woodboilers

[steviep101]

I have a woodboiler that was given to me it is in real good shape I would like to put it in a seperate shed not in my house.

  My questions are:

Do I insulate the shed or the boiler

What is the best material to isulate them

What is the best way to isulate the pex going to the house

The biggest question is wil this Idea work.

[stephent]

First--is it a boiler or a water heater?

[TAH]

I have mine in an insulated shed along with my generator. You still want it insulated even if you put it inside. If you want to make your own underground pipe you get enough 1 inch pex,unperforated 3 inch drain tile, a bunch of rolls of sill insulation, a couple of rolls of packing tape and some foil bubble wrap insulation. Wind the foam sill insulation around the pex tapeing it every so often and then wrap it again in the bubble wrap insulation and tape it again. We cut the bubble wrap into 11 inch strips and taped the seams. Then you stuff this inside the drain tile and bury it. I used seperate lines for the feed and return but some people wrap the two together inside one pipe. It seems to me that it would be harder to get it in then. I had 100 ft lengths to reach the boiler and it went together ok. I think it took most of an afternoon for 3 of us to assemble the two.

[nanotech]

I agree with stephent's question : "Is it a boiler or heater?"

If it is a boiler, I'm not much help.  If it's a wood fired water heater, I can help.  I work at Woodmaster on the assembly line of the outdoor woodburning and cornburning water heaters.

If it is a firebox inside a waterjacket style heater, you generally insulate them on the outside with standard unfaced fibreglass insulation, exactly like you use on the walls of your house or the attic roof.  They are then sided with some form of metal or ABS siding to help protect the insulation and for beautification.

It is not required to insulate them if they are being kept inside another building.  Since the absolute hottest a regular wood fire will get the water is 212 degrees F (100 deg C), there's not much chance of it lighting anything on fire by contact.  So long as it has a water level sensor (plunger style) to warn you of a low water condition.  Also you'll want to vent the overflow pipe outside so as to reduce condensation accumulation in the shed as these things quite often can boil off up to 10 gallons in a day if they run too hot.

The easiest and most cost effective way to insulate the Pex tubing is to stuff both the supply and return lines inside a 4" PVC pipe and insulate the outside of the PVC, generally with some form of styrofoam type insulation.  You can buy the pipe specifically designed for the purpose, but from what I've found it's around $5 -$7 a FOOT!!  Set the PVC pipe in the trench and surround it with pea gravel.  Then bury the lot of it with dirt.  You want to get at LEAST 6 inches below the frost line for your area, preferrably 12 inches below.  For me that meant digging a 4 foot deep trench and hoping for the best as the frost line around here CAN get down 6 feet.

Woodmaster uses the Taco brand of pumps, specifically the 007 and 0011 models.  They are 20 and 28GPM respectively with zero head.  I personally think that's a little low, so I went with a 1/2hp pump from Harbor Freight.  Maybe a little overkill, but I'll never have cold spots with it.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.  I'll either be able to answer them myself, or I can get the answers on Monday when I go to work.

[GaryGary]

Hi,

"What is the best way to isulate the pex going to the house"

Not sure if this is the best way, but its cheap and fairly easy:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/SolarShed/trench.htm

My only hestitation with this is method for a boiler is how well the extruded polystyrene insulation would hold up to very hot water?  You might be able to substitute Polyisocyanurate insulation board (most lumber yards have this -- it usually has alum foil face sheets).

Gary

[steviep101]

Thank you for all your great ansewers. Around here we call them woodboilers, it has a fire box with a water jacket . This system is pressurized and hooks up direcly to my eisiting oil boiler with no water to water heat exchanger. This one accually looks a lot like the aqua-therma outdoor boiler.

[jmk]

 My wood boiler has a thick layer of urethane foam sprayed on the outer steel box. Its a 3/8" box surrounded by water. Then another 3/8" steel box covered with foam. Then a steel shed covers the whole thing up. The snow doesn't even melt on top. The lines (feed and return) are in an eight inch round foam. Then a plastic tube sleeve is pulled onto it.  You can buy the lines and insulation at any Central Boiler dealer.