Outside wood boilers

[fon guy]

Has anyone decided to make or copy a wood boiler? Ive decided to make one, like to get some ideas from members Thanks

[JBird]

Are you talking about an outdoor wood furnace to heat your house? I've had one for almost 10 years. I started planning to build one but with the colder weather moving alot faster than me I decided to just buy one. I've never regreted it. Well maybe a couple of times when it was real cold and wet outside and I had to go out and load the furnace, but it nice not to have to worry about the price of heating oil or propane going up.

J.

[Hobart Expert Rock]

FON GUY........ I agree with jbird............there are thousands of them located in Wisconsin.......... they are very effective most of the ones in Wisconsin only need refueling every 24-36 hours.. chuck in more wood and away you go...........work extremely well and quite effective.................I've filled them, set in the homes fuel by them, and cut a little wood for them...........Rock........
SSCOTT@MILLERWELDS.COM

[fon guy]

Guys, which stove we talking about heatmor that seems to be the one I like.

[Gary Patton]

Has anyone ever made their own? If so, can you tell us the required components? I'm assuming you'd need a low-flow water pump, and something resembling a small automotive radiator, along with the rest of a central heat system (minus the gas burner unit) I want one but I'm too cheap (or poor) to buy one!

[boilerman]

i know of a guy that built one ....basic ...he built a structure to house it with a fire box in the middle ....then strung copper tubing between fire box and structure and filled with sand....he said if the fire goes out he can still heat house for 2 days on it ....i forget what the temp is that he tries to maintain in the sand ....as for the house it is baseboard heat

[bjdenommee]

I built my own about 12 years ago water tube type design, extra large fire box with a huge lower ash pit.

It was fun to buld and worked fine biggest problem was that it wroked so good that it over heated everything.

If it was not real cold it had a problem of overheating the house to the point that we would leave some windows open.

Mine was a steel shell with a water tube type grate, that feed a triple pass water tube system of 3/4 blk sec 40 pipe.

The headders and the returns where made of 3" sec 40 blk pipe.

I sprun a leak from one of the mud legs, as some of the pipe was not new, I broke the system down for repairs and deciced to scrap the system.

Still have the doors from the unit and the dampers.

Maybe in the next few years I will build a newer type boiler that is a little less mass.

Bernie

[JBird]

The one I have is made by the Hardy Manuf. Co. It's all stainless steel construction. What ever type you decide on, try and have a clean out door below the fire grate. One unit I looked at required you to shutdown the unit about once a week and scoop out the ashes. In the middle of winter, I don't think so. <g>

J.

[bjdenommee]

JBird
I agree you really need a big ash pit area, the one I built I made the pit area bigger than the fire box, almost twice the size.

That left me with plenty of room for the ash, as after my land clearing project I was burning pallets, and pallets leave lots of nails and staples.

Machine burned real nice and hot, made lots of hot water for my needs.

Having the boiler located inside of my shop kept it nice and warm as well.

Bernie