Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Wood Heating

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Six things to Ask Yourself When Comparing a Traditional Indoor and Outdoor Boiler

Are you thinking about a traditional boiler, but are not sure if you want it indoors or outdoors? This is an important decision, and over the years Obadiah's has helped many customers decide what is best for their household or business. To get you started, here are six things to ask yourself when comparing a traditional indoor and outdoor boiler.

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Saturday, June 6, 2015

The Problem With European Style Batch Burner Boilers

In the past ten years, "Gasification Boilers" has become a popular buzzword for dealers like myself. It sounds like magic, and many companies are using the label "Gasification Boilers" to market a product to North America that, in my opinion, does not fit the actual needs or mindset of the market here: European-style batch burner boilers.

It's been my experience that the boiler market in North America is very low-tech and focuses mostly on outdoor boilers, a technology that is very dirty burning and inefficient. That inefficiency, combined with their growing popularity, has put the outdoor boiler in the EPA's cross-hairs for elimination (at the moment, they are still allowed for agricultural markets where there is no local regulation for particulate output; for more information, please read Obadiah's article here on how the EPA's regulations affect users in the United States).

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Saturday, February 2, 2013

Open or Closed System, what does that mean and what are the benefits?
Boiler Proper Installation With Mixing Valve System Optimizer

The easiest way to explain this is to compare a boiler system to a vehicle cooling system. On a vehicle, the cooling system is closed.  There is a pressurized cap that will vent if the tempertures get to hot and the system begins to boil over. Rather than exploding, the cap releases the presure and the fluid escapes. There is also a thermosat in the system which opens and closes according the coolent temps. When the vehicle is cold in the morning, the thermosat is closed and recirculates the water through the engine block, allowing the engine to reach operating temps faster. Once the engine is warm, the thermosat opens and coolent flows through the system, regulating the tempertures to the engine so it runs at optimum temps. Now picture your wood boiler as the engine and the cooling system as your radiant heating system. They are very similar in design.

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Friday, February 1, 2013

In Basement Hot Water Collapsible Insulated Storage Tank 500 gal

Where to install your wood boiler?
Your choice here should always be indoors in my opion. If you have a walk out basement, build a boiler room with a wood room and a shoot to feed the wood downstairs. Everything is nice and warm. If you don’t have a walk out basement, some boilers are extremely heavy and most stairways cannot support the weight.  Have a pro look at it first.
If you want the smoke and mess out of the house, I agree.  Add a shed on the back of the house, or build a freestanding boiler house to shelter your boiler and the wood you’ll be feeding it.
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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Water Storage or no water storage- what is the best way to go with installing a wood boiler?


Effecta Lambda Wood Gasification Hot Water Storage System
This is the million dollar question, in my my humble opinion water storage is the best way to go, if you can make it happen. Let me explain it the way the Europeans view effcient hot water solid fuel boilers.
Picture this, you have a gallon of fuel and you have a generator. You need to produce eletricity to power your home. Running a large generator at an idle all day long does not make a gallon of fuel go very far, but run the generator at a more efficient speed and use that power to charge your battery bank. You can then draw a little power as needed later and the generator does not need to run except to charge the battery bank again. Depending on how frugal you are with your stored energy, will determin how long you can go on a charge.
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Friday, January 11, 2013

Wood Fire Heating

The key to burning wood cleanly and efficiently


Man has been burning wood as a renewable, carbon neutral fuel for thosands of years.  It is only recently that we have given much thought to what is coming out of the chimney.
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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Heat Handlers and Water to Air Heat Exchangers-The Truth

Pro Fab Heat Handler Water/Hot Air Self Contained Heat Exchanger
Few folks will tell you the truth about forced air systems. Air is a great insulater -  just look at your new high effeciency thermal windows. How do they work?  There is an air space under vacuum and in some cases injected with Argon gas to further increase thermal effeciency.  Very simply, air is a fantastic insulator.
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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Underground Insulated Pipe- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Truth…..

Underground PEX Plumbing For Wood Boilers

95% of all underground pipes leave no gaps between the feed and return PEX lines.  When you consider the BTU bleed off factor you get when you bury this low R value pipe in the ground, not to mention the very low R-Values, I wonder how the contractor could sleep at night. So many BTUs are cancelled out in the pipe before they reach the place where the BTUs are needed.  In a water to air heat exchanger, this can be a problem on really long runs. My advice is, if you’re going with an outdoor boiler, run two corrugated lines with two hot feeds in one pipe and two cold returns in the other. Don’t skimp here; otherwise you’ll be heating the ground next to your home and not your home or shop. Here is a good place to see what has happened to others. http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/insulated-underground-pex.48808/

I have heard that some of the underground PEX pipe companies claim less than 1 degree heat loss in 100’……..please…        Let’s take a simple look at this idea and see how much sense it all makes to you.
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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Wood Boilers- indoor/outdoor, open/closed, gasification……what???
Will someone just level with me?
 
I have been in the Fire/Hearth/HVAC/Building industries for over 32 yrs.  The one thing I know for sure is that I don’t know everything……….the following is just my honest assessment based on my experience. 
One of the reasons I love what we do is because I’m always learning new things. Our goal as a company is very simple; help folks cut through the “hype” and figure out what they need to accomplish their goal. Our job in my opinion is to tell the truth and give honest advice based on our experience, what works and what may not meet the customer’s expectations.

Non EPA Compliant Wood Outdoor BoilersI have spoken with several folks who called me because they now have an outdoor boiler sitting in their back yards with CONDEMEDED DO NOT USE sticker on it. Worse yet, the unit is only a couple of years old.


 
What happened you ask?
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Friday, June 1, 2012

Wood Cookstoves: The Alternate Source For Your Everyday Life, by Sarah C.

Wood heat: Is it really the best source, and why? This seems to be a popular question. I’m sure you have heard about the many benefits of an alternative energy source, but how much do you really know about wood heat? Maybe you remember that you grandmother used to cook on a wood cookstove back in the day, but you probably assume that wood cooking is old fashioned and outdated -- think again!  How much do you spend a year to heat your home? Not to mention the additional cost of cooking your food, and heating your water. We just filled up our propane tank the other day, and the cost was over $1,200! For that price, you can almost buy an alternative heat source, water source, and cooking source. If your interested in switching your home to a simpler, cheaper, more self-sufficient abode, you’ve come to the right place. In the following paragraphs I plan to answer common questions about heating with wood; I will share with you what I’ve learned about using wood heat, and how beneficial it has been for my family.

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