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General Discussion / freedom boilers

« on: July 15, 2010, 08:11:33 PM »

does anyone know who the dealer is for freedom outdoor wood boilers is in the PA/NJ/NY area.  I have emailed the main company to try to order a part of their boiler (shaker grates) for my boiler (nature's comfort)  they wont email me back!!!  i thought i might have better luck ordering through a dealer..  any clues out there???

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Natures Comfort / Re: Support Natures comfort

« on: February 20, 2010, 09:58:21 AM »

dont get me wrong.. i love coal... the problem is that I need to get some better grates that will utilize the full length of the boiler.  I have grates that only go about half way back the ones ncb sent me... and i recently found out that you can get a second set of grates from them and link them... so I am basically using only half the the boiler to make heat... when my coal runs good.... it is great... but when it is really cold.. it struggles...  i am hoping in the spring to install grates like you put in j845125... that utilize the full length of the boiler...   but for all of my complaining... i have not run my oil furnace since dec 26th.... and have spent only about 360 bucks on coal (at 160 a ton) and will not need coal for another 10 days to 2 weeks. 

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: antifreeze in owb?

« on: January 27, 2010, 09:10:34 PM »

i havent personally put any in this year but this is my rookie season and I dont go anywhere.. to the chance of a freeze is low.. however my father put antifreeze in last spring when he shut down just in the off chance we got a cold spell and something would freeze... i dont know how much is enough per say 50 gal of water is needed to truely protect... but the more you put in... the less efficient of a heat transfer you get... the glycol in essence acts as an insulator.    for just a few days problem i dont see why you couldnt just let the circulator pumps run... for running water to freeze it would have to get pretty damn cold.. for example you let the water drip on a faucet that you dont want to freeze right?  

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Holy Wind!!!

« on: January 25, 2010, 09:33:22 PM »

anybody in the northeast part of the country get pommelled by wind yesterday.. we had gust of 69mph!!!  the reason I bring this up is the excessive draft and reasonably warm temps and my current natural drafting method created the perfect storm for an overfire....early this am when I went to check the fire I noticed that the house was warmer then expected...  I  get out to the boiler and the cap on the water gauge was exploded off (when the water heats up and expands the guage often will pop out the cap and I find them nearby on the ground) there was steam coming out.. I checked the temp 200F.  the coal fire heavily burned out  and not raging to hard in fact...   I turned up heat in a few places to dump heat off and that got the temp down to around 185 .  but I did loose a fair amount of water to boiling off I have a feeling as I had to had alot more water then I ever had.    maybe when wind is predicted in the forcast I should switch back to the forced air draft regulated by the thermostat, eh?   has anyone out there ever damaged or heard of damage to a boiler as a result of overfiring???

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: too much draft?? or not enough??? that is the question.

« on: January 23, 2010, 09:39:07 AM »

what kind of coal are you burning?  what stove do you have?  I have been "natural drafting"  meaning that  I do not use the fan.. I just vary the opening of the ash pan.     It is working for me for now.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Pennsylvania proposes regulations for outside wood furnaces

« on: January 23, 2010, 09:31:27 AM »

this is concerning... I was wondering has anyone had similar problems in their area... i know alot of laws are being made all over but has anyone been faced with a retroactive law.  i didnt know they could enforce laws on prexisting stuff???

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: i need help

« on: January 14, 2010, 09:00:14 PM »

how do you actually post a pic.  I hit the insert pic button and then I get a img in brackets and dont know what to do next!  help please

8

Fire Wood / Re: slabs

« on: January 13, 2010, 08:29:21 PM »

my father has an ncb175. a friend of his has a saw mill and was giving these away. we took about 5 truckload of them off of him to see how they burn.  they burn nice, but quickly.  their large surface area allows them to burn very quickly and there is a kindling effect that produces alot of quick heat.... in order to burn them exclusively... you would be loading often...plus when the line up wrong or flat they can snuff out a bottom forced draft.   we use them now as some extra to toss in to fill some gaps when we want to really stuff the firebox.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Looking to buy OWB

« on: January 12, 2010, 06:22:53 PM »

you would need to be an umpa-lumpa to load that thing... loading that thing that low will get old fast.   if you put it up on a couple of blocks that would not be unreasonable... it would be important though if you do lift it up to insulate the bottom.  Since it is a small place that is building it I am willing to bet you can ask to make some modifications that would only slightly affect the price..

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General Discussion / Re: Getting to know one another

« on: January 10, 2010, 08:23:24 PM »

oh yeah.. forgot the doggies...

 1 yellow lab and 1 stinky bassett hound

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Electronics / Re: remote thermometer

« on: January 10, 2010, 08:13:42 PM »

in my forever search of an easier way I stumbled on a good way to monitor boiler water temps... at least to know if you are getting low.. i have been lately almost obsessed with water temp.  i recently borrowed an infrared temp monitor from a friend.  I found that I could monitor the temp of one of my iron pieces of baseboard or a radiator.  the temp difference is something that i spent the weekend monitoring and found that it is very reliable.  for instance i check the baseboard iron and it is 110.. i check out door water temp at boiler... 125.  when outdoor water temp is 150.. iron was about 133..  this way I can roughly monitor water temp from my bedroom instead of heading outside or to the basement.  i very rarely have to worry about water temps too high.. I am more worried about water temps dropping!

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General Discussion / Re: Getting to know one another

« on: January 09, 2010, 09:35:29 PM »

1. Phil
2. 33 years old
3. Physician Assistant
4. golf, model airplane, shooting trap,  tinkering with anything (currently owb)
5. 2009 Chevy Suburban   (borrow my pop's f250 for coal runs )
6. Stihl 290 farm boss..  but main tool now is an aluminum shovel
7. married 3 years with one 11 month old boy!
8.  Nature's Comfort NCB-250 rookie year  burning stove coal

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / manometer installation?

« on: January 08, 2010, 09:22:33 PM »

has anyone ever installed a manometer to measure draft on an owb???  i find this, if possible, may be necessary to reproduce the draft I accoplish naturally with the forcred air draft provided.  if anyone has read my "too much draft or too little.." post you will know my plight.  I am committed to buring coal in with the forced draft... I just need to know what conditions I am creating with the natural draft method so  I can recreate it with the forced draft.

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Has anyone received complaints about smoke

« on: January 08, 2010, 08:46:54 PM »

they adopted an ordiance in my township just prior to my install stating that you had to have a minimum of 5 acres (check), place at least 100' from any structure, including your own (nocheck), and chimney height to nearest roofline (nocheck).  After reading this ordinance carefully... there was only mention of outdoor wood boiler. So I called my zoning officer and told him that I wanted to but an owb up and he started listing all the rules and regs.. after he was done I asked him well what if I burned coal...and there was silence...after a few moments he said "well there is nothing here about coal burning" and I asked him so what are the rules and he stated it was the same any outdoor structure... 10' from any building!!!  no property rules, no chimney restrictions...and the best part is... I still burn wood for part of the year anyway...  there are developments in our area that the houses are packed pretty close and after burning wood for a bit I can understand the need for the ordinace... if I had a neighbor that had one of these 40' from my house and the wind carried it to my bedroom...i would be pissed. 

I dont understand the chimney requirements anyway.. how would one accomplish this with a 2 story home nearby? you would have to get wires to support it..

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General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Looking to buy OWB

« on: January 06, 2010, 01:00:57 PM »

what kind of heating do you have now ie. forced hot air, radiators, baseboard, radiant, ect.  it is important to know..  my father runs wood with a natures comfort 175 for about 2000 sqft but he uses radiant heat in the floors... can run water temps around 130 and get great heat... I have a 3500 sqft home and a small office that i heat with an ncb-250, when i used wood, it works like a charm...coal not so much...  the natures comfort is a great wood burner... wood that is.  their prices were reasonable i thought.   i have fin-type baseboard and radiators and require higher water temps.. 160 min to be effective, 180 even better but not necessary.