Made the final connections and filled it with water and wood and fired it today. House is a toasty 74, and shop is good to go at 65, plus all the hot water 3 girls and a boy can use. Outside it’s 20. Best of all, I can call the gas company tomorrow and tell them to take me off budget billing and go actual read from here on. Got all the wood I can use …beer is cold, Life is good, and I’m heating my home with wood. F-those natural gas companies.
Now if I could figure a way to heat the hot tub, and gas dryer with it….then I’d really be king of my castle.
PS…lead times on Woodmasters is a couple or 3 months, ordered mine in early Sept. picked it up Monday. Had everything else installed and was waiting patiently…yeah right… patience…ha…I overnight ship EVERYTHING….because I’m patient.
Keith
PSS…..I’m thinking I need to either paint it camo, or do a bitchin’ flame job on it….I’m leaning toward flames….just SEEMS right!
Replies
Congratulations. Sounds like a good move to me.
I wouldn't be burning my bridges to any power source. Keep at least the gas piping in place in case there is some reason to use it.
I suspect that as energy gets tighter the companies, particularly the middlemen, will be increasingly whipsawing the markets. As was done with California a minor shortage and some trivial distribution issues were parlayed into major problems, shortages and, the point of the game, massive profits.
One market will be played off the other cyclically so no solution in any particular sector will be precipitated out. The key to this is to understand the momentum and inertia of energy transitions. Idea being to, for example, artificially wring out natural gas prices to maximize profits but to keep the duration of the crisis short enough to prevent people from shifting away from gas and to prevent outside players or governments from correcting. Once the windfall is harvested the shortages and problems will magically disappear.
The same game then being moved into another sector, gasoline, propane, electricity. Whatever can be manipulated will be. Short term profits will be massive and the generalizes sense of uncertainty and panic will be redirected toward long standing energy industry goals, and very profitable crash programs which are not actually intended to solve or change anything. Their goal will be to demonstrate intention and funnel off public money without oversight.
In such an environment it will be very advantageous to be able tap many sources of energy and to lower consumption of all. Wood, being far less subject to market manipulations, is a good choice.
I suspect that as energy gets tighter the companies, particularly the middlemen, will be increasingly whipsawing the markets.kinda off topic. there was a news report that the state governments was going put a huge tax on these hybird automobile because they use enough gas. The state are loosing tax base. 2+3=7
What type of pipe insulation did you use for the underground portion?
How far is the boiler from your house & shop?
Mine is located 50' from the house and 10' from the shop, I used Urecon for my underground pipe. It cost about $6.70 a ft.
Way to go! I just got mine going too, although my stove is homemade, not a commercially available unit. Works great--I've got more heat than I know what to do with. I load mine before I go to work in the morning and once again sometime in the evening. Temp's falling below zero? Big deal, toss in an extra chunk of wood.
Brent
Did you make it yourself? Ive been toying with the ides myself. I'm a pretty good fabricator.
I can fabricate and have plasmas, welders etc. but thought I'd let someone else deal with this one. I like the round drum design, and the way it's baffled. Plus for one reason or another it doesn't smoke much, alot less than a friends Central Boiler.
I'm with you on the wood burner and telling the gas company to go pound sand they have robbed me for the last time at this house. I did buy the central boiler and have noticed that I can control the amount of smoke by how I load it and what I am loading it with, split wood seems to be better and smaller amounts also seem to help. My only regret is I wish i would have done it sooner, five years in this house and this is the first winter that it is actully warm inside.
Yes, I did make it myself, with lots of help from a couple uncles (they're much better at welding than I am). Mine's pretty big, intented to heat the house (3,700 sq. ft.), garage (1,000 sq. ft.), and a future outbuilding. It's heavy, too. I'd have to check my figures again, but I think it's on the order of 3000 pounds empty--lots of steel! With water, maybe 8000 pounds.Maybe I'll start a new thread and post some pictures.
Please do post the pix. Did you have plans or come up with the design by yourselves?
Mike
What are you using as a wood supply. I'm on 15 acres and am considering it. Would hate to have to buy wood after the considerable start up expense. Also have considered the great number of free pallets always avail. How much time per week do you think you'll spend on getting wood feeding it etc?
Mike
One of my best friends has a tree trimming business, and he supplies me with all the wood I can handle. I've got a Rayco splitter with the 600 lb. log lift and 4 way splitter that can handle a 40" tree trunk...free wood.
good Job! I'm on my second season with mine, I buy wood in 8' length and cut it up. Cost is approx 400. per year, beats 350 per month
Alan
Keith,
Not sure if your statement about the hot tub was facetious, but I've seen and used a hot tub that was directly heated by wood, i.e. the fire is in the tub. I think a recent FHB or JLC had an ad for something similar, called a snorkel or something like that.
The tub I used once was home made - just a metal firebox submerged in the water, top of the box a couple of inches above water leve. The tub itself was a big plastic tank with the top cut off, the whole thing buried flush in the ground. This was about 12 yrs ago in Binghamton, NY.
I guess the only problem was that you couldn't run the fire if the tub had no water, you'd end up burning the firebox right out. It was only thin sheet metal.
Alec