design boiler without a secondary chamber. It is a tube type boiler, tough to clean.
They must have dry wood to prevent creosote formation, get a moisture meter.
They must have return temperature protection, easily done with a thermostatic valve.
You really need a buffer tank especially with all those small low temperature loads. I would plan on 250- 500 gallons of insulated storage. Firebox is fairly small, almost impossible to get an 8 hour burn out of them, especially at full fire.
You need to burn them hot, a slow smoldering fire will create a creosote forming disaster.

Some good operating info over at the hearth website from some actual users.

With all that in mind I would suggest a building large enough to house the boiler and a buffer tank. With south facing roof, you could tie some solar thermal to that tank for DHW year around.

Looks like you need at least a two temperature system, low temp for radiant, and some higher temp for the panel radiators. Looks like you have 2600 sq ft of radiant. If you had a. 25 btu/ sq ft load, the boiler is sized pretty close for you coldest days. It’s the shoulder season days where it gets tricky to heat with wood. So a large storage will allow you to build a large hot fire and coast through the day or evening. It also acts as the overheat protection.

Here up is a rough sketch of how I did my system. A old 500 gallon lp tank on end for thermal storage. A 15 psi pressurized tank system.
Wood boiler maintained the tank always at 160- 180.
Solar would add to the tank anytime the sun was shinning, 5 collectors 4x8 size.

The lp boiler would only heat the very upper part of the tank, about 35 gallons.so you always had a load for the solar or wood heat to bring the entire tank up
I used a plate style heat exchanger on the tank to provide near endless hot water.
When out of town, or sick of burning wood, about mid March😏, a control switched the lp on seamlessly.

Snoop around the Hearth site for more user tips.

What about hot domestic water, is that from this system also?

Hratchk

Thank you for this info. Really appreciate it!