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16
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: creosote
« on: January 31, 2019, 07:43:33 AM »
I am willing to give that a try, I was looking for a good excuse to drink more beer in the winter.
17
General Discussion / Re: Another reason to burn wood
« on: January 30, 2019, 05:08:08 PM »
Every house should have a wood back up. Unfortunately it seems insurance companies seem to discourage this through higher premiums when it should be encouraged it to promote independence.
18
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: creosote
« on: January 30, 2019, 08:27:53 AM »
I can't help from personal experience since my firebox is lined with firebrick, but a work colleague climbs in his every spring and scrapes the creosote off the walls. I don't know if he then gives it a good burn out with cardboard, but I have heard some people do.
19
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Softened water in the boiler
« on: January 29, 2019, 06:42:08 PM »
Since you have it anyways, I would use the softened water if it can handle the volume. It is better for the boiler, less chance of a hardness scale forming.
20
General Discussion / Re: Damn cold
« on: January 29, 2019, 05:36:26 PM »
This time around, we are being spared the worst of it, just minus 20 but we are going to get a bunch of snow. 2 weeks ago, we had the minus 30 with wicked north winds. Walking the dog along the road, which is oriented north/south was a bone rattling experience. The house is somewhat protected by several acres of tress and shrubs. Many years ago, I really should have planted a row of evergreens along the north side of the house for a good and proper wind break. Never too late though I guess.
21
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: The novelty of filling the boiler wears off for me mid Feburary
« on: January 25, 2019, 03:14:36 PM »
Yes, this is only looking at it from a fuel cost perspective. If you are starting from scratch, you would need to take capital costs into account. You could also debate the fuel costs. Wood cost seems fairly stable. The cost of fossil fuels can be fairly erratic. Nat Gas spiked in 2008, 4X higher than its current price. If it is ever decided that fracking is bad, and the practice is outlawed, watch the price spike again.
22
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: The novelty of filling the boiler wears off for me mid Feburary
« on: January 25, 2019, 12:07:50 PM »
Just a few more quick back of the envelopes if anyone is curious.
In my area (the Socialist Republic of Canadastan), a load of logs is generally $950 for about 9 cords, nat gas is 50 cents a cu meter, fuel oil is $1.09 per litre, electricity is 20 cents per KwH. These prices take all factors like delivery costs and services charges into account. We will use RSI's number for propane at $1.59 per gal. If we convert everything to BTU's and then figure out how many BTU's we get for a penny and then factor in the efficiency of the furnaces (very subjective of course) we get a useable output cost.....
wood 2278 BTU/cent @50% eff = 1136 BTU/cent
nat gas 714 BTU/cent @95% eff= 678 BTU/cent
propane 588 BTU/cent @95% eff= 558 BTU/cent
oil 333 BTU/cent @82% eff= 273 BTU/cent
electricity 170 BTU/cent @100% eff= 170 BTU/cent
Using wood as the baseline
wood 1.0x more expensive than wood
nat gas 1.7x more expensive than wood
propane 2.0x more expensive than wood
oil 4.0x more expensive than wood
electricity 6.7x more expensive than wood
Of course, many here get their wood for free, but this usually entails more work. Some may have wood lots and like to keep the dead stuff cleaned up, so wood is the best choice for many reasons. For me, if the option is oil or electricity, I would go with wood for sure. If nat gas or propane is available, then you had better not hate handling wood, as it is a tougher case to make.
In my area (the Socialist Republic of Canadastan), a load of logs is generally $950 for about 9 cords, nat gas is 50 cents a cu meter, fuel oil is $1.09 per litre, electricity is 20 cents per KwH. These prices take all factors like delivery costs and services charges into account. We will use RSI's number for propane at $1.59 per gal. If we convert everything to BTU's and then figure out how many BTU's we get for a penny and then factor in the efficiency of the furnaces (very subjective of course) we get a useable output cost.....
wood 2278 BTU/cent @50% eff = 1136 BTU/cent
nat gas 714 BTU/cent @95% eff= 678 BTU/cent
propane 588 BTU/cent @95% eff= 558 BTU/cent
oil 333 BTU/cent @82% eff= 273 BTU/cent
electricity 170 BTU/cent @100% eff= 170 BTU/cent
Using wood as the baseline
wood 1.0x more expensive than wood
nat gas 1.7x more expensive than wood
propane 2.0x more expensive than wood
oil 4.0x more expensive than wood
electricity 6.7x more expensive than wood
Of course, many here get their wood for free, but this usually entails more work. Some may have wood lots and like to keep the dead stuff cleaned up, so wood is the best choice for many reasons. For me, if the option is oil or electricity, I would go with wood for sure. If nat gas or propane is available, then you had better not hate handling wood, as it is a tougher case to make.
23
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: The novelty of filling the boiler wears off for me mid Feburary
« on: January 25, 2019, 06:52:48 AM »
Curious what the price of propane is. I thought it had come down a lot but maybe not. I buy a load of logs for $950, then spend about 60 hours bucking, splitting and stacking them into a temporary pile. It takes another 20 hours to restack them into the wood shed. There is a natural gas line that goes past the house. A quick back of the envelope calc suggests I could heat the house for a cost of $1200 burning only clean reliable natural gas. Certainly these numbers makes one question their sanity.
I just finished next years wood. Still needs to go in the wood shed.
I just finished next years wood. Still needs to go in the wood shed.
24
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: What temp does water boil in vacuum?
« on: January 25, 2019, 06:24:10 AM »
Not one of the smarter guys, but I will still chime in
These are ball park numbers
minus 5 psi boils at 194 F
minus 10 psi boils at 158 F
minus 14.7 psi boils at 72 F (perfect vacuum)
Here is a helpful link that I got from a quick google search
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-boiling-point-of-water-in-vacuum
These are ball park numbers
minus 5 psi boils at 194 F
minus 10 psi boils at 158 F
minus 14.7 psi boils at 72 F (perfect vacuum)
Here is a helpful link that I got from a quick google search
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-boiling-point-of-water-in-vacuum
25
Plumbing / Re: Badger Circulation Pump
« on: January 24, 2019, 10:43:53 AM »
It's not just the heat load, but the 225 ft that the pump needs to push water through. That is quite a distance. I would probably check out a pump curve of the Badger and compare it to the competitors. I once owned a Chinese Wasser 25-10 3 spd pump whose direct replacement was the Gundfos 26 99 3 spd. The pump curves were pretty much identical between the two pumps for all three speeds.
26
Electronics / Re: Upgraded my control console
« on: January 24, 2019, 06:53:01 AM »
Looks good. Lots of info at a glance, great for trouble shooting, My automation is a little more....um....old school.
27
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: What's normal stack temp
« on: January 14, 2019, 08:16:29 AM »
I have a thermometer on my flue pipe, and the "recommended" lower value is 300, and I usually operate it right around that temp. I clean the 6 foot chimney once a year at the end of the season and creosote build up is maybe a 1/4 to 3/8 inch of so. I would say if you went for 400 F you should be OK. I found a big difference for me was removing the cap. It seemed to cause a restriction that really caused creosote to build up there.
28
Home Made / Re: OWB #3
« on: December 30, 2018, 11:00:24 AM »
You probably won't find any real correlation of firebox vs. water capacity. Some like Garn have huge water capacities. If I recall, one former member /dealer on this site claimed his best unit held just 33 gals of water, although I personally am in favour of larger storage to run the boiler full blast for longer periods. One thing about water capacity, you can always add more storage later if you think you need it. My boiler holds about 225 gal water, and I have a 300 gal external tank next to it. Downside with more storage is that it is not real responsive for a quick heat during the shoulder season. If I ever do a build 2.0, I would give some thought to variable storage.
29
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Burning lots of wood already this year!
« on: December 21, 2018, 09:05:38 PM »
I lit up Sept 22, off and on for the first couple weeks, and then full speed around Oct 10th. Oct was below normal and Nov very cold. Dec has been up and down, but overall a bit above average. We have had snow on the ground since early Nov and, as always, will be getting a very white Christmas. Have gone through a couple cords I would guess, but only heat about 1500 ft, the shop occasionally, and no hot water. Just got next years load of logs.
30
Home Made / Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« on: December 01, 2018, 07:56:16 AM »
Great to hear of another success story. I will be into my 10th season this year. My build cost was roughly $6,000 all in. I buy logs each year for $1,000 and I used to go through 4 tanks of oil per heating season @ close to $1,000 per fill up. So about a 2 year payback, although I always have extra expenses over and above the wood. This year was more extreme than usual. I bought a new pump to have as a spare, bought new cast iron grates which, at $400, were surprisingly expensive, and finally bought a real cant hook, in lieu of the home made one I have been using for years. Still, I will save over $2000 in fuel costs this year.