Print

[Durzz]

I will check both my home and business in the morning.

Thank you all for your help!

[Bull]

Welcome to the site Durzz, could you put the OWB in the middle of your home and shop? 300 feet each way may work better.

[Durzz]

Bull,

I have thought about that and I may end up having to do that but honestly if I did do that there really isn't a good place to put it.  It would just have to sit right in the middle of a field.  Also if we ever end up selling the business building...something that is possible....I would end up with my OWB 300 ft from my home? 

But if that's what we end up doing we will work with it.

[Durzz]

Ok....I checked my BTUs

Home is run off 2 furnaces....one is 100,000 and one is 80,000

Business is run off one furnace 100,000 BTU and one boiler 60,000 BTU

[RSI]

Do they run pretty much full time when it is the coldest part of the winter? 1-1/4" pex should work.

[Durzz]

Do they run pretty much full time when it is the coldest part of the winter? 1-1/4" pex should work.

No....the house is well insulated as it's only 2 years old so those furnaces might run 40% of the time.

The business furnace does run quite a bit more.....when temps are below 20 it will run 80% of the time during the day......at night we turn down the temp so it does not run near as much.

So I need to be looking at 1-1/4" pex? 

[willieG]

durzz,, i owuld ask if you could supply the information on how many btu's of heat you used last year (this could be figure out by what type of fuel you used and how much)

you have enough furnaces for 340,000 btu per hour (i know you will use much less)
you say you ahve aprox. 8000 square feet to heat
a normal house where i live (southern ontario) is considered 1800 to 2000 square feet so you have 4 "normal houses"
a normal house in my area is said to require on average 100,000,000 btu a winter so we could guess you would need 4 times that 400,000,000 btu

the best  hardwood has about 20,000,000 recoverable btu in it, if we said your stove was 80 percent efficent you would get about 16,000,000 our of each cord so you would require about 25 cords of the best hardwood around. that is a lot of wood  to put through one stove. you may have to load it three or 4 times a day?

of course your business may be kept cooler than average and that would reduce the wood consumption.

and these oare only guesses from charts on my part. if  you could tell  us what your fuel consumption was last year we coould give you a close estimate on your wood usage. as of right now i would agree with the gent who said 2 stoves may be a better option. you may use the same amount of wood but you would get a way with less fills per day

what every you decide, the distance you say you require right now is for sure 1 1/4 pipe

[Durzz]

Ok....I pulled all my natural gas bills bills for my home and for our business.

Home we spent $929 and used just over 1050 therms.

Business we spent $1225 and used just under 1500 therms.

I have no idea what a therm is but I bet some of you do!

At this point I'm wondering if a OWB will ever pay for its self.

[RSI]

Is that for a month or for the whole winter?

A therm is 100,000 BTU. If your furnace is 80% efficient the you will get 80,000 btu of heat in your house from a therm.

[Durzz]

Is that for a month or for the whole winter?

A therm is 100,000 BTU. If your furnace is 80% efficient the you will get 80,000 btu of heat in your house from a therm.

That is a years worth.

[RSI]

Is that for a month or for the whole winter?

A therm is 100,000 BTU. If your furnace is 80% efficient the you will get 80,000 btu of heat in your house from a therm.

That is a years worth.

That is the equivalent to paying about $0.78 a gallon for LP.

[martyinmi]

Under a grand to heat your home! WOW!!  I'm not sure I'd contemplate switching to wood-in fact, I know I wouldn't. I used to go through, on average, around 1200 gallons of fuel oil, and at $3.75/gallon, my system will legitimately pay for itself in 3 years. But, I don't have a fuel bill for a business either. In any event, your heating costs are very cheap- in fact, less than most pay for their home alone. Unless you want to be off grid altogether, I wouldn't switch.

[Durzz]

I don't really care about being off the grid but I just hate the idea of not using my in-floor heating in the house and driveway.

Guess I may need to look into a natural gas boiler.

[willieG]

from your posting of heat used you are using about 255,000,000 btu per season that is about 15  cords of wood  at 80 percent efficiency (close anyway)  you say you are paying 2154 dollars a year  so there you have it . you can buy a stove and pay for it in ? years (depends what you pay for a stove)

[Trint]

Outside suggestion maybe it would be more cost effective to consider a small OWB for your floors and driveway, save on the cost of pipe to the buisness and a larger unit.  I believe the cost difference between a high efficiency natural gas boiler and a small OWB would not be that great.  I know from a fuel price standpoint it is hard to justify wood if you can have natural gas, for the rest of us that don't its a much easier decision.