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[imspartacus2]

so after finding this site ive read through it and found that id love to build a gasifier,but ,,,,
i dont have access to DRY wood
im in ireland and i mainly burn turf,ie peat ,
i live on my fatherinlaws farm so i have access to any dead or fallen trees,but couldnt gather enough to burn a full season.
so that rules a gasser out
im not sure of moisture content of peat ,but we cut every year ,and burn second years turf ,which forms a nice tight glowing bed .my thoughts ,so im gonna build a boiler without a fan ,i think,i want it to supply my underfloor heating only .
im not worried about hot water as my oil boiler is quite economical that side ,but my heating drinks oil.
my house is 2500 square foot ground floor with underfloor heating,1700 feet of pipe if i recall, would it be possible to calculate amount of water in the pipework and add a bit ,and build boiler with this capacity water jacket ,which could be ran at lower temp than normal ,and on 24/7.
or do i need a buffer tank to store.

my thinking is because im mainly burning turf,which is cheap,and it lasts a good while once theres a good bed in my stove,i can burn my boiler for 24hours.
sort of ticking over ,if you get my drift
also at the moment my system is sealed ,i understand u/f heating will only work on a sealed system,is this correct.
sorry if im rambling ,but theres a lot going through my head at the moment.
looking forward to your help

[TheBoiler]

Sealed systems are the norm in the US.

You can put in a heat exchanger to resolve that issue.

You might want to look at a small wood chip gasser, has the benefit of automatic feed and can take much higher moisture levels and burn efficiently.

This is mainly a US board and I doubt of many are familiar with peat.

Just wondering whether an OWB would be legal in Ireland?

[muffin]

I thought open systems were far more common then sealed ones.  Mine is open and this eliminates over pressure concerns.  As far as a tank for water storage, that simply buffers your system and provides for a burn duty cycle; which I think is more efficient then try to balance water storage/heat requirement so you are always burning.  I know nothing about peat, but a conventional burner is pretty immune to water content.  You will just slow the inital cycle down as it has to boil out all the water.  Worse case, you add a blower to accelerate this phase.

I would recommend adding the hot water too.  Wheras the oil burner is working for you, why bother fireing it up at all if you don't need to.  I would have to imagine firing it up for hot water demands has to be very inefficient.  Where as your OWB is already hot and ready to go so useing it is pretty much free.

Just my thoughts.

[BoilerHouse]

The boiler should be built as a non sealed unit.  Home built units should never be pressurized.  If you give us the diameter of the pipe, we should be able to figure out the current water capacity of your system.  Some people, myself included, prefer larger capacity boilers and like extra storage water as it helps act as a heat flywheel.  Your boiler will be a natural draft but you may still need to make provisions for shutting off the air flow when heat demand is low so the water does not overheat and boil off.

[imspartacus2]

thanks for quick response.im building it myself and on a budget so simple is my aim,wood chip is a no no due to cost ,turf is almost free so thats what ill be using mainly and wood when i can get it .if i can pick up a tank of some sort cheap il use a buffer otherwise il build the boiler to hold enough water,
i fully understand the dangers of a sealed system with an uncontrolable fire ,power loss ect, but how would a heat exchanger work .
pipe diametre internal is half inch external 3quarter inch x1700 foot is 4.17 ft3 i think
as for legality over  here ,we have laws but they arnt enforced really.i live in a small village and local cop is my neighbour.i thought you guys lived in the land of the free,but reading on this and other sites you dont sound to free at the moment with ,epa and emissions ect

[BoilerHouse]

The pipes ID is a half inch.  Using pi R squared, the radius is a quarter inch which equals about .021 feet.  The 1700 foot pipe capacity should be about 2.31 cu ft.  Rounding off a bit, that gives us a volume of about 15 imperial gallons or about 65 liters.  I would think you would still want at least 75 gallons even for a low water volume system.  The barrel inside a barrel style is usually the simpliest and easiest to make but there are a lot of pictures of home built units in this forum to help give you some ideas.
The heat exchanger would be a water to water type to transition between the sealed and unsealed systems but I have no direct experience with this and some of the fellas in the plumbing area would know way more about this than I would.

[imspartacus2]

thanks boilerhouse.
i just stripped the casing off my oil boiler and it looks like i can modify it by removing the small oil burn chamber and adding an homemade firebox with waterjacket,at the moment it has a ss tank with
33 uk gallons for hot water ,suspended in an outer tank of19 gallons.
ive tried to upload pics but cant seem to manage it ,will add some when ive worked it out

[imspartacus2]

it appears that burner heats inner tank {hot water}which in turn heats outer tank for heating{sealed}if i cut bottom burner off ,and replace with fire box with water storage how do i work in heat exchanger,so as to keep it sealed.