Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Plumbing => Topic started by: Durzz on February 01, 2012, 06:29:31 PM
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First time posting so I hope this is in the right place.
I have been looking at a OWB for a little over a year now.
If I do buy one I would want to look into running my business heat as well with it.
Business sits right at 600ft from my home.
Is this too far for under ground pluming?
Will I have too much heat loss?
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I think the cb pipe is 1 degree every 100ft I thing is is do able
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you better do some investigating, that is a long way to run pipe..insulation and heat loss is not your big concdern, i would guess piping size to move water that far without creting too much head loss would be your biggest concern (and cost)
some guys say you can get tripple wrap for 5 or 6 bucks a foot but that would likley be 1 inch
i think you may be looking at a much bigger line than that?
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How many BTU's do you need at the end of the 600'? You will need to get some big pipe to flow enough GPMs if you need much heat.
If you want to do it with no splices there aren't a lot of choices with that length. I think Thermopex comes in 800' rolls but 1-1/4" is around $15 per foot. At $9000 you might as well just get another boiler. You could do it with 5 wrap 1-1/4" with one splice in the middle for under $4000. If you are heating a very large area 1-1/4 might not even be big enough. 1-1/2" pex is almost $5 per foot more than the 1-1/4"
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Yeah that underground pipe is not cheap at all..Like RSI mentioned..You might as well buy another boiler.. Might be cheaper...I know 2 people that have 2 outdoor wood boilers..One for the house and the other for the shop... Boiler set by house and other boiler set by shop...The other person has it for apartments and other for a business.. Boilers set next to each other..
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a little rough figuring for 10 gpm =
1 inch pex about 6.3 feet of head per 100 feet
1.250 inch pex about 1.7 feet of head per 100 feet
1.500 inch pex about .75 feet of head per 100 feet
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Where did you get those numbers? Is there a chart or something that shows different sizes and flow rates?
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see if you can get this link to work. im not sure if you need it all or not. it opend in a pdf i think
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=pipe%20to%20move%2010%20gpm%20600%20feet&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CCkQFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.midc-ent.com%2FPump%2520Basic-Sizing.pdf&ei=IQEqT5WSMpLlggeCxZDfDw&usg=AFQjCNGlfbQ3KegKc5dOA2PY1qJPE-4kCg (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=pipe%20to%20move%2010%20gpm%20600%20feet&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CCkQFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.midc-ent.com%2FPump%2520Basic-Sizing.pdf&ei=IQEqT5WSMpLlggeCxZDfDw&usg=AFQjCNGlfbQ3KegKc5dOA2PY1qJPE-4kCg)
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it is mostly about well pumps but soewhere down teh pages it has a chart for pipes and gpm and head loss
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Is it for pex or some other type of pipe? Pex is the same outside diameter and copper but had a wall thickness 1/9th the diameter so the larger sizes have pretty thick walls.
1-1/2" pex measures just over 1.25" ID and is 1.625" OD. If your ratings were for another type of pipe you probably have to go a size up to be equivalent.
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Is it for pex or some other type of pipe? Pex is the same outside diameter and copper but had a wall thickness 1/9th the diameter so the larger sizes have pretty thick walls.
1-1/2" pex measures just over 1.25" ID and is 1.625" OD. If your ratings were for another type of pipe you probably have to go a size up to be equivalent.
figures used were for plastic..1 inch being 1.09 id 1.25 is 1.38 id and 1.500 is 1.61 id (according to chart)
so maybe we go to 14 gpm and still callit 10
1 inch 11.8 ...1.25 3.10 and 1.5 1.46 (these are just guesses now that youahve given correct id of pipes) i think they will do for rough figuring?
i will look for a chart for pex...stay tuned
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If your numbers are close it might work with 1-1/4" pex and two PL36 pumps. Another option would be two PL55 pumps if necessary.
(http://www.rsiboilers.com/owfi/pl35curve.png)
(http://www.rsiboilers.com/owfi/pl55curve.png)
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best i can find right now RSI
1 inch with ID of .865 10 gpm 6.134 feet of head per 100 feet
1.25 inch with ID of 1.055 10gpm 2.367 feet f head per 100 feet
1.500 with an ID of 1.245 10 gpm 1.070 feet of head per 100 feet
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Good questions!
My home is right at 4000 sq ft
By business is about the same.
Im not sure how to figure out how much btu I will need. If someone will tell me I will figure it out.
Not sure if it matters but my business has half in floor heating with a boiler and the other half is forced air furnace.
Sorry I don't know much about this but I guess that is why I'm here. :)
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What size is the existing furnace and boiler? That is the easiest way to get a good guess going off how often they run. It looks like 1.25" will probably work ok with the right pump(s).
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I will check both my home and business in the morning.
Thank you all for your help!
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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.
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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.
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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
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Do they run pretty much full time when it is the coldest part of the winter? 1-1/4" pex should work.
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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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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Thank you everyone for your help!