Installation of Wood Boiler

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holden94

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I want to purchase a Greenwood Hydronic Wood Boiler to heat our home via forced hot water. I am trying to be thorough in my research before I purchase and am tossing out broad questions being ignorant and all. This will be a stand alone unit with no backup and will only serve for baseboard heating. I am looking at 4zones, possibly 5. Are there any opinions out there as to whether this should be a closed or open system? I don't know the pros/cons of either. I assume you need a circ pump for each zone? This unit comes shipped with a Taco 007 and honeywell aquastats. I read in this forum that folks have not been impresed with the technical support of either company but that doesn't tell me about the quality of the components. Any advise/wisdom on pitfalls to avoid? Any personal experiences with Greenwood?
I'd appreciate any input.
 

CHH

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A circulator for each zone is not required. My old system used a 007 for three zones. The new system is four zones and uses a primary/secondary loop system with 007 on both loops. The bypass still had to be set fairly high so there seems to be plenty of head available. I'd suggest roughing out the measurements and doing the head calcs to see what will be needed.

Taco recently changed their tech support email set-up and I got a reasonably quick and informative response to my question on start-up load. Haven't needed to contact Honeywell since their documentation was sufficient for my needs.

Quality of Honeywell and Taco? No complaints. Price may be a complaint on Honeywell. The Taco iron parts from Brazil may need a little touch-up but nothing major. I just had to dress the gasket grooves on the pump mounting flanges. Paint had run and created "lumps" in the grooves which had to be removed. I figure that thick paint is better than rust.
 

Jadnashua

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You said forced hot air, but I'm pretty sure you meant hydronic.

If any of the components in the system are ferrous, you really want to do a closed system as I understand it. A closed system will eventually purge the oxygen trapped in the piping. If you are using an open system, it will be adding fresh water, and therefore more oxygen and therefore more potential for rusting and corrosion.

If the system is also going to do potable water heating, then you'll need something like an indirect WH tank, or if it has separate coils in the boiler, a tempering valve and maybe a bronze circulator pump.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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specs on the boiler

Their a lot of wood boilers out there
and I would love to put one into my basement...

More advice can be given if you could put the
proper information here to look at


if you are putting in a wood boiler that sits outside
in a shed, I have heard of problems with the smoke bothering the neighbors ....it literally looks like a large smoke stack off a train
and if their are down drafts and non windy days it can really
tick of the neighbors .....if you have close ones...



also their are some that eat wood like a hog and
are not as efficient as others.....you better like chopping wood



personally i would rather have one that sits in the basement because you basically have a wood burning
stove that will crank out some serious btus in the home
and you also get the heat going into the furnace.......


I had a wood burning stove in my old home in the basement and it really heatd the place up real nice alone

although you might want to check with your insurance company.....many of them frown on wood burning stoves
due t kresote fires....


if you are looking for bronze circualting pumps
I have 3 grundfos sitting around collecting dust
 
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Got_Nailed

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I own 2 Green Wood boilers. I started with a 500 gallon for hot water, heating both levels of my house (heat exchangers), under slab in the basement, under slab for my garage / wear house (only heat), and for heating my green house.

Well the 500 gallon was the biggest I could find so I tried it. When it was in the 40’s I was fine loaded it 2 times a day. If it dropped blow 40 I would have to load it every 8 hours and run the fire wide open. I did get a 250 gallon and put it in line with the 500 gallon as a pre heater. Last year I would load the 500 gallon 2 times a day and if the temp was going to drop at night I would burn some pine in the 250 gallon before it got dark. If it snowed I would have to load both 2 times a day.

I’m running a closed loop system. In my house I do have a secondary closed loop system using a water to water heat exchanger. My main loop has 2 pumps and my house loop has 1 pump. This is the only heat I have in the house.

If I had it all to do over I would have (2) 500 gallon units. I have not had any problems with anything yet. One thing you need to look at is your water and what chemicals you will have to add to the system.

Remember the chimed is not very high on these and you need to put them away form the house. I will say the more reading you do now the happier you will be when you get one.

I’m in VA and I have a one year old 250 gallon unit I’ll sell you. I’ll let you have it for 3/4 of what I paid for it. I’ll even load it on to your trailer then I’ll get a 500 gallon to replace it.

As far as chopping wood once I have a nice fire going I will load it with 30†long peaces by 12†around. My 500 gallon will hold 3 of them and my 250 will hold 2 of them. The only thing I chop it pine for starting the fire.
 

GrumpyPlumber

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On multiple zones there are two ways to circulate.
One circulator with three zone valves...when a thermostat calls for heat the main circ kicks on and the zone valve for that specific thermostat opens.
The other way is seperate zone circulators with check valves on each zone.
I prefer seperate circulators for a few reasons...

1) Better flow per zone...imagine three, four zones calling for heat at the same time with only one circulator.

2) emergency repair...if you only have one circulator and it goes...thats it, no heat at all. Seperate circ.'s and at least the other zones are still going.

3)Price, beleive it or not, the price isn't that much of a difference on stock - zone valves are only fractionally less than circulators...figure about $30-$40 per zone difference (which is the usual reason for using them instead of circ.'s)

Also...ask 10 plumbers whether you should tie the circulators into the feed, or the return and you'll likely get 8 who say the return.
Wrong...despite popular thinking they should go on the feed side, pushes air out of the lines better.
Don't take my word on that, call any manufacturer.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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got nailed.....more information on yours please???

got_nailed said:
As far as chopping wood once I have a nice fire going I will load it with 30” long peaces by 12” around. My 500 gallon will hold 3 of them and my 250 will hold 2 of them. The only thing I chop it pine for starting the fire.



l wonder how much wood you use all winter long

and can you throw about anything in the unit???

Pine has lots of kresote in it, I would think oak or some other hard wood would be best and how cost affective
it is ......and of course its more expensive....

I knew one fellow that used to collect free wood pallets
made of some kind of harder wood and burn them

does this unit sit inside the home or is it one of those that is basically a shed outside the home????.


I would love to do this in my home, but......

I am sort of worried about burning the place down..
 

Got_Nailed

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Both of my boilers are sitting about 50 feet off the house. I have them on a 10’ by 30’ by 8†deep concrete slab. I do have a shed on the far side of the slab to hold some of the wood to keep it dry. The rest of the wood sits on the slab.

I use pine to start the fire or to get a good hot fire going then toss in the hard woods (a quart of old motor oil is nice to). With pine as long as you burn it hot you have nothing to worry about. The flue is about 8 foot tall; not much will build up (you get build up on the cold parts of the flue. I cut my own wood so the cost is not that much. It’s not too bad cutting it because of the size your cutting it and there’s no splitting. I think I put in about 60 hours a year cutting wood.

When I feed the fire 3 times a day a lot of times I will toss in frozen snow covered wood. When I’m on the 2 times a day there will be a nice layer of red coils in the bottom. Toss in some good size sticks of wood and a few chunks of pine at the door to get a good fire going.

Yes you can burn all most anything. I do know some that will burn there trash but I’m not into that. Now the stuff that comes out of the paper shredder will get tossed in and a few card board boxes.

As for how much wood... A cord is 4’ by 8’ by 4’ split and stacked wood. Hmm I don’t know. But you need logs they last a lot longer. I know one buy that burns cow dung and wood.
 
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