Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Portage & Main => Topic started by: Jwood on April 02, 2014, 06:25:40 AM
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So I'm trying to figure out the heat load on my house, maybe Slim can help!
Ok so the house is 2500sq ft two story walk out with 1 basement wall buried maybe 3-4 feet into a hill the rest slopes down to the walkout, upstairs is forced air and the basement is all radiant in floor. The house is layed out 30x40 with a small 10x10 mud room addition. So far I tried to use a free heat load calculator online and came up with around 55,000 btu per hour, how accurate that is I have no idea and and how much insulation in!the ceiling is a mystery. I also want to heat a 30x30 two car garage domestic hot water , and in the near future a hot tub. Now it gets very cold here talking many nights of -20 to -30. Any recommendations on what BL model I would need?
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Can you help point me in the right direction Slimjim?
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Sorry Jwood I just saw this one, the small B-L would do your home easily, we would rather you run them than not have enough load on it, what do you have now for heat and what quantity of fuel do you use, this will give us a pretty accurate number of your BTU requirements.
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Slim we just bought the house last Sept. this was our first winter in the new house so my fuel amounts are based off of since we've moved in. There was 30 percent in the old propane tank, we used that right away ordered propane from a different vendor due to price shopping used 500 gallons in 2 months roughly. Now here is my favorite part, basement radiant heat is heated using the old water heater trick, not efficient and not to code around here so I didn't heat the basement this winter so that stayed at 40-45 degrees. It's cold up here in MN and I'm done with going to gas company and having them tell me to use electric heaters cause their propane went up to 5.59 also want to heat the garage and leave it at 65-70 degrees 8)
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I forgot to mention the furnace is a Heil 90+ efficient 75,000 btu
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WOW, are you fairly certain about the gallons and time frames? did you close the windows, seriously, that's a lot of heat, where the the heck is it going.
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WOW, are you fairly certain about the gallons and time frames? did you close the windows, seriously, that's a lot of heat, where the the heck is it going.
My guess is a chminey and floor joist end caps. :-\ Sure does seem like a bit high on usage.
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Yes I'm still sitting at 20% in the tank but that is only due to running space heaters so I didn't have to fill up at 5.59! Can't win with space heaters either because out electric went from under 100 up to $300 I think the house is fairly well insulated we just had so many days of -15 highs and -20 to -30 lows, I'm talking probably over 30 days like that. Oh and the house located in a pretty open area lots of wind, I don't have a chimney either.
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Nope.... you just have what we call in Indiana "damm cold!" ;)
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Haha exactly sloppy! My brother in law has an indoor wood boiler outside in a shed, his only for of heat, and he's well over 10 cord probably closer to 12 and his neighbor has an outdoor boiler(not sure what brand) he had 2 semi loads burned up at least a month ago from what I've heard. I guess that's why I want to make sure I don't go to small on the boiler and I will be building another garage/shop, nothing huge but maybe 36x40.
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I still think something is off on the load, if what you say is true then upsize to the bigger unit and get that garage on line as soon as you can to get the load on it.
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I just did some quick load calculator off my phone probably definatly off but ya the garage would be hooked up when the house is so your thinking the 34-44?
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yes, driving, can,t talk
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When it was cold was your Furnace running all the time?
The Garage could take a lot of heat by itself, is it well insulated.
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New place to us garage in unfinished inside so I will be insulting in the next few weeks 2x4 constructed garage so of course walls are limited. As far as the furnace goes it ran for quite a long time and probably shut off for 5-10 mins at a time between calling for heat.
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Wow, looking at that last post makes me think my English teacher would be disappointed!
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Well it sounds like the calculation was not that far off, say round it up plus what you need for the Garage.
Assuming the heat the Furnace was putting out was OK.
The Garage, well that depends on how well you insulate it, how warm you want to keep it. If you want it warm in there when it is coldest outside then it would a straight add on. 2x4 does not suggest too much in the way of insulation.
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By 2x4 framing you are limited to about R-13 in the walls, thats all I was trying to say.
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Slim, do you think the first figure I had done was to low on the heat load? I downloaded and app to my phone and its pretty generic, but now with that one I'm at just over 90,000 btu not including any hot water garage etc. Does this sound more in the ballpark?
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It sure does, what makes me think you are very low on the estimate is your fuel consumption, sure seems like we are still missing something, you will be putting the garage on line this year, am I correct?
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Yes garage will be hooked up before next winter, the Mrs. wants to park in a heated garage again and if the wife is happy then I'm happy!!!
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The oven is the only other appliance on propane btw
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Furnace 75,000
90% efficient 67,500
Peak Load operates 85% of the time 57,500
Add Hot Water
Basement - increase temperature by 20 degrees
Add Garage 900 sq ft at say 20 btu per sq ft assuming you do not need to keep it super hot and will be well insulated.
Peak load about 90,000 btus/hr net give or take.
Crude but should be a reasonable ball park.
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We normally use between 33 and 39 per foot in Maine but yes by all means go with your local #s, could you recalculate those #s, my head hurts, it's been a long day, Hot as heck here in Florida and NO SNOW!
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Slim you are lucky its got just warm enough today for the driveway to turn to mud and my wife got her car stuck in it, it was lovely!
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I love my Job!!!!
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I bet since it brings you to Florida, I'm assuming you are down there installing a boiler or something like that.
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Yes, we are installing our Enviro 500 wood chip boiler here at a cattle ranch, see the thread what we are doing in Fla.
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Nice! And how long are you down there and how far from home?
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We, my buddy Danny who they flew down to help a week ago and I are hoping to leave here by the end of the week and then spend at least a week visiting anybody that wants to see us on the way home, Crescent City, Florida to Lyman, Maine is about 1300 miles but we will be making lots of detours.
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You could have asked me to fly down to help,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,with the beer,,what kind bourbon the have there?
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I would first have to know your true identity Brian says it's a secret and that you are keeping an eye on me to make sure I don't get out of hand, if you were here, we would both be in trouble!
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That sounds like a nice adventure, very dang cool that you go and visit people and talk boilers! Kinda crazy that when I decided I was going to get a boiler my attitude was just that I think I will start burning wood and be done with propane, now its turning into an addiction because of this site and Libertarians like you Slim :thumbup:
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THANK YOU, you have no idea how PROUD that makes me feel, Wood boilers, Politics and Love.
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Well your passion shows!
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Hey slim could this site be correct on figuring out my heat load? I figured the garage included with well insulated figures 3280 sq ft
http://www.answers.com/topic/calculating-heating-and-cooling-needs (http://www.answers.com/topic/calculating-heating-and-cooling-needs)
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That looks extremely crude, I did mine and came out with a load 75% more. I am in a high heat area of my State, if I was in the warmest spot it would be 3x too high.
I went through about 6 of the online calculators, I seem to remember about a 15% variance between them, I took the average. Thinking back on it I am oversized a bit.
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I was surprised how high it came out as well.
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I like to use a history of BTU used as I don't think any of the calculators will be spot on. I would agree if you are going to use a calculator then an average of several would be best.
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I wish I had more history to go off of I will probably end up buying some good software or just do a bunch online like you guys say.
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I wish I had more history to go off of I will probably end up buying some good software or just do a bunch online like you guys say.
Sprinter really helped me out on my heat loss by suggesting the Slant Fin Calcualtor (free). I was able to successfully download and calculate my heat load loss using this software (thank you again Sprinter!).
LINK: Slant Fin Heat Loss Calculator (Click Here & Save to your PC) (http://www.pvsullivan.com/Downloads/SlantFin/he2setup.exe)
Plan on a few hours measuring rooms and determining insulation levels, thickness of subflooring, etc. in order to input "more correct" information in the program. I hope this helps you as much as it did for me! :thumbup: -Slopster
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Thanks Slopster I will check that out :thumbup:
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Thanks for posting the link it will be helpful
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Jwood i might be able to give you some more info have a couple of questions how old is the house and does it have a fireplace in it thanks
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House is 11 years old and no chimney radiant in floor heat in the basement and forced air up stairs and the 26x30 garage will be forced air.
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Jwood are the basement walls insulated. Reason for the forced hot air in the garage? Why not a radiator or a modine what ever the case with the garage and hot tub I would go to the BL 3444 so that if you need longer burn time or more energy you have it just regulate with size and amount of wood. We have a 1850s farm house 3600 sg ft plus full stone basement on a hill 600ft above sea level so when its -20and the wind blows I turn up the boiler to190 and put sum bigger wood in and listen to the wind blow and in joy the 75 degree temp and all the hot showers you want
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Yes basement walls are insulated I have no idea what is under the radiant heat in the floor I would hope that's insulated but I will never know In the garage I meant a hanging unit like a dragons breath off this website
http://www.altheatsupply.com/ (http://www.altheatsupply.com/)
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I appreciate your help as well as everyone else's help to!
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Here is about the most accurate one and easy to use heat loss program.
http://store.hydronicpros.com/Heat-Load-Pro-download-/P1041_1006/ (http://store.hydronicpros.com/Heat-Load-Pro-download-/P1041_1006/)
The slant fin model is pretty accurate as well. Worth every penny, and easily sold if you get the disk. Some even do it for side money, versus paying a pro $125 plus to come out and do it.
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Thanks sprinter!