eye opening experience

Before I turned to coal for all my heating needs I fought with my town over putting in a wood burning outdoor furnace. I am so glad I lost that battle. My neighbor has one and recently had shoulder surgery. I have taken over the task of maintaining his boiler. What a PIA. It is dirty nasty work and I am only feeding the beast. I didn't have to cut split and stack all the wood first. I used to burn a wood stove in my basement. Nothing like this boiler. Twice a day I get blasted with smoke and amazing heat!! So glad I only have to deal with a couple bags of coal every other day and clean the ashes out about as much. I LOVE MY COAL!!!

Well you have proven that you are really smart so don't fret over the memory losses.

Im curious.....how was your neighbor able to get away with having one ??

...a blessing in disguise for you tho

Probably grandfathered in like in Chester NY. Now we are not allowed to have one and who wants one? Of course, everybody complained about the new restriction but as the supervisor said "No one has got one and nobody asked to install one, so what's your problem". Yuppieville here would never go through the trouble of using one anyway even though they are mostly broke and could use a a money saver.

He installed it in his barn without getting a permit. It seems like a lot is getting done around here without permits!!

That's the way to do it. The hell with 'em & their permits.

Permits? Permits? We don't need no stinkin permits!!!

blrman07 wrote:Permits? Permits? We don't need no stinkin permits!!!

Love this dude^^^! I feel like saying that every time I'm making app. for a permit

as far as the wood boiler goes, i once sold a home that had a big red wood add-on boiler in the basement (I cant remember the maker because at the time I had it removed prior to putting the home on the market because the smell was so bad i could not breath in the home). Ive also went into a home using one of those EFM coal boilers (gratz to anyone who has one of these beauties) and it was a world of difference in the smells (when I went in the basement i only had a hint of smells). I dont know why everyone says "coal is dirty, sooty and smelly" when its seriously the wood stoves that create that UN-removable creosote smell in a house. Ive never had issue with soot as long as i shake when doors are closed and wait 2 min. and bring the pan outside to the metal drum i dump it is

coalnewbie wrote:Well you have proven that you are really smart so don't fret over the memory losses.

What memory loss!

The smell is overwhelming. I have an old barn coat that is the only thing I wear to tend the boiler and I have to keep it in the basement because of the smell. Dirty, nasty, smelly deal that's all there is to it. Time is another thing, twenty minutes to shake out and add wood to his boiler, 5 to get rid of the ash and add 2 bags of coal to mine!!! Again, I LOVE COAL!!!

You should rename your post to: Runny, burning, blinding smoke and heat experience...... I know folks burning 20 cords plus a season, and they do work for many folks, but not for me.

The experience is: Not a Job, It's an Adventure!! (sorry to paraphrase the Navy slogan....)

Outside wood boilers suck!

I know because my father HAD one, and he was either putting wood in it, cutting wood up to put in it, or gathering wood for it. My Mother often said she was an Outside Wood Boiler Widow because he was never home! He was a slave to that thing. Eventually it burned his house to the ground as it malfunctioned, caught sawdust on fire, which caught the wood pile on fire, and then his siding on fire...

Everyone I know that has one, got it for the same reason; "because the wood is free" they say. Within a few years though, their appetite for wood is so demanding that all have resorted to buying their firewood. As is, I have two outside wood boiler customers that I keep in firewood. One burns 40 cord a year and the other burns 150 cords per year. The later, when it is really cold out, consumes over a cord per day and has a 5 foot by 5 foot door on it.

But if you want to see how inefficient they are, look at their burn efficiency if you want to get depressed. They are rated at 35%, which means you are getting 3.5 cords of heat from every 10 cords it consumes. I know my Father's consumed 20 cords per year, which meant he was only getting 7 cords worth of heat from it, and basically working his hiney off for the other 13 cords that was going to waste. No thank you, I got better things to do then work up wood that I will not get any heat out of!

Friend has Central wood boiler and holy *censored* does it eat the wood. He had 20+ cords of wood stacked by the boiler, there is lucky to be 2 cords left. Took him into my workshop to check out my girly boiler and the effortless coal vac system. He regrets not looking into different heat sources now.

I find tires work better than wood.

SMITTY wrote:I find tires work better than wood.

Glad I don't live near you!!!