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[gainerspot]

I Live in TN and have decided to get a OWB.  I have done some research on them.  This is a great site for info and has been 6 cords of help so far.  They are new to me, I grew up in Texas where it never got cold enough to need one so I didn't know anything about them to start with. 

Right now I am on propane and burnd through 600-700 gals this winter and never got the house much more than survivable.  I have a good friend who owns a saw mill and I will be able to get all the wood I need for free.  My house is 2000 Sq feet with a two story A frame in the living room and kitchen so there is a lot of heat lost in that area.  I will be heating the house with a Water to Air exchanger, and the DHW.  I have solar power on a battery back up that I will be using to run the system and county power as my back up.  I plan on adding a green house when ever I get time to build it (a year or two).  I live way out in the sticks.

On to the real question.  I realy think that the P&M OPTIMIZER 250 is a great OWB but I am wondering if that is overkill for my area?
Also I was wondering how hard the Instalation is to do myself. 1-10 I would give myself a 7-8 rating on my handyman skills.

[slimjim]

As I just said on another thread, there is a way to protect the boiler temps when the boiler runs out of fuel or simply does not have a large enough heat load on it, I have been showing the 250's for 4 years and they are shut down between shows for transport, the key is to keep the ceramics and water temps high enough to stop condensation, in your case it would be wise in my opinion to put a storage tank on the unit and fire it for heating when needed, the stove is certainly bigger than what you would require and should not be used without a proper load on it, the tank and greenhouse could be that load.

[WoodMOJoe]

...Also I was wondering how hard the Instalation is to do myself. 1-10 I would give myself a 7-8 rating on my handyman skills.

That is about how I would rate my handyman skills (7-8).  I'm kinda a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type and I just built my own furnace and installed my own system, with a LOT of good info and help from the folks on this website.

I had done some plumbing here and there but never touched any pex...the stuff is really simple to work with and the electrical part of it is very basic, especially if you are just hooking up a factory-built unit.

My take is, the average handyman type, with a few special tools (sheet metal tools if cutting into duct, pex cutter and cinch or crimp ring installer), some patience and the ability to ask good questions and take guidance from the experienced people here should be able to self-install a factory-built unit and do the in-house system install.

[gainerspot]

I have other ways I can add loads to the OWB.  I have a detached garage I could heat, I also have a hot tub that I could hook it up to carry some of the extra load,  Another Idea I have but need to come up with a way of making it work.  I raise my own hogs and would like to come up with a way to heat up my water in my scalding tank before scraping the hogs.  I also have a smoke house/ salt cure building that I could dump some of the load to when doing jerky or other odds and ins with.  The problem is that most of the load would be here and there not continues usage.  Sounds like I should be looking for something that is a smaller unit.  That sucks I really like the 250, seems like a heck of a unit.

[mlappin]

Far as you're scalding tank could use a pool heat exchanger.

You could do like slimjim suggest and add some thermal storage for the low heat times of the year and fire it once a day like a Garn.

[slimjim]

Thanks Mlappin, yes you could use thermal storage to create a heat load in warmer weather and fire the boiler as needed, however it does need to be done the right way, Gainerspot, how far off 75 are you, when I leave Scotts place it looks like I could detour down 75 without to many extra miles, would you be interested enough in that to pick up the tab for extra fuel?

[Sprinter]

Storage/buffer can be done rather cheap if you look around. It's never a negative even if you make more changes in the future. They make for a consistent load and size will determine how often you feed the boiler. Makes for long clean consistent predictable burn cycles.  Stored inside,  and any standby loss goes to the building.

[gainerspot]

Slimjim I am about 2 hour from 75 it would be great If you could come by, but I am away, I work out of town 2 weeks a month.  I will not be home for another 10 days or so. 
I am not sure if I would be a fan of adding another water storage around the house.  I already have 2 1550 gal rain collection tanks for house water.  Another one on the barn for the animals.  What about another smaller gasser unit that will not require outside storage?  I find it difficult to find out any info on the thickness on the 409SS units out there, or am I just such a newbie that I dont know that they are all the same guage 409SS.?.?

[slimjim]

Gainerspot, I just PM'd you back, I'll be stopping at Scotts tonight and will ask him about the stainless, a bigger issue in my opinion is that we have found that gassers are better run by one person as the substitute operator will not operate the stove the same as you will and confusion aways seems to take place, I'm not saying it can't be done but it seems to work better with one primary operator, will your wife be the substitute? I should be in Florida for about 2 weeks, will you be available on my way back? Other very simple controls can be installed as well as smaller nozzles can be used on the 250 to numb up the output for smaller heat loads, we should probably talk and I would welcome looking at your setup, I'm sure we can get you burning wood regardless of name brand, of course I would like it to be P+M.

[CountryBoyJohn]

Mr. Gainerspot.  I think you're leaning the right direction in not wanting to go the storage route.  I think you hit the nail on the head your second post.  This stove is simply too big.  If you have to make special accommodations for this stove, it's too big.  I think you'd run into trouble "creating" loads for it as well.  Intermittent usage of these additional sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

Have you considered a conventional stove?  I don't believe that TN is a Phase II state.  The conventional is much more forgiving.  Substitutes can easily keep your stove running while you are out.  I've had several different people tend my stove up to 4 days with not problems. 

 

[slimjim]

You are right Countryboy about the conventional's they are much more forgiving, The gassers can be batch fired though if done right with a separate aqua-stat that kills the blower when the temps drop in the boiler. I was under the impression that there was a reason that he wanted to go with a gasser!

[netwerx-r-us]

I live in Tn also and all i can say is crazy weather !, I heat 2 greenhouses and will be hooking up the house and garage sometime soon as soon as i get caught up with my work ( maybe 2016 or so the way things are going ) , the greenhouse really put a load on the stove as its no insulation value at all and trying to keep 2 at 55 degrees can be some work , a good stove should idle a long time if no heat is called for , right now during the day the greenhouses heat up enough to idle the stove most of the day and then after the sun goes down come on and off as needed

hope that helps , I bought a bigger stove to add on capacity later, I looked at  additional storage but after getting some really good advice here decided against it , I think if i m still here next year ill build a couple solar water heaters and storage tanks to offset some of the heating, heard a lot of good things on P and M , the guys here will steer you in the  right direction   

[slimjim]

In my humble opinion, Greenhouses are the BEST application that I can think of for thermal storage on an OWB, think about it, during the day there is little to no heat load on the stove ( you could be dumping heat into a tank ) at that point which in turn keeps the boiler water and firebox temps up and ready for use when you need it after the sun goes down. Have you ever considered under bench radiant heating in the Greenhouses?

[gainerspot]

I have been in TN for 2 years now and it seems to rain more than when I was in Florida and hotter than when I was in Texas, also as cold as I have ever been.  Them southern boys cant handle the cold.

I went by the place that builds the Tennessee outdoor wood furnace, they are 45 mins away from me. 
I just thought that a gasser would be getting all the heat out of the wood.  I really love the exchange of the 250 and that's what sold me on them. 
The wife loves her plants and playing in the garden, so a greenhouse is in the future.  That's my second selling point to her.   Just dont know if I will have time to build it this year.

[slimjim]

I would love to have a Greenhouse but I'm afraid I'd get arrested or broken into if I built one, Ultralights fly over my house all the time