Is a CB 5036 big enough for my needs?

[ptjeep]

I plan to build a new house and detached garage about this time next year. Definitely going with a CB OWB and talked to my closest dealer today about pricing. My plan is to buy the furnace in the near future and then buy the piping, fittings, and pumps closer to building time. I figured that would ease the pain of the purchase. The dealer was a little concerned about me wanting the 5036 and suggested i contact the manufacture. I tried but its late Friday evening so i got voicemail. New house will be roughly 2500 sq ft with hot water and a detached 32x40 garage. I plan to insulate the house to the best of my budget. Here in East Tennessee it rarely gets below 20 degrees and from what my searches have revealed, I feel like i will be fine with a 5036. What do you guys think?

 

[memory]

I think you will be fine. We used to have the older version of the 5036, I am thinking it was the model CL17, does that sound right? Anyway, with 2 water heaters hooked up and heating our 1500 square foot house(could be more or less) that is not well insulated, old three story farm house, it had a hard time keeping up. So we upgraded to the 6048. We own and operate a dairy farm so we use more hot water than your average household and my dad likes it warm as well.

If you have the money, I would go for the 6048. If not, I think you will be fine with the 5036. This is one of those things that 10 years down the road, you will be wishing you went with the bigger stove.

 

[Cheesecutter]

In spite of the initial cash outlay for the furnace and all the time and money in the install, OWB's pay for themselves in a fairly short time-span. I couldn't imagine putting in a boiler that can't supply your BTU requirements and then having to upgrade it or worse yet having to supplement it with another heat source to get you by.
Your dealer should have a pretty good idea of what your heat demand will be. I'm guessing that is why he is concerned. You mention insulating your house, how about the garage? Will the garage doors be opened once or twice a day or repeatedly? DHW? Zoned heat, radiant in floor, forced air? Just things I'd consider to justify the cost of the bigger unit.

 

[memory]

In spite of the initial cash outlay for the furnace and all the time and money in the install, OWB's pay for themselves in a fairly short time-span. I couldn't imagine putting in a boiler that can't supply your BTU requirements and then having to upgrade it or worse yet having to supplement it with another heat source to get you by.
Your dealer should have a pretty good idea of what your heat demand will be. I'm guessing that is why he is concerned. You mention insulating your house, how about the garage? Will the garage doors be opened once or twice a day or repeatedly? DHW? Zoned heat, radiant in floor, forced air? Just things I'd consider to justify the cost of the bigger unit.

Once you have a OWB installed, it is not that big of a deal to upgrade down the road besides money wise. All the piping and electrical is already installed, just have to switch the stoves out. You may have to remove the pump from your current OWB and install it on the new OWB like we did. It isn't like you have to redo all the underground piping or anything unless you decided on a different location which is unlikely.

One thing you might want to consider is how long these classic OWB's will still be available. Right after we bought our 6048, we would not be able to get one because of some law making you get the e-classic model. ptjeep, you are lucky you can still get the classic model. I guess it differs from area to area.

If you do get the 5036 and find out it is not enough, you will not have any trouble selling it.

 

[zogger]

The more you put into the superinsulation part, the less OWB and wood (and air conditioning) you will need. Best ROI out there.

Superinsulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Cheesecutter]

To clarify my point somewhat... Yes, correct... it's not a big deal to swap out to a bigger unit if the pad dimensions are the same, and I'm not sure if they are. The part that would get me is the roughly $2000-$4000 depreciation/loss on the original stove, and then add the $1000 difference for the up grade which will probably be even higher priced in the future. Anyway, that's where I was coming from. One dealer in our area offers full credit toward a bigger unit if you aren't satisfied provided you buy the size he recommends and you up grade within 1 year.

 

[ptjeep]

Thanks for the input guys. The house will be insulated very well and only have one hot water heater. The garage will be insulated but maybe not as good as the house and have insulated doors and the doors wont be opened much in the winter time. I definitely dont want to buy too small but i've looked at some other OWB's in my area and they seem much smaller size wise than the 5036. They are different brands so maybe i shouldn't use that as comparison but like i said, we don't have the cold temps here in TN like most of you guys up north have. The dealer i talked to said the 6048 is around $1800 more over the 5036.

Let me ask this: is it better to have a smaller owb running wide open and barely keeping up with demand or better to have a big one spend more time smoldering and easily supplying enough heat?

Thanks again for the info.:msp_thumbup:

 

[pipe76]

6048

I would suggest the 6048, first of all its a good sized house, and a good sized garage, even with good insulation. Also with the 6048 you get a longer burn time, less filling, also if you wanted to go away for a few days you can fill it up and lower the temp in the house and get longer times out of it. And if you ever wated to finish off the basement, or add on etc, your ahead of the game. 20 degrees seems to be the cutoff for my stove, below 20 really eats wood vs above 20 uses less. If you take anything from my post I urge you to not cheap out on the pipe, if you use 1 inch or 1 1/4 (a whole other discussion) use the thermopex. I can tell you from experience that going cheap on the pipe wont save you anything when your digging it up and replacing it years later. I did not listen and will be digging mine up this year. I've heated the ground long enough.

 

[bowtechmadman]

What type of temps are you intending on running in the home/garage? How will you be heating house, garage? Those things will play a factor as well. I have a woodmaster and was right on the edge when I purchased mine of sizes...I went bigger and happy that I did. Probably biggest factor is I can load up the bigger fire box and leave for the weekend and come back to a warm house still.

 

[Cheesecutter]

I would agree on the 20 degree observation. Its right about that temp when mine starts working instead of idling.

 

[Guswhit]

5036 here

My house is 1800 sq. ft and my garage is about an additional 750 sq. ft. and I keep the house at 72 and the garage at 65. I tend to keep the garage this warm so it keeps my plow truck thawed out. I did NOT plan ahead in this house so I do not have radiant floor heat in either. My stove has never failed to keep everything to these temps filling 2 times a day only, even when we had 30 below for a couple of days.

Now if I had the exact same house and had set it up with radiant heat in the basement and garage floors I would have opted for the 6048 because it has an extra set of inlet/outlet that I would have dedicated for the floor zones. I still would have the air exchangers in the furnaces. It just makes the plumbing easier. Also, the 6048 has almost 2 times the water holding capacity so your overall temperature loss factored in with the holding capacity is not as great.

In my opinion(for what it is worth), I would go for the 6048 because I think you are boderline on the sq. ft max of the 5036.

 

[Iska3]

6048

There is no doubt that you could get by with the 5036. I have an old farm house and we get temps around -20 below with winds that can burn your face in 5 min. I’m on a hill so those winds make it real nasty for a few weeks. I heat my house, the garage and also direct hot water though a plate exchanger.. “IF” you can still get the 6048 (they stopped making them last Sept and had to go with the EPA OWB) I’d buy the 6048 for several reasons. You hold more water with the 6048 so you’ll have less cycle time. The fire box is longer and wider.. You can have larger pieces of wood and do less cutting. If you go with the 6048 and use seasoned wood, you’ll only fill your firebox once a day and in the warmer weather maybe every other day. You can be gone for several days if you put the wood in left to right and not have the ends facing you. The plate exchanger for your hot water is a bonus and will pay for the larger OWB.

Like the others said…. The key is good underground well insulated pex. I used a Thermoflex. It’s something like the Thermopex but cost less. The pipe that runs to my garage is partly on top of the ground and the snow never melts off.

Do the math… The 6048 will cost you how much more? Prorate that extra cost over 25 years. How much extra work will you be saving over 25 years? How old are you now and what shape will you be in 25 years? If you are 45 now, you can lift them bigger chunks of wood but in 25 years, you’ll be 70 years old and those big chunks seem to weigh twice as much then. With the 6048, you can cut your pieces 12 to 14 inches long, fill up the firebox with small chunks and still get longer cycle times.

Also keep in mind your prevailing winds.. Our winds are from the North / Northwest. If I were to do it over again, I would have put my OWB on the NE side of my house and built a woodshed next to it. I put my OWB on the north side to save the cost of the pex going to the garage.. Again, If I were to prorate the cost over 20 /25 years, it wouldhave been nothing but I’m cheap…

The 6048 will increase your resale value. You have a lot to think about besides the size of the OWB..

You only want to do things once…. Just my 2 cents…

 

[ptjeep]

wow, you guys have brought up some good points. The house will have a heat pump with a heat exchanger plumbed in so i can run the fan only on a separate thermostat. No radiant heat in house or garage. Not sure about which way to heat the water, probably the exchanger that you plumb inline on the water inlet i guess. Detached garage will have a heat exchanger with a squirrel cage blowing across it, probably something homemade or very simple, preferably near my work bench. I forgot to mention that i will definitely be buying the thermopex and will probably need 125'-150' for the house and 50' or so for the garage. That purchase is gonna hurt the wallet. Oh yeah, house will be a rancher type with a bonus room above the attached 2 car garage(not heated).

Looks like most of you all say i would be better of with the 6048. I,ve got the money to get it, just didn't think i would need the bigger model. Glad i asked. Keep the advice coming.

 

[Iska3]

Start looking on CL or the plumbing shops in the area for a used forced air furnace. Several years ago I found two on CL that were in real good shape for free. I removed the guts, added the heat exchanger in the upper half and ended up with two nice looking forced air furnaces. One is in the craft room (attached to the garage) it heats the 18 x 20 craft room, the garage and I have duct work going to a kiln room. The best part is both furnaces have air filters and both have thermostats.

If you put one furnace in the garage, you could run duct work to the room over the garage. If you want pictures let me know...

If you have a two car garage, don't even think about going with the 5036....

Also think about Valves, Screens and Unions...

John

Detached garage will have a heat exchanger with a squirrel cage blowing across it, probably something homemade or very simple, preferably near my work bench.

Oh yeah, house will be a rancher type with a bonus room above the attached 2 car garage(not heated).

Looks like most of you all say i would be better of with the 6048. I,ve got the money to get it, just didn't think i would need the bigger model. Glad i asked. Keep the advice coming.

 

[ptjeep]

If you put one furnace in the garage, you could run duct work to the room over the garage. If you want pictures let me know...

If you have a two car garage, don't even think about going with the 5036....

John

While adding more info from post to post, i may have confused you. These house will have an attached 2 car garage with a bonus room above it. The bonus room will be heated just like the rest of the house will but the garage itself will not be heated(i dont think). I will also have a separate detached 32x40 garage for all my toys that will be heated from the owb. That is where i plan to use the heat exch/squirrel cage fan. The forced air furnace is a good idea and i will keep an eye out for one.

When you say if i have a two car garage, dont think about the 5036...... Do you mean it wont heat a house and a garage? Just want to make sure i understand you correctly. Thanks