Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => HeatMaster => Topic started by: tinfoilhat2020 on December 07, 2017, 10:34:42 AM
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what is your total wood consumption per year on average? what is your length of burning season? what is your total sqft that you are heating? what is your climate like? what model stove?
Im trying to gather some information from members that im going to throw into a data logging program at work.
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Never paid attention to that before, I know I’m using less while heating more.
This year I’m actually trying to keep track of usage, most of the time more wood gets added to the racks that we have to cut while picking. This year I made it clear anything thats cut gets tossed on the pile to be stacked in racks later.
I’ve used roughly 2 1/2 cords so far, but it’s just gotten cold in the last day. Some of thats skewed as well as I’ve played with the waste oil boiler a lot lately getting the new oil gun tuned in.
Had some real odd weather as well, boiler was running but we had windows open as it was low to mid 60’s more than once the last 6 weeks or so.
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Very nice. I am going to start keeping track starting tomorrow. ::)
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Oh yah, no need for the sidewalk either, today was the first snow and contrary to what the idiots that predict the weather claimed, it didn’t amount to jack. Doesn’t take a whole lot to keep it warm once it gets there, it pulls VERY hard when first turned on.
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G200, 6 3/4 cords last year, 7.5 cords year before that, heat late October to late April. 2800 sqft, temps are 20-50 degrees day time temps on average during the heating season.
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22 cord last year, 4800 sqft, October to May. G200
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G100 last year. Maybe 6 cords, maple, oak, sycamore, gum. . 3,500 sq ft. But February was extremely mild. I'm guessing I'll hit 8 cord on a colder winter.
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22 cord last year, 4800 sqft, October to May. G200
THATS INSANE!!!! WE GOTTA GET TO THE BOTTOM OF WHATS GOING ON
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I'm in my 5th season with a MF10,000E heating 3,000 sft of poorly insulated house in southern Indiana. I've burned between 11 and 15 cords the last 4 seasons.
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Old MS250 was 8-12 cord with 4400 sq ft depending on the winter, last year was the 1st on my C375 and ran through 7 or 8 with 5200 sq ft but winter was mild. I'd estimate I'm shooting for 9-10 or better this year, the pile is diminishing fairly rapidly. I brought 9 in and if we get the winter we're supposed to, it'll be gone and then some. Keeping a low stack temp but I'm also keeping the shop at 60 constant instead of 50+ when I'm in it
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22 cord last year, 4800 sqft, October to May. G200
Seriously????? What are you burning, willow? Pine? Cottonwood???
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I'm in my 5th season with a MF10,000E heating 3,000 sft of poorly insulated house in southern Indiana. I've burned between 11 and 15 cords the last 4 seasons.
I should add that I'm burning serious hardwoods. Oak, Ash, locust. The lowest value wood I'm burning is walnut and cherry. And I don't have a lot of that in my stacks.
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22 cord last year, 4800 sqft, October to May. G200
Seriously????? What are you burning, willow? Pine? Cottonwood???
no he is burning all hardwoods. there is something wrong here
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For those that haven’t followed coolidge's dilemma the first winter he burnt around 7-8? cords with a P&M Optimizer 250, the next winter was around 14, last winter was 22. So something wonky is going on but can’t seem to find it. Whatever it is, is obviously getting worse every year. If the same stove basically doubled consumption from one year to the next its safe to say (I think) consumption would have went up again if he kept the P&M250?
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I have been talking to Coolidge on the phone. I think we have good direction and an explanation for the pm increase from one year to the next. I think the g200 may also be on track. I'll let Coolidge explain everything. Spoiler alert, it's not his heat loads.
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airflpw issue in secondary chamber?
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So yesterday I started cleaning, rebuilding Optimizer, I found the nozzle was approx. 1.5" lower than base, thus not gassing properly. :bash:
I have contacted Heatmaster.
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nozzle placement is key. the secondary tubes from the airbox that line up with tje refractory has to be a flush and tight seal! I would also male sure your smple bypass is sealing tight. even the smallest air leak will cause high stacl temps and incomple combustion.
keep us updated!!!
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I'm confused, did you mean the G200 or the optimizer had a wrong nozzle?
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Optimizer had a bad nozzle.
Funny thing is my G200 never goes above 250, am going to get a new thermometer to check that though.
Smoke bypass is on my hit list to check out Monday.
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Placed a tall tote cage of wood 12/7, ran the sidewalk for 16 hours 12/9, still have 2 layers of wood left in the cage on 12/12. Figure it takes three tall cages to make a cord, or 4 short cages, takes five of whats left of plastic tubs I screw to pallets. I’ll probably place another cage this afternoon when I have the Bobcat fired up to change totes of glycerin/jam I use in the cow feed.
So roughly a 1/3 of a cord of wood in 5 days. 2800sqft of house plus DHW, 1850sqft of shop plus 110 plus odd feet of sidewalk.
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sounds about right. I use the short metal cages, I will be interesting to see how long one lasts me. I think they each hold just under a FC, so you saying that 4 equals a cord seems about right to me.
I attached a picture of the load I put in at 230pm yesterday afternoon. This load consisted of 50% seasoned oak/cherry and 50% green slab oak. That big hunk of wet oak in the middle was a monster. weighed about 50lbs. doesn't look as big in the pic. Anyways, this load lasted me until 530am this morning. so 15hrs give or take. it was down into the teens last night and I live on a hill where the winds are out of control. Last night I was heating 4400sqft. 3400 sqft house (good insulation 2 x 6 construction built in 2005) at 70, 400sqft at 75 (puppy whelping room, spray foamed and r30 in the ceiling) and 600sqft shop at 45 (shop has no insulation in the ceiling, haven't gotten around to it yet. on a cold night from keeping an eye on the digital temps sensors in the house I figure the 100k btu heat exchanger in the shop runs on average of 25-30min per hour). There wasn't much left but a light coal bed, but I was happy! I placed a nice split over the nozzle, packed the little remaining ash/coal mix around that spit and stacked her up good with the same seasoned/green slab mix. so far it is working right. still getting used to heat load and wood needed tho, it will take a month or so for me to get it down right and proper.
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Must be nice.
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I put my G200 in on January 4, 2017 and it has been operating 24/7 since that day, to supply domestic hot water and heat. I did not keep track of wood usage until 01 October, when I started taking wood from a full wood shed. Best estimate, I have burned just about 1-1/2 cords of wood since 01 October. Might be a little more since I filled it a half-dozen times with splitter trash and ugly chunks that weren't in the wood shed. I think I'm about 40% lower in consumption on average than I was with my old wood boiler. I heat 4300 square feet of a 12-year-old timberframe/SIP hybrid home. Also DHW for 4 people daily, sometimes more when family visits. I am going to be adding a significant heat load in a couple of weeks, being a partially insulated 800 sf garage with a second floor loft. I think my wood use will jump back up quite a bit until I get the garage insulated and the temp stabilized. I plan on keeping it around 55-60 degrees. Enough to work in a tee shirt but not warm enough to sweat.
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We are heating almost 3700 ft2 to 68 with about 500 ft2 garage heated to 40. Plus 4 users of DHW, 3 of them heavy users ( bet you can guess who’s not the heaviest user ;).
Fired up Nov 1, so about 2.2 cords of dry but crappy wood. A lot of poplar. Like a real lot.
This in western Maine, on a very exposed hill, with our great room facing the wind and a huge amount of glass.
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Got 4 days from a half cord, that's my worst so far.
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Got 4 days from a half cord, that’s my worst so far
Have you got a heatmaster dealer scheduled to come out and diagnose The issue?? If not I would call them back Monday and demand that you have a dealer come out right away to find the problem
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No snow melt this time, wasn’t near as cold either, short cage which is a 1/4 of a cord lasted 5 days.
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not bad
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I was pretty proud of mine yesterday. Tossed a wheelbarrow full in at 9am yesterday and went about my business as usual. Ended up stopping "for a beer" at a buddy's place and got home at 5am this morning to find 155 on the Ranco and a decent bed of coals in the chamber. 20 hour burn on 8 blocks of wood at 25 degrees
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I was pretty proud of mine yesterday. Tossed a wheelbarrow full in at 9am yesterday and went about my business as usual. Ended up stopping "for a beer" at a buddy's place and got home at 5am this morning to find 155 on the Ranco and a decent bed of coals in the chamber. 20 hour burn on 8 blocks of wood at 25 degrees
yeah for over 5000 sqft that is insane. my gasser wouldn't have even done that unless the bocks were all 24" long and 8" x 8"
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I had a proud moment this morning as well tho, I loaded my first load lastnight of all green oak slabs. I load to the bottom of the door frame and got 12 hours at 25F....not to shabby for slabs, im liking it!
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I saw that! Hate to say it but you're kinda making me like gassers lol
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well what originally sold me on the G series was the fact they were not near as picky as other models as per the wood being tossed in. THIS stove has been wonderful, coming up on 2 weeks with this unit tomorrow and it has handled everything I have tossed in. I got some 8-10" rounds of ash im trying next!
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My experience has been wet wood does surprisingly well when it has a steady load in the winter, less efficient, but it works. You'll want to keep a closer eye on your fan because all the steam coming through can cause fly ash to stick to it and you'll need to scrape it off. And you'll want to be more careful about not letting ash cap the bottom of the air curtains as it can cause creosote to back up inside instead of draining and burning up.
Come spring with long idle times and wet or green wood you'll start seeing lots of sweating and you might start to gum up your air intake box. So keep your dryer wood for mild weather.
A G2 can handle 10" pretty good, bigger if you have some small slabs/splits with it. Just watch the coal bed.
Someone who pays attention can go way outside of the optimum range for fuel, but you gotta watch a few things.
Keep experimenting and posting. I like this stuff. Some more videos please, I subscribed. :)
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My experience has been wet wood does surprisingly well when it has a steady load in the winter, less efficient, but it works. You'll want to keep a closer eye on your fan because all the steam coming through can cause fly ash to stick to it and you'll need to scrape it off. And you'll want to be more careful about not letting ash cap the bottom of the air curtains as it can cause creosote to back up inside instead of draining and burning up.
Come spring with long idle times and wet or green wood you'll start seeing lots of sweating and you might start to gum up your air intake box. So keep your dryer wood for mild weather.
A G2 can handle 10" pretty good, bigger if you have some small slabs/splits with it. Just watch the coal bed.
Someone who pays attention can go way outside of the optimum range for fuel, but you gotta watch a few things.
Keep experimenting and posting. I like this stuff. Some more videos please, I subscribed. :)
Thanks Eldon,
I agree 100% on keeping an extra eye on things when burning higher MC wood. I am see a bit of increased moisture around the door, but nothing alarming. My plan is to only burn this green slab wood now through the end of February when we will have steady cold temps. Come spring iw ill go back to the seasoned 23% MC or less oak that I have on stock pile :) I always keep an eye on the damper, so far so good. a small bit of drool, but nothing crazy. I have been rocking the turbulator handles about 10x day just to be safe
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:thumbup:
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Hi Coolidge.
On your g-200. Can you look threw the clean out door and make sure the bottom of the nozzle is intact.
Also it is very easy to put the upper nozzle in backwards and that would block off the secondary air for the gasification process.