Wood Boiler Explosion

Little short story for you guys. I have a neighbor that lives about a mile and a half down the road from me. He recently moved into a bigger house on the opposite side of the road. Well his old house has this unattached garage with a wood boiler in it, the house also has an oil boiler. He ended up selling the old house.

Yesterday the new owner decided to fire the wood boiler in the garage. It had been off thru the recent warm spell thru Christmas and new years.

My closer neighbor calls my wife and tells her she had heard from another source that an address on our road was reported with an explosion in a garage. THEN while on the phone, another friend down the road called my wife and said there was several emergency vehicles showing up at a home nearby. She lives about 300 yards away from where the event took place. She said the explosion was so loud that she thought something had blown up in her own house.

As it turns out, apparently the boiler system had no antifreeze because the previous owner kept it lit thru the whole cold season. It got cold enough for everything to freeze recently. Then the new owner unaware of this, chocked the wood boiler full and lit it with raging fire. Since everything had froze solid, all the safeties failed and it detonated like a bundle of dynamite.

I drove by the location today and what I saw was absolutely incredible. The WHOLE corner of the garage where the boiler sat was completely gone. The roof was sagging and both garage doors were blown off their tracks. Some of the sections had even come off. The front of the garage is now pitched at an angle, like it was forced off its foundation. My mouth was agape with complete denial of what what my eyes were telling me. Thank god no one was killed or worse.

I'll try to get a few pics during a drive by tomorrow. The devastation it caused is unbelievable. I don't even think the garage is salvageable.

Ugh...that's scary!
I assume no one was in the garage? Thank god!

Ky Speedracer wrote:Ugh...that's scary!
I assume no one was in the garage? Thank god!

Nope, lucky enough no one was in the blast radius.

It would be interesting to know what type/make boiler it was? My OWB, that is no longer in use, was open. I don't know how it would ever have built any pressure, let along that much. 'Tis a good thing no one was hurt.

My understanding is that it was tied in with the oil boiler in the house which was a pressurized system, not open. I'll ask the previous owner what kind of boiler it was.

Ah, so it would be more along the lines of a tarm or even a NY'r wc90 or something, I see.

Christ,what a Trainwreck !!......

Hot Water to Steam,High Fast Lift Pressure with nowhere to go......Nightmare ! So much potential for a high casualty count.... Very Fortunate !!

This is the type of thing I used to investigate when I worked for the insurance company. Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion.....BLEVE Google Water heater explosions and you'll be amazed with the destructive power a simple little 40 gallon water heater can produce much less a full fledged boiler. Imagine if this had been in the house basement. Yep I'm trying to use scare tactics.

They were lucky. If nothing else comes from this......

TEST YOUR SAFETY RELIEF VALVES!!!!!!!! It's so simple. Pull the lever and let it go. You should squirt water out and it should reseat and reseal. Never assume they work. Test them!!!! Psst don't forget your water heaters!!!

Check the back left corner, gone. The heap of red scrap metal on the other side of the right garage door was the boiler. A service tech had to realign the dish on top.

Wow! That was a big boom!

blrman07 wrote:This is the type of thing I used to investigate when I worked for the insurance company. Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion.....BLEVE Google Water heater explosions and you'll be amazed with the destructive power a simple little 40 gallon water heater can produce much less a full fledged boiler. Imagine if this had been in the house basement. Yep I'm trying to use scare tactics.

They were lucky. If nothing else comes from this......

TEST YOUR SAFETY RELIEF VALVES!!!!!!!! It's so simple. Pull the lever and let it go. You should squirt water out and it should reseat and reseal. Never assume they work. Test them!!!! Psst don't forget your water heaters!!!

Here's a mythbusters video that shows a water heater exploding.

What a boom........" A service tech had to realign the dish on top.!" ......wow, no heat, a 6 hundred lb. bomb explosion---BUT WE GOT OVER 300 CHANNELS...we're's the remote

Lightning wrote: A service tech had to realign the dish on top.

Dang! No one should ever have to endure such a tragedy.

michaelanthony wrote:What a boom........" A service tech had to realign the dish on top.!" ......wow, no heat, a 6 hundred lb. bomb explosion---BUT WE GOT OVER 300 CHANNELS...we're's the remote

My neighbor that lives close by stopped to offer her some electric heaters but the house has an oil boiler. The wood boiler in the garage was tied into it. She also mentioned that the dish tech was there. But yeah that's a hoot man!

Also I just learned the wood boiler was a Weber, I'm not familiar with that name.

The boiler sat in the back left corner of the garage. It appears that it opened up towards that corner and flew across the garage towards the opposite corner. It also appears that out in the driveway there is a heat exchanger that came thru bottom of the left side garage door.

Could you imagine driving by at the moment it blew? It would scare ya right over the ditch and out thru the field on the other side of the road.

But funnies aside, thank God no one got hurt or worse.

......But funnies aside, thank God no one got hurt or worse.

right on bro....................................oh did you find a baro or mpd in the carnage?