Planning a remote install

Live in Delaware, house is 1600sf multi-level, garage is one car, 80 gal elec water heater. We typically use 450? gallons of oil, $1100 is roughly about what we have spent each of the past 3 winters.

I am thinking a remote boiler shed install this winter/spring and trying to get a good plan in place before I start. I have been reading and researching for awhile now. My immediate hookups are going to be a hx in my oil furnace, a side arm for the water heater and a modine for my garage, and plan for another modine or rad in the basement and possibly hook up a hot tub.

I'm familiar with wood boilers, but all the ones I have seen have been one loop, that went side arm then to a HX and pump ran 24/7. But I would think it would be better to separate the loads with a header in my application. So my questions: are zone valves with a variable speed pump or individual zone pumps better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om1pfiCzzT8

LOL funny video....wood boiler

Welp, I need a boiler, or a furnace. If I were to get a furnace, everything has to go through my living room to get to it. So here I is, thinking boiler in a shed, either stoker or hand fed. I live in Delaware, pretty low heat demand "most" of the time. S-130 stoker or sf160 or wcb24 handfed is whats on my radar. Thoughts?

CDF_USAF wrote:So my questions: are zone valves with a variable speed pump or individual zone pumps better?

The million dollar question. Likely no real way to answer it since both methods work well if properly implemented. But for a remote install I think you will best be served by a primary/secondary loop(s) system, and for that you will need to go with individual circulators on each zone as well as a circulator on the primary loop.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of a zone valve system is lower electrical consumption, but ECM circulators are reducing the difference.

The boiler shed would be about 30 ft to the house and another 15 ft to the furnace, not sure if that makes a big difference but that is why I am here bouncing a few ideas off the experts. Currently I'm deployed so this is all planning and getting my game plan together for when I get back.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but if the objective is cost savings and the numbers are as presented, it's hard to imagine how it could be cost-effective to construct an outbuilding, purchase and install a coal boiler, and operate it at the cost/btu of coal in Delaware and with the heat loss of the distribution lines. Am I missing something here?

Mike

Pacowy wrote:Sorry to be a wet blanket, but if the objective is cost savings and the numbers are as presented, it's hard to imagine how it could be cost-effective to construct an outbuilding, purchase and install a coal boiler, and operate it at the cost/btu of coal in Delaware and with the heat loss of the distribution lines. Am I missing something here?

Mike

I had the same thoughts.

It very well could end up being a wash price wise, as it really doesn't cost an absurd amount to heat my house to 70 with the oil furnace. Where I am thinking I would come out ahead is being able to heat my house, basement, water and garage with one unit for close to the same cost of just heating the main living areas. Currently basement/garage are not kept heated which makes for cold floors, unless I'm planning on working in there for awhile and then its just a space heater. So my main goal is to make it more comfortable overall and hopefully save a buck and a good project. Coal is available locally for about 250T bagged and a few bulk dealers within the Amish community, I also have a truck and trailer if I wanted to go pick it up bulk. I'll be doing the refurb/install myself.

A couple of specific thoughts:

1. This sounds like a job for a stoker boiler.

2. If humanly possible it should go in the basement. You're almost certainly talking about a comparatively small boiler, and small quantities of coal and ash. An outbuilding would add expense and unnecessary heat loss. In the basement, depending upon what you do with insulation and jackets, the boiler can function as a big radiator.

Mike

Yes I am primarily looking at a stoker. I really like the s130 and the under feds, the flat grate stokers seem too finicky and less forgiving to me, but I could learn. It is humanly possible to fit it in the basement, I just don't want to carry the coal/ash up and down stairs, and the CO potential for some reason is really with me; I know the furnace can produce it as well, and I grew up with wood only heat so I understand the fire aspect maybe its because I have kids now, I dunno, so I'm going to go remote if I can and have a man/boiler cave.

From OWB to EFM520 Installed in Truck Box
I speak from experience having a remote boiler location,i have no basements or separate room on my shop to safely install a boiler.

Remote enclosure for a boiler is not the ideal option... except when absolutely necessary.
If after all the advice is given & read by you,you still go for the remote location...

BY ALL MEANS.. read everything you can on how to super insulate the underground pex runs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My pex-in-the-ground runs are not the worst.. BUT, they could be much better.I followed popular advice in 2006 when i installed my life-sapping OWB,now i am stuck with what i have.

Thanks WH for sharing your considerable experience with this.

I agree with the OP that the AA/AHS and underfed designs are more forgiving, though I note multiple members report running Keystoker KA-6's for DHW all summer without incident.

On the basement issue, obviously it's your call. I think there are multiple threads on the forum describing methods that members have used successfully to address coal and ash logistics in situations like yours. On the CO front, I don't want to argue with someone who believes they are protecting their kids, but I also don't want to perpetuate an inaccurate portrayal of the risks of using coal heat. CDC singles out "motor vehicles, gas-powered furnaces and portable generators" as important sources of CO (see https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5650a1.htm). My $0.02 would be that "gas-powered" is singled out because it is the only home-heating fuel that (unlike oil, wood and coal) produces no distinctive odor marking the presence of flue gases, and "furnaces" are singled out because of the ease with which heat exchanger failures can circulate flue gases into living spaces. Sure, everybody who relies on combustion for heat should use CO detectors, but coal boilers have neither of the properties that put gas-powered furnaces on the list. And even though those treacherous gas-powered furnaces are still in the homes of lots of people, the risk of CO poisoning for children is a small fraction of that for older males (i.e., the fools who tend to work on cars in closed garages, run the generators during power outages, etc.). If I'm doing the math right, compared to CO, your kids are 15-20x as likely to die from a serial killer, and about 10x as likely to die from electrocution. If you send them outside to keep them away from CO, they'll face a comparable risk from lightning strikes and bee stings. The data say the best way to protect your kids from the harmful effects of CO is to protect yourself when you are exposed to it.

That's all I got, so you can go build your outbuilding now...

Mike

Windy, I have followed your installation and looked into the new gassers as well, but I have 1/2 an acre, 2 little ones and yep that would be a lot of work to depend on for heat with my schedule.

If I were to do a basement install I'm sure I would come up with something, just may take me a minute. I do have hard wired smoke/co detectors on each level and a plug-in with ppm in the basement near the furnace, I could add more. Would a draft inducer hurt if I were to set it to produce the min draft at cold? Coal is new for me, I know wood, which is complicating this in my head, hope you guys understand.

Are the heat losses that bad under ground? or does it just complicate things by adding the distance? I know the additional cost for the good pipe, and the building is obviously more. I could move it outside if it didn't work out inside.

They are more work and more money up front, but they keep the mess outside, and any potential danger, but those aren’t things that would justified the remote install alone, I am building a shop on the side my remote building and heating it with the coal boiler also, so I would of had to pipe heat one way or the other, so I decided to pipe it into the house.

If you put pex deep enough in the ground u won’t notice any melting in the winter anyways, so don’t let people tel u there insulated piping is better than another just because the snow doesn’t melt on top of the piping, depth plays a huge factor in what it “looks” like, the way it’s made, and what you have for soil around the piping in the ground plays a big part.

As member sting would say “IT DEPENDS”!

CDF_USAF wrote:Are the heat losses that bad under ground? or does it just complicate things by adding the distance? I know the additional cost for the good pipe, and the building is obviously more. I could move it outside if it didn't work out inside.

In past threads I believe some members have posted data regarding the temperature/btu losses they experience on specific underground distribution lines (i.e., of given length, diameter, gpm, insulation, depth, etc.). In general, they aren't trivial.

Mike