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[Dan Larrivee]

Hello!
My name is Dan Larrivee and I'm from CT.
I've been reading on this site for a while and what a lot of great info!
I used to own a Central Boiler OWB and loved the constant fire and that the mess was outdoors but I always thought there must be a more efficient way.
I am going to build a refractory box for my fathers CB and hope to improve his efficiency considerably.
I'll post pics and info when I get to it.

Now to my new idea!
I bought a 1700 farmhouse that I'm fixing up slowly. With the additions that were done in the 60's it is 3500 sq. ft.
Also I am building a 30 x 42 garage/shop that I will be heating as well. I just hauled home 40 cord of logs so fire wood will not be an issue.

I already have insulated 1" lines run from the house to the garage. My plan is to build what looks like an outdoor fireplace on the back of my garage out of cinderblock with insulation and then a refractory firebox modeled after the seton/greenwood boilers. I think I like the new greenwood frontier style with the crossfire tubes. I'm also considering fire tubes in place of the water tubes. I'm not sure yet. I think it can be done rather cost effectively and that it wood look really cool. I'll attach a rough sketch I made of the rear of my garage. With it against the back of my garage I can access the heat exchanger from inside the garage and attach pipes thereby minimizing cold exposure. I would make the hx so it could slide into its chamber and come out for easy cleaning or repair. Then I would face the entire thing with stone.

I would love to hear some comments on the idea.

Dan

[dave_dj1]

Welcome.
What size storage are you going to have? I think with that type of set up and a smallish hx you will need a large quantity of storage, maybe a 1000 gal. or more.
I think the masonry idea is a good one but my thought on it is to embed a tank above the fire box, heat that and pipe it to storage tanks.
Good luck and keep us posted.
dave

[Dan Larrivee]

I'm not sure how much storage yet. What is your thinking on the tank above the fire box?
Dan

[dave_dj1]

I had one drawn up that I was going to build before they banned them around here. I was going to have the lower half of the tank sit right in the fire so to speak. Then it was going to be circulated to a storage tank of maybe 1-2 k gallons. Masonry built up over and then insulated. If you look into some of the newer gassifiers they require lots of storage. My thought is to burn hard until storage is up to temp and then let the fire simmer/go out until needed again. I'm guessing there would be a learning curve and things would have to be adjusted as the weather cools and warms changing the heat load.
good luck,
dave

[Dan Larrivee]

How big of a tank were you going to put above it? I wanted to keep the water out of the firebox so I can add secondary air and get complete combustion before reaching the heat exchanger. But I could still do that by using fire tubes through the tank instead of water tubes. I'm just not sure how to figure out how long to pass the gas through the fire tubes so I don't cool it to much. Any ideas?

[dave_dj1]

I was going to go with a 30 gal. or so, an old water heater tank. You may be able to do the same secondary burn with a long baffle under the tank and an air tube?