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[hellspcangel911]

Hi All,
I’m new to the forum but have been reading a lot of other people’s posts. Im getting ready to purchase a OWF and would like some feedback on the setup from the gurus to make sure I don’t make any costly mistakes.
Our house is about 2500sqft, has a 2 car garage and a half finished basement with baseboard heating on a 4 zone oil fired furnace.
House built in 1993, relatively well insulated, but drafty.
I have plans to add a 1500sqft work shop about 100 feet from the house so ideally I would setup the OWS in between the house and proposed work shop so I can heat it later on.
So the OWF would be about 50 feet from the house, lines running underground to the basement. There I would install a 70 plate water to water heat exchanger to keep the closed baseboard system separate and a 50 plate HX to use for hot water.
Can I setup a thermostatic valve to switch between the two systems?
If the water from the OWF is below a certain temperature, power to the furnace would turn on allowing the furnace to fill the heat call.
The OWF would be about 6 – 8 feet higher (and 50 yards further) than the furnace. Would this pose a problem and can it be remedied?
Whats a good place to buy heat exchangers from? Any brand recommendations?
Does anyone have experience getting permits in CT for a OWS?  I plan to get one that’s EPA approved to avoid issues down the road.
The goal is to buy the OWF, set it up in the back yard (which would be about 10-15 feet from the house, is that ok with the smoke?) to save money on fuel this year. Next year I will level the rest of the land to start building the workshop and the permanent location of the OWS. 

Thoughts, comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
george

[DaveWertz]

1- Run your underground lines threw 6" tile 2- Dont cheap on lines, get good insulated wrapped lines. RSI and Scott7m sell really good material. You didnt mention anything about what lines you were using so I thought I would throw that out there. Also with the 6" tile if you ever need to pull your lines for repairs ect. you can just slide them threw without digging the lines up. Unless you have styrofoam build up in them like mine just had LOL. Cheers and good luck.

[Roger2561]

I made a few phone calls before I purchased my OWB.  One was to our local code enforcement officer to be sure I was allowed to install an OWB.  Because I live in a rural that was not a problem.  I also asked him about the minimum distance from the house.  I then checked to see if it needed to be EPA compliant (FYI - In NH it needs to follow EPA rules).

Please keep your neighbors in mind.  When I set mine up I checked on the prevailing winds (North - Northwest) and my nearest neighbor (South - Southeast) is about 5 miles away.  They'll never smell any smoke from OWB (Although mine is an EPA level II compliant unit, they'll always be a some smoke especially when it refires after being idle for a bit or just after I stoke it for the day/night.  It lasts for no more than a few minutes at the most).  However, my neighbors to the north are a couple of hundred feet away so be watchful of the smoke travel and add chimney lengths to limit its affect on them.  Thankfully, I did not have to add any length to the chimney, the 6ft height is just fine. 

Take DaveWertz advise - Don't skimp on the piping.  Granted it'll cost you more up front for quality pipe but it will be worth it in the long.

Good luck with the OWB and enjoy NOT hearing your oil furnace running.   Roger     

[Scott7m]

Let me step up and say its that yes what your wanting to do is all possible, but also really hard to answer/explain reasoning over the forum.  If your wanting to discuss it and options for your heating applications feel free to give me a call and we can discuss it, as it could easily turn into a 30 minute phone call.  606-316-9697. Leave a msg if u don't get me. 

Then for educational purposes and beneficial to the forum we'll come back and give a summary of what we discussed.

When it comes to what your doing having every component properly sized to work together is the key factor, buying this part here, that part there, this pump over there can all lead to problems, system design is as important if not more important than a good stove