Heating Large Shop in Alaska W/ Sequoyah Outdoor Boiler

i did at 2am once on my then outdoor tank

UPDATE: began the catch up process on the barn. The torpedo heater works great for this and very few fumes. Within about 45 min had the barn near 60 and kept it that way no issues. Now the key is to keep the heat constant so I can overcome a 2250 sq ft ice cube.. AKA my floor. This is going to take some serious BTUs to catch up

Is the shop warm yet?

Qtown:

Starting to warm up. I just recently got my warm morning up and running... it is helping.. that along with some milder weather. Not making the progress that I wanted and the boiler is still not contributing like I would like but overall there is small progress.

Of note... I have been able to figure out BTU input and temperature rise.
Outside Temp = 18-20 F
---Dewalt 195K BTU heater... I assume that is 195K per hour
--- 3250 BTU per minute
--- Barn Temp when turned on was 36 F --- 10min of running up to 46 F
--- 32.5K to raise the temp 10 degrees

So with those numbers I am figuring that with that outside temp the Warm Morning should raise the temp to that in an hour at least.... I would guess it is putting off that much heat???? With those numbers and I realize that it is not linear... that 50 - 60K per hour should keep the shop at 46 or a little better... which is good enough while I am not in there.

I just wish I had a Hitzer 82 as I suspect that stove puts off at least that much if not more.

Happy New Year Everyone

Also one more thing... Floor temps week and half ago was 17 -- shot them just the other day and they were up to 28. So yea slowly overcoming the ice cube

Get that slab to room temp....
And that will give you plenty of "heat" while you are gone...
What you really need is a stoker boiler...
Automatic heat...

CC you are correct... actually if I had it to over again I would have put a Hitzer 82 FA or Hitzer 82 in there. I think that would have been enough to keep it in the high 40's and then Oil could have boosted while in the shop. cheaper... and less worry and mechanics involved than with a boiler.

Slabs as of New Years Day are hovering 30 to 32. just about even across the barn... obviously warmer around the stove. but only by a few degrees

Whatever happened with this?

Qtown1835 wrote:Whatever happened with this?

He was posting more on another thread also. It starts on page 3 of this thread: "New" Warm Morning 500

Been a while and I hope all are well and warming up some. It has been a while so I thought I would report some data... been cold here for quite a while now and as in the New Warm morning post we even got down to -58 was the official temperature posted at my house with -74 being the record for the interior. It did warm up on those days to -50 though. During that time the barn with a full fire going mainly from my Warm morning stove stayed in the middle to upper 40s. Not bad for a small stove but it is work intensive and have to spend more time that wanted in the mornings to get her back up and running.

My boiler is working and I use it for shots of heat and just plug in the 2x heaters. Thing is I still do not think they are putting out the BTUs that they are suppose to. They are rated for 40K ea but the Warm Morning gets the temp higher and quicker than both of those heaters running. I am perplexed... wish now I did not have the boiler and just had spend the money on a Hitzer furnace that way I would have had the luxury of bigger firebox than the WM with 110K BTU output without the worry of water freezing or something happening.

All in all it is good though.. tractor, and cars parked inside with no snow on them and out of the cold.

Thought I would pose a question on this thread since it is boiler centric... IF you read the entire thread it was about my environment, shop facts and equipment to heat the large shop.... the cliff notes are -- approx 50 x 50 well insulated in interior Alaska -30 most of the winter. Outdoor atmospheric pressure (not a closed system) boiler with well insulated 1 1/4 pex to feed the barn. 2x hydronic heaters that are suppose to put out 40K with 180 degree water.

The boiler is working and pumping heat... not to my liking but I think part of it is the hydronic heaters are not producing like they should... but I love the fact that tending the boiler is EASY.. (out open the door, shovel some coal, close the door and DONE) and it provides long burn times between tending, unless I am running the heats full tilt. What I do not like is having to have someone watch it when I leave and the added expense of all the needed boiler valves, piping, expansion tanks, heat exchangers etc.. which by the way I do not have right now... they are just hooked up direct. Heating it is important to me but not like my home and keeping it at 40-50 is ok most of the time with the ability to go into the 60s when I am out there. with 20/20 hind sight I would have bought a Hitzer furnace... or special build a hand fed stove to produce the BTUs and long burn times.

ALL of this got me to thinking.... I have the boiler... with the coal grates, why could I not just drain the boiler... retrofit it with heat exchange tubes and a fan in the water cavity.. put it in the shop and bingo I have a large capacity hand fed stove with heat exchanger with fan to wash the hot air off the burn chamber into the shop???

DON'T shoot me .. just thinking out loud and out of the box... I know this would ruin the boiler for being a boiler ever again... so it MUST WORK if I did it. Here are the things that I see would need to be done.
-- way to wash the heat out of the water storage area
--forced air fan would need to be controlled by a thermostat instead of aqua stat
-- high heat switch installed to turn blower fan on to wash heat for over fire protection
-- bottom feed draft door added to allow it to draft without having to force air in through the current fan

My concern is the construction since firebox was designed to have water surrounding and I do not know how thick it is--- I would imagine it is as thick as my Harman TLC though...

Thoughts on this... I obviously would rather just sell it and buy a furnace but selling Outdoor boilers here not always easy... hard to believe but they are not heavily used in Alaska (mainly wood blaze kings and pellet stoves). Also stokers are for the most part out... not available and shipping cost is out of sight.

Other option bite the bullet and put the boiler in with expansion tank, heat exchanger etc... basically open system to the heat exchanger.. and closed system beyond that to the heaters.

So let me hear your thoughts... not sold on doing this just thinking out of the box and planning for summer projects

Those outdoor burners are super inefficient. youll be time and money ahead by scraping the thing and making some sort if heat plant inside.

Have you looked anymore into thermal mass storage of water for the barn??

Did you check on the cost of buying firebrick and a piece of channel iron half the length of the firebox for more thermal mass? You probably told me that already and I forgot your answer so shame on me

Short of investing in a used EFM that can burn soft coal or a rebuilt Vanwert A400 to burn your coal from Arnie here in New York to put inside the barn I am stuck for an answer.

Izaharis: I have not looked into additional thermal storage but did line the boiler and that helped... this summer I will do even more when I have the warmer weather and not dependent on it... I do not hate the boiler just really looking for options for long burn times with easier tending... The boiler does its job I was just thinking that since the warm morning I have works so well that a hand fired stove with long burn times that allow me to have a hot fire left over... thus equalling shorter tending times would be advantageous. I sit and think about building one that has the features of lots of different stoves then it occurred to me that retrofitting the boiler to a furnace style might be easier and give me what I want. I am gone more and more with longer work hours so not having to worry about water is a plus... AND hooking the boiler up the way it needs to be is not cheap either... bottom line my small hand fired is working just looking for a way to use what I have to increase on the positives it has.

Waldo-- are you saying you agree to scrap the boiler and turn it into an indoor heat plant?

It just seems to me that the bones are there for this boiler, just needs to have a way to radiate the heat and the only way I can see it doing that is to turn it into a furnace type stove... much like the hitzer furnace

might not be worth it and to risky in ruining a boiler that could never be recovered.

The thing though is your only running 80,000 btus in your 50x50??? Shop with outside temps below -30?! Yes the outdoor boiler is about as inefficient as you can have, but you don't have all the inside radiaton I think you could get either? Do you have more modines to install? Cast iron radiators? Old car or truck radiators with box fans in front of them?!

Or can your boiler not keep up with the draw from the 80,000 btus?