From wood to gas!

[bassman]

I used to love love love burning wood and when my wife started a greenhouse I was never going to use gas because it was way tooo much money to install and run so we bought an outdoor wood boiler.

well after 7 years of finding, paying, hauling, cutting and feeding a boiler every 3 hours to keep the greenhouse warm we put in gas.

it cost us $3000 for gas line and funace including a plumber and all permits to hook it up compared to the $10000 plus the boiler cost....

ok I can hear you saying " ya but pay the gas bill!!" well we got our gas bill today, it was $836 !!!!!! yes $836.

now I can return to the boiler and pay $2000 for 22 cords of wood and another $500 for help to cut and stack it plus whatever you think its worth to walk 156 feet in minus 20c cold to fill it every 3 to 5 hours .


so there it is my 2 cents on going from wood to gas.


I am not looking for a fight here but I have to say in the end I lost my yard to trenching in a boiler line and now a gas line , I lost many hours of good sleep stressed out wondering if the boiler is keeping up and I lost thousands of dollars paying for fittings , heat exchangers , pex, saws and painkillers for my back.

shayne

 

[Gavman]

I got nothing:msp_mellow:

 

[Garmins dad]

Where in Canada are you? Why i ask is my wife and i live in Central Alberta. We are looking at building a all year green house to grow our own veggies ( I have health issues and require no sprays on my food) on our place. I was wondering why you where reloading your boiler every 3 to 5 hours. I know cause it needed wood but where you only able to get spruce or pine and it wont last long. I'm just looking to see if a wood boiler would be worth it here..

 

[bassman]

Where in Canada are you? Why i ask is my wife and i live in Central Alberta. We are looking at building a all year green house to grow our own veggies ( I have health issues and require no sprays on my food) on our place. I was wondering why you where reloading your boiler every 3 to 5 hours. I know cause it needed wood but where you only able to get spruce or pine and it wont last long. I'm just looking to see if a wood boiler would be worth it here..

We are in Yorkton , sask

my boiler is a cozeburn 250 from profab.

It ran our 20x30 greenhouse for about 5 dark hours just fine then needed more wood, we expanded to 20 x50 and it went down to 3 hours and now we have 20x100 and the gas bill was only $836 and I could not imagine this year with the boiler!

I do use it for a heated floor that is 12x24 and I can get a 24 hour burn but that is just to heat a floor and not without help from 2 gas fireplaces.

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

Consider heating a green house with this: Alternative Furnace

 

[Garmins dad]

Small world. My moms sister lives in Yorkton. Last name Lupiluck.. (not sure of spelling)..

Thats a lot bugger greenhouse then what we are thinking of building It would be a simple tie into our house as i have a NG boiler for it.

Thanks for the info. more things to ponder in the frozen tundra

 

[Streblerm]

I hear what you are saying. If I didn't like the wood gathering and burning process then it wouldn't be worth my time either. I'm not burning near the wood that you are. And NG is at a Very low price right now with the boom in shale drilling and "fracking" that is going on.

I wouldn't get rid of the boiler yet. If your gas bill was 1600 or 2500 dollars you might change your tune. With volatility in fossil fuel market it is probably just a matter of time before speculation starts driving up the price of NG just like it has with oil.

 

[ShaneLogs]

Happy for you that you like it

 

[zogger]

Consider heating a green house with this: Alternative Furnace

--that's cool! err...hot!

Here's the link for the actual plans and pictures (I speed read and even for me that first page I wanted to scream at the guy) (the dude is obviously brilliant but his stream of consciousness writing is just way far out, worse than me even..heh)

Alternative Furnace

I've been meaning to try a variation on something like that for our greenhouse..well, I got some months to do it before it gets cold again. Even down here, propane is way too high to use to heat the greenhouse. A wood boiler setup is crazy expensive, BUT, loose free 'biomass" we have by the dumptruck load onsite.

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

--that's cool! err...hot!

Here's the link for the actual plans and pictures (I speed read and even for me that first page I wanted to scream at the guy) (the dude is obviously brilliant but his stream of consciousness writing is just way far out, worse than me even..heh)

Alternative Furnace

I've been meaning to try a variation on something like that for our greenhouse..well, I got some months to do it before it gets cold again. Even down here, propane is way too high to use to heat the greenhouse. A wood boiler setup is crazy expensive, BUT, loose free 'biomass" we have by the dumptruck load onsite.

Are you going to make a thread on your build? I'd be interested. There's also the Earth tube cooling/heating. I want to find someone that can try this out. I believe it will work, but don't have the $$ to throw at it and have a chance of it failing.

 

[zogger]

Are you going to make a thread on your build? I'd be interested. There's also the Earth tube cooling/heating. I want to find someone that can try this out. I believe it will work, but don't have the $$ to throw at it and have a chance of it failing.

--if I get to it. Might just make several normal rotating composters and go for slightly lower heat output, with much easier construction. I have a buncha spare plastic barrels to use.

That geothermal stuff you mention should work, seen a lot of references to it in the past various places.

Regular composting can get hot, we've had at least two small fires here from the composting they do with the broiler house litter.

 

[Encore]

Going through that much wood would indeed be good cause to look at gas. I switched from a stove to an OWB because I ran out of time to feed the stove every 5-6hrs.

I know a place around here that is a bit bigger and still heated with an OWB but it's right next to a pallet factory so they don't spend any time looking for wood. It's put in there a few times a day by a tow motor.

how much wood do you figure you were going through every year?

 

[Chris-PA]

Don't get too comfortable with the gas prices. They're selling the gas below cost and this whole shale gas thing is another financial bubble about to burst. After that the gas prices will go up considerably. So you may want to keep your hand in the wood boiler maintained and working and at least a partial supply of wood around too, just to keep your options open.

 

[Dale]

Sounds to me like you would benefit from having both. Why forego all the wood boiler infrastructure that you have already paid for ? Use gas as a primary source and supplement when you can. It would help with your bill (of course). Not sure of your age, but you should probably "make" the wood yourself in order to realize a savings. If you can't "make" wood yourself, you probably shouldn't have went with the system in the first place.

 

[Timber_Hitch]

From Wood to Gas

This is a perfect example of where money fixes everything. If I had the cash I wouldnt be burning either. :msp_wink: