I LOVE my water stove

TSYORK, We are slap dab in the middle of the state, just south of Asheboro. You have to remember that most people think a stick of wood is 18". Here in Carolina it may be 30" long and the diameter is what ever you can pick up. Would love to see some pictures too. Enjoy.

if it builds to much preasure in the coil is there a releif valve somewhere

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Don't complain, just do it

There's a steam escape valve on top of the stove, which relieves any built up pressure.

I think I'd need to see pictures. The heatmor residential unit for a 3K foot house is 85 gallons. The big scale commercial ones don't even get to 550 gallons. Seem odd.

I'm excited to see your thingie, but am a bit leery of the claims. 3 bits of wood doesn't have that much energy to raise 550gal 47 deg in a few hours. Maybe 3 trees on fire...

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

OK, sounds like a wood boiler, home made version. Our Central Boiler unit has 300+ gallons which circulate through two pipes. Yes I can see once the water is up to temp not using hardly any wood. When we use ours in the summer for the hot water I only load it once a day and it maintains at about 180 degrees with just a few pieces of split wood. In the winter, in NNY, I can use a BUNCH but it is to heat an old drafty house and the water. Our unit used heavy insulation around PEX pipes and it is amazing to me how little wood we really do use. So, I can see in NC not using very much depending on insultion and efficiency of the unit.
Would like to see pics.

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tab

I suppose I'm thinking the math that doesn't work.

It takes 215330.5 BTUs (or so) to heat 550 gallons of water by 47 degrees so long as the water is not changing state.

She did this with 2 sticks of wood in the morning by noon. So let's say it was early in the a.m. and 0600. So 2 sticks of wood managed to put out 35888.35 (or so) BTUs of heat every hour for 6 hours or they put out some amount that totals 215330.5.

That seems an ENORMOUS amount of BTUs for wood of any sort. And that assumes 100 percent efficiency and no losses or adds to the water amount, meaning no heat transferred from the closed boiler to make heat or hot water. In that case it is much more.

Is my math wrong?

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

I am in the midst of installing a big Central Boiler water stove in the neighborhood. It is replacing a Hicks that is about 14 years old. I will be ready to fire the new Central Boiler tomorrow if all goes as it should. There are a lot of differences in the two units. The Central Boiler is supposedly almost twice as efficient as the Hicks. TSYORK, is the Hicks lookalike running any creosote from the main manifold box on the back of the stove where the 6 pipes converge prior to the smoke exiting the chimney/stack? On the unit that was taken out there is a half coupling welded in the bottom of the box I referenced. A drip bucket is usually placed under the version I took out to catch the "Liquor". Here is the unit I am installing. It is the green colored housing model CL6048
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...5245193847354#

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

based on your own numbers, it is very doable. Osage orange, generally considered to be the highest BTU wood in America(and abundant here in NC) had 6900 BTU per pound. So, to get your 215k BTU's would take about 31 pounds, or two 15 pound pieces of wood. keep in mind that what causes some wood to have higher BTU is the density. A piece of Osage Orange 15 pounds is smaller than a piece of Pine weighing 6.5 pounds. So, not a very big stick at all.
ETA: check the numbers here, it gives weight in pounds per cord, and heat in MBTU per cord, a calculator can give you every answer from those 2 pieces of data. http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
ETA again: Checked some other sites, this one gives a figure of 8000-9500 btu per pound of dried wood, so with the average of 8750 btu/lb, would take about 25 pounds. http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/MSD/fuel_facts.shtml

Oh, just one of the engineers involved with the thermal efficiency of the units.

Can't wait to see pictures! Sounds very cool.

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Idleness is leisure gone to seed

We have a Central Boiler 6048 it heats about 7000sf of shop, office, house, greenhouse and uses around 12 -14 cords a season. We burn October - May and shut down for the summer. It also does all of the hot water. We don't have it set up as efficiently as it could be and expect to burn a little less wood when we make some changes. We love it and paid over $8k in propane the year before we bought it.

I'm barely a chemist anymore and not a physicist but the water is AT 190 deg or whatever when she KEEPS it at that temp for another 12 hours with her 3 sticks. I am sure if she shuts the boiler down and lets the house get to 40 F in their absence it'll take a bit mroe than 3 sticks to get the water back up to usual heat and the house back up to 60 or 70 or whatever. This is not a hot water heater only- it is not heating water that she pours down the drain and replaces with cold water.

Sounds like an AGA.

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it is just a outdoor boiler, many are made throughout the country. i have a manufacturer of them in my home town. Nothing special about them.
I wonder what the poster is calling 3 "sticks" of wood.
Other then the fact those 3 so called Sticks Of Wood" are what? 4 foot long, 5 foot long? And How Big are those three "Sticks" around?
6 inches, 8 inches 10 inches? What?
That makes a whole lot of difference in just "How Much Wood" you have in those 3 "sticks" in the boiler.

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Agman,
I' not running any creosote, and there's no drip bucket for the "liquor."

We classify a stick of wood around here, for this stove, as piece of wood that is around 34 inches long and probably 10-12 inches across at the end. I can promise you, it takes more than one muscle getting it into the stove! lol

I think what people are missing is the steady state heat output of the unit. Ignore the 550 gallons. You only need to put as many BTU's in as you get out. The 550 gallons acts like a heat battery. It lets you burn hot, fast, and efficiently in the morning and night, and have heat/hot water all day long. Its somewhat similar to a masonry heater.

75% efficiency, 55degF source water temp, 140 deg final temp gives around 500,000btu's for the initial heating. Using around 6,400btu/lb of wood, thats only 78lbs of wood.

34" long by 12" diameter white oak log at 45lb/cubic foot is 90lbs of wood. So, even heating the whole 550 gallons, its still possible with two or three pieces split from this log. Even going to 211degF only takes 143lbs of wood.

foxtrapper; please let us know what is the btu content of the standard "three sticks of wood."

TSYORK; Good job. I'm interested in see the pics when you post them.

Michael

My computer is on the fritz right now, so the pictures will be posted as soon as I can get my unit back from the computer guy.

Also, I'll take as many pictures as you all would like, but I don't know how much you'll be able to derive from the stove. The stove is encapsulated in some type of stove insulation that is two ply deep on the two sides and front of the stove. Over the insulation fireproof border, then it is encapsulated in plywood that is held together by wire cords that run completely around the stove.

It's a beast, but it works great!

Sounds like your dad did a great job!

Some folks like to talk about stuff, sometimes they get in the way of the ones doing it.

Thanks for posting about it.

Well I defied the odds again last night....

The temperature was on 185 last night at bedtime, which was around 10 p.m. I didn't want to get it too hot, so I only put in one very large stick of wood. This morning, my house was toasty, the water was hot, and the water in the stove that heats my house and water was setting on 176 at 7 a.m. this morning. I added two sticks of wood before I left for work and at 1 p.m. today the stove was on 190.

Not too bad. The only electricity I'm using is to run my refrig, stove and lights. I'd love to do off grid, but my wife would divorce me, so I'm happy to a lower power bill, lol.

I've really got to see this thing! Seriously. That is just too efficient and tempting not to investigate.

At the retirement home I'm looking at wood heat, but the idea of all those cords of wood and having to stoke all the time is not appealing.

If I really can get all this for such a small amount of tending, I'd be super happy.

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me