Home made wood burning boiler?

[Agile]

A friend has a gas boiler, a wood burning stove and solar panels.

He has an over supply of wood as he owns 12 acres of woodland.

He wants to have a heat only wood boiler to add heat to the central heating located in the garden so that all the mess and smells of burning wood is not affecting the house.

There are many expensive commercial models, mostly with too high an output. I have suggested a home constructed boiler with an output of about 6 kW.

Has anyone made anything like this or know of any DIY designs?

Tony

 

[mogget]

I've seen woodburners made from old propane bottles before, with a door cut in the side and hinges welded on. Beneath that is a slide door to regulate the air supply, and to the top a flue pipe is welded, within the carrying handle.

I would think that for someone with the necessary fabrication skills, it wouldn't be too difficult to incorporate a heat exchanger near the top of the bottle. Maybe lengths of black iron pipe brought out through the sides of the bottle so that there are no joints inside the fire box.

I will say at this point that I'm not even a diyer on this one, just that I've seen it done - apart from the heat exchanger...

 

[oilman]

I have suggested a home constructed boiler with an output of about 6 kW.

We can accept that as you are predominately a gas man, you may not know a lot about wood burning boilers. What would be your reaction to me suggesting to someone they knock up a gas boiler as they have a bit of spare time? It's no more or less dangerous.

The reason there are no commercial boilers around 6kW, is that they don't work, unless the user is happy to nip out in the cold every hour or two to stoke the boiler. The ones that do work supply heat to a 1000 to 2000 litre thermal store. That way it needs stoking only once or twice in 24 hr.

There are hundreds of hours spent developing these boilers, does your friend think he will get it anywhere near right? He'll probably have to get it type approved for building control acceptance too.

An alternative would be a masonry stove. Very good at getting the heat out of the wood, long life and low maintenance. But then it's better to build the house round the stove.

all the mess and smells of burning wood is not affecting the house.

What mess and smell would that be? We have a woodburner in the living room (about 5kW), no mess, no smell.

 

[Onetap]

A friend has a gas boiler, a wood burning stove and solar panels.

He has an over supply of wood as he owns 12 acres of woodland.

He wants to have a heat only wood boiler to add heat to the central heating located in the garden so that all the mess and smells of burning wood is not affecting the house.

There have been regular posts on a US heating site about rural outdoor wood burners. The recommendations seem to be fairly consistent along the lines of burning the wood charge rapidly, storing the heat in a thermal store and separating the outdoor system (containing anti-freeze) from the indoor oil-fired system. The experience seems to be that the enthusiasm wanes and the woodburner is neglected.

http://forums.invision.net/index.cfm?CFApp=2&reset=Y

Re a DIY boiler, I'd think a proper commercially made boiler would be justified on the grounds of efficiency and the future savings on man-hours in feeding the boiler. It would be carbon neutral so you might even find there's a grant available.

 

[Onetap]

Has anyone made anything like this or know of any DIY designs?

Tony

http://www.sredmond.com/VTHRJournal/2007/VTHR_3_2007.pdf

He never finished it though, due to the problems encountered.