Wood Furnace Saves $1,500/Year

Wood Furnace Saves $1,500/Year ENERGY Wood Burners (65) 28-6-33 Switching from fuel oil to wood fuel has saved Larry Goodman $1,500 a year. His oil-fired boiler sits cold in his basement while hot water lines from a wood-fired boiler 75 ft. from the house keep his Ionia, Michigan home warm. "I lost a bunch of oak trees to gypsy moths, and a friend sold me a small wood boiler for only $100," explains Goodman. "We had a five-zone hot water system in the house, so the hookup was fairly simple. I can open and close zone valves manually to heat only those areas I want." The boiler itself is just 20 by 24 in. and 25 in. high and can only handle 18-in. pieces of wood. It was made by Custom Welding in Clinton, Wis. Not wanting it in the house, Goodman added on to an existing shed. Today it houses a 16 by 16-ft. wood room, a 6 by 16-ft. boiler room, and a 16 by 16-ft. garage. He insulated and wallboarded the boiler room and installed a baseboard heater to prevent freeze up should the boiler not be fired. When Goodman installed the boiler, he ran two 1-in. copper lines with armor flex insulation through a 6-in. ABS pipe. If he was doing it today, he would use 5-in. piping with two fully insulated water lines. A circulating pump at the old boiler and an extra one by the new boiler move the hot water. The water lines leave the house at a 5-ft. depth, gradually rising to 4-ft. at the boiler house. Goodman wanted to ensure proper drainage if maintenance was necessary, but so far it has not been needed. "We keep it at 130 to 140 degrees," he says. "A full load of split wood will run it about 5 to 6 hours, and a load of non-split wood will fire it for up to 7 hours." The wood heat is supplemented by passive solar gain from large south exposure windows in the upstairs family room. Even on the coldest winter day, the Low E glass heats the cathedral ceiling room to 90 degrees. Goodman recycles this heat and naturally rising boiler-produced heat. A10-in. diameter insulated flex pipe runs from the attic to the walkout level garage. A thermostat at the top is connected to a filter box and a turbine fan in the garage. When the thermostat reaches 80 degrees, the fan starts up. Hot air is drawn down and through the filter to reheat the downstairs. "Basically in this house, it is the downstairs level that needs to be heated," says Goodman. As additional backup, Goodman installed a fireplace in the downstairs level when the house was built. Duct work runs up either side of it. This, too, has a turbine fan to push heated air down and out into the lower level. Not yet satisfied that he was getting all the available heat, he built a set of grates out of pipes and put a blower on them. "They can heat the house, too," he says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Larry Goodman, 3112 Welch Rd., Ionia, Mich. 48846 (ph 616 527-1355; email: goodmanl1@earthlink.net).

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