Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Portage & Main => Topic started by: GUSWHIT on November 29, 2017, 08:00:34 AM
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Well guy's, I finally got it all hooked up and producing heat last Sunday at 3:15 I started the first fire. Just in time for a heat wave moving through, it was 64 here on Monday and mid 50's yesterday. I had to open some windows for awhile last night because it was too hot! It's going to take some time to get it all lined out.
Thanks for all the good posts and support to my questions.
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I have really learned a lot so far this week! Darn weather switched around and we had 5 days over 50 and 3 of those days into the 60's so trying to get everything lined out has been a pita! Starting tomorrow we are supposed to have highs in only the 30's and a couple nights down well into the teens so I'm sure it will be going much better. Haven't boiled it over or anything, just getting too much convection current through the furnace heat exchanger and its been too warm in the house. Currently keeping the main pump on the low speed setting to start with. Not quite sure how far to have the draft slide plate on the blower fan open so am experimenting with that and also keeping the factory settings on the fan and aquastat the same for now. Won't be able to do any cost comparisons on electricity until after the holidays, thanks to all the Christmas lights. LOL
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I'm down and out. See here.
http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com/forum/index.php?board=29.0
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That sucks, just an order to shut it down or did they mention fines as well?
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Since I kept my cool and complied with the official he isn't going to fine me.
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Just got my water sample back from sending it in to be tested and it came back near perfect. What a kick in the teeth!
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What ordinance did you violate? There is still to a of options on the table for you I am sure. Is it a gasification vs conventional problem?
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they extended the distance between the appliance and the neighboring property line to 500 ft. So by my quick calculations you would need a lot that is 1,000' by 1,000' to put it in the center and that equates to about 22.9 acres of land to set it on. No regulations for anything inside of the structure according to the regulatory office. I should be able to section a portion of my garage off and find a unit to go inside it that will not effect my insurance. Just a hassle selling this one, buying another, closing room off, replumbing stuff. You guys get it. Trying to control my temper, gave up cocktails for awhile so I don't get stupid.
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Does this distinguish between conventional and gasser or phase 2 vs non phase compliant?
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that really sucks man! that's a beauty of a stove! Like Honda mentioned, is the EGR Gasification series from P&M an option? maybe they could do a switch out????
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Wow, and mine's about 8' from the property line. No local regs at all.
The replumbing would be the biggest headache, wonder if a shed over the existing furnace site would comply. With a gasser there's not enough smoke to notice.
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Well, it would look like crap and there is a covenant about buildings having to be a certain size and blend in with the house layout. Plumbing isn't as bad as you might envision as the pad only sits 16' from my garage and I brought the lines up into the garage. I was going to mount my plumbing all inside, but I changed the plan, so only 20 some feet of underground pipe wasted. But then add on the monster footing with piers I poured to hold it and then there goes another $1,200.00 not counting the labor!
Anyway, here's another question for you. Water sample came back perfect and I do not have glycol in it so I don't want it to freeze, but I am nervous about just draining it since the inside might get some rust. I'm currently just running the pump in a circle through the house to keep it from freezing. Any thoughts? I want to keep this in as good a shape for the next guy that buys it! I couldn't live with myself if I knowingly did something that fouled the unit up.
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As long as you are spinning water into the home were the water passes through a heat exchanger that is being fed by your backup heat source in the home then you'll be fine with the back feeding heat keeping the boiler plenty warm enough.
Not sure if I missed it but did you say that no type of stand alone heating appliance is allowed outdoors without a building around it?
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The ordinance is vague, says outdoor wood furnace, except the addition of the 500 lf from the property line.
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I see on your other post that you started construction back in 2015. Was there anything on the building permit that showed or mentioned an owb might be used? Something on the blueprint, site plan or survey? If you can prove this has been your plan all along you might have a way in since they approved your building permit back in 2015.
Look through all the paperwork submitted for the building permit. Was the slab you poured for the stove drawn on a site plan or survey? Did the inspector sign off on a footing inspection for it? How about the blueprint. Any reference to in slab heat or heat exchangers in the furnace? Any mention of dual fuel?
I don't know, might be a long shot but worth looking into....
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update. After speaking with the local guberment officials and my insurance company I believe we have come up with a solution. I can section off a portion of my garage and line it with firestop drywall, use UL approved pipe going out the roof so everything is good. This gets me in compliance with all of the regulations. So, here is what I see is the issue in doing this, smoke billowing into the "room" when feeding the fire. 1 possible solution would be to add storage and treat this as a batch burner so theoretically after some practice you could load the stove with only enough wood that completely burned out, heating the storage water. I have 2-500 gal L.P. tanks that I was saving for another project that could easily be repurposed for this. This probably is an easy fix with some small control issues, like shutting off the blower fan after the complete burn. I think it would be over 1,200 gal of storage water(including the appliance) that I could use during the day and then do batch burns at night when I got home.
Looking for thoughts.
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That's good news you can finally go forward!
How many hours can the unit run at full btu output? I looked it up and see a max rating of 370,000 / hr. I would guess it could run at least 4 hrs, probably more. At 4+ hrs that would be approx 1.5 million btu's, which would require a 150 F temp rise in 1200 gallons to absorb the heat produced.
I'm curious what other guys think as I haven't done much with storage, but the math makes the tank look small. ?
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Great to hear! I'm glad they came to their senses. The BL do tend to burn quite clean so nobody should know you have a burner in there lol. As far as storage goes, I had noticed last week one day my Heatmaster (very similar in size and design to yours) sat all night with the switch off. I shut it off to load and forgot about it. Water was down to like 70 degrees in the morning but still with a full firebox so I hit the fan and I'll be dipped, it fired back up and did what it had to do, satisfying the shop and house temps in the process. That load of wood lasted me until bedtime easily, even though I had loaded for ~12 hours the night before. So basically the 12 hour load lasted me 24 hours because it was screaming the whole time instead of idling all day like it usually does. I looked into the storage and asked a few questions on Facebook about it, came to the conclusion that to batch burn the most efficiently I'd need somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 gallons of storage to make a 24 hour go of it in the nasty cold. Basically it'd scream wide open for 6-8 hours to charge the whole system and then nap for the next 16-18 until the next fire. I don't really have the physical space for 2000 gallons of extra storage so I will probably forget about it, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea if you have the space for it. Mlappin has ~400 gallons of storage in his oil burner and had some favorable reviews about it, perhaps he will chime in.
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I think I will reverse engineer this. Try to just put enough wood by weight to raise the water temp to where I want. What I am imagining is letting the tank temp drop into the 140 range and then lighting a fire to run it up to the 190 range. I have been doing some reading on other guys that are weighing there wood and doing batch burns with storage(although these stoves are different). It seems that I should easily be able to get 12-14 hrs of heat out of the 1200 gal of stored water. I may have to do 2 batch burns, say 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening with smaller loads so I don't overshoot the high temp limit.
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I think I will reverse engineer this. Try to just put enough wood by weight to raise the water temp to where I want. What I am imagining is letting the tank temp drop into the 140 range and then lighting a fire to run it up to the 190 range. I have been doing some reading on other guys that are weighing there wood and doing batch burns with storage(although these stoves are different). It seems that I should easily be able to get 12-14 hrs of heat out of the 1200 gal of stored water. I may have to do 2 batch burns, say 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening with smaller loads so I don't overshoot the high temp limit.
Makes sense, the house heat load is more what matters.
Sounds like if you load about a third to half full then your batch burning should work fine. :thumbup: