Anyone using a Wood Gasification Boiler?

Using a Wood Gasification boiler uses much less wood and does produce less smoke. We call it our Green Furnace as it is a new way to burn a renewable resource to heat homes, hot water, mutltiple buildings and much more. They are EPA certified and meet stick Maine and Vermont Emission standards. To see video see www.WoodGasificationFurnace.com.
These units are the way to beat the high prices of heating oil.

w00t Spam

Wood Gasification Furnaces are very clean burning and do a great job to heat homes and businesses. There is very little smoke from the unit when it is running, I always see much more from peoples homes where they only have a small inside wood stove. These units not only are able to provide 100% of heating needs but also 100% of hot water needs . We need to get away from non renewable energy sources. see at www.WoodGasificationFurnace.com

I started using a Greenwood boiler about a month ago. This one has a liquid capacity of about 7.5 gallons but a ceramic refractory 4-6" think. They say it burns 1800-2000 F. Seems to burn clean--especially in cold weather when there is a demand for lots of heat. Cost is about $7000. One weakness is you get lots of smoke when you open the door, but you can minimize that if you only load wood when the fire has died down and temperature is about 160 F. Works best if you use unsplit wood.
Lance, Fairbanks, Alaska

Hi ladies and gentlemen
Just came across this forum
I have been using a wood gasifying biler for the last couple of munths just thught i would share my experience it might give you some ideays
Most of what you see i learnt from forums like this so hope it helps

hope this works
The Johnson Control Digital Thermostat 80$; has arrived
something similar here would have cost a lot more; I have installed it’ and it has enabled me, to be much more accurate, in how I control the buffer tank and the oil boiler .
I will post some pictures along with some explanation, as to how I ended up with a wood gasifying boiler,

The first image’ is of my existing 90000 btu oil boiler’ I installed in 1998, the last fill of kerosene cost 78 cents a litre; that was back in April. I recon the cost of heating my home 2500sq feet; for the winter, would be anywhere between’ 2000 Euro 3000 thousand Euro’ depending on the type of weather we would have .
I initially was looking at a wood burning stove; that I could install into; an existing fire place’ and after looking at a large number of stoves .I almost settled on a Hercules wood burning stove’ with a back boiler’ that I could combine, with the existing oil central heating system, the average price in this country’ was around 3000 Euro; that was just for the stove’ removing the existing fireplace’ and installing the wood stove. combining it to the heating system; would have cost another 1500 to 2000 thousand Euro, I recon; and that’s with me doing the installation .
Searching the web; I came across sites and forums; that got me interested in wood gasifying boilers.
Trying to source a wood gasifying boiler; in this country, the cheapest wood gasifying boiler; I could come across; was costing in the region of, 4000 and 5000 thousand Euro; with the addition of a buffer tank; the cost had risen to about 8000 or 9000 thousand Euro
http://www.woodenergy.ie/iopen24/pub/ccn08_gasifier.pdf wood energy gives an estimated cost of 16000 thousand Euro
These cost’ were I felt was way to expensive, and would be well beyond my reach; plus the fact that it would take long time’ before I would have recouped the cost; decades even
So I set about trying to reduce the cost to a minimum; using recycled material; and some hard work.
So that is how I ended up here; with a wood gasifying boiler, and the prospect of using no oil, or very little for heating and hot water .

This is the wood boiler 85300 BTU; about twice the size’ of the existing oil boiler’ in size, not heat output
This boiler I got in Poland; along with a laddomat; and some other fittings; for 3330 Euro delivered here;
to Ireland

system zone and minilex; I used to simplify the wiring and zone heating . I could have got it cheaper; if I were living, in an other country, but we live in the rip off republic; so I had to purchase them here.
While I am not happy with the cost; I am happy with there performance; it did make it easier to combine all the zones

Buffer tank; is made with 4x2 timber and 8x4 sheets of ply; insulation industrial type; again all salvaged .
The only thing I had to pay for was the EDPM lining 
Here’s a picture of the 2000l tank; with the lining, and the pipe work, from the wood boiler, and the flow and return for the heating system; the automatic air vent, I removed as it was allowing air into the wood boiler .

The boiler’ and the laddomat connected; the laddomat’ I feel is an essential addition; to the system, and makes the boiler’ more efficient; I am very pleased with this item’ 200 Euro cheaper to get in Poland than here

Dual coil copper cylinder; reclaimed from scrap yard; used to stratify the buffer tank; and as a heat exchanger, for the heating system.
The 1” connection, normally the hot water outlet; I connected to the boiler; hot water from the boiler enters the tank’ and comes out; the thru the holes drilled into the tank on top; also true the connection where the emersion heater would have been. This keeps the hot water on top of the tank’ while it is charging, I have two censers, bought of EBay; one about six inches below the water line; and another, six inches above the bottom; of the tank, while charging’ there seems to be about a 15 degree difference; maintained’ when charged’ there seems to be a difference of 20 degrees . So stratification’ seems to be taking place; and maintained, while heat is being drawn off for the heating system . I recon there’s about thirty or forty feet; of 1” copper coil inside the tank; this I have used as the heat exchanger; I combined the two coils; and have the flow and return; connected to for the heating system; this seems to be working’ and I don’t think I will be changing anything here.
The tank’ is held in place by two galvanised bars; the serve two purposes; one to keep the cylinder’ just below the surface of the water; and two; to hold the tank together strengthening the top of the tank .
The bull wire; is slipped inside garden hose; to help prevent galvanic corrosion

6” insulated flu don’t know the price for this yet; my son and son-in-law; fitted this’ could cost a few hundred Euro, or a few pints. I will have to pay for the material.
But the labour

forgot about the pictures

Gasification units are the Green furnaces of the future, burning much less wood with much less emsissions. you can see a video on www.woodgasificationfurnace.com or www.greenheating&coolingstore.com. All people need to be educated about the future of wood burning.

Quite frankly, most of the green methods at this stage of the game are just too expensive to be employed on a individual level and in many cases, at institutional levels. In the case of the wood gasification boiler you get not only the hefty installation price tag but all the work and inconvenience of wood right along with it.

Only fossil fuels, hydropower, and nuclear can deliver the cheap energy we need to sustain our lifestyle at this point. I hold high hope for breakthroughs in other methods but it will be unlikely. Wind is a close competitor to fossil fuels but like hydro, there are only so many places with sufficiently high average wind speed to appropriately amortize the costs. Solar thusfar it just too costly on a large scale for most regions of the earth.

Soon people will realize that the Global Climate Change gang are just scientists and politicians with a political agenda to shift the energy paradigm away from fossil fuels. Their intent is to re-distribute wealth and political power. Their secondary goal is to establish a greener infrastructure that competes with the real future of clean energy production through nuclear fusion technology which is running on a very solid schedule for implementation in about 27 years.

That technology will dominate the western and industrialized nations and electricity will be king. It will be clean and cheap, the key words in energy acceptance.

mikeandgerry wrote:Their secondary goal is to establish a greener infrastructure that competes with the real future of clean energy production through nuclear fusion technology which is running on a very solid schedule for implementation in about 27 years.

I think we heard this one over 27 years ago, didn't we?

The 'russian stove' or 'masonry heater' is a far better setup if you want to burn wood cleanly.
http://mha-net.org/

Professor Dick Hill of The University of Maine taught how to properly burn wood and he did that around 30 yrs ago. There has been no change since then. There is only one way to burn it as clean as it can be burned & that is hot & fast. Any other method is just trying to burn it slower or make improperly seasoned wood burn with less creosote. The wood gasification is a good idea for making wood burn slower with not as much pollution, but a good ol' Russian stove or masonry heater is very close to being as clean and efficient.

I found an 1982 Eshland 180 Gassification boiler that was removed from a huge residential setting, and thought about rehabilitating it. I called AHS about parts costs and was pleasantly surprised. In case you have never had anything to do with this company, you will be very pleasantly surprised when you might even talk to the owner himself when they answer your call. (I have also had great luck talking to Pete Axeman, EFM, Keystoker, Leisure Line, and Thermo Dymanics.) I was also advised that checking the boiler's steel plate was a very good idea. Long story short, water quality in the boiler wasn't a priority and you can assume that there was a great deal of repair required. Soooooo with that being an issue, I opted out of that situation and continued on with more coal boilers. The process of wood burning is just as Freddy states, 'burn it hot and fast, store the resulting energy in some manner', or creosote your world forever. I just met a local guy who has purchased a Danish gasser in October, and has 3- 500 gal old propane tanks for hot water storage(foam insulated....blah, blah, blah.) It takes up a huge physical space, requires complex computer controls, larger circulators, piping, etc......and still you have to feed it 16 cords a season. His fire lasts about 5 to six hours, and it burns cleanly. It is fed twice a day, not much ash and works fine. If he had used a coal boiler, he would have had about 25 percent of the footprint, auto feeding, and simple controls, piping and pumping and not dealing with 16 cords of wood.
I know many of us have burned wood for years, but when the opportunity to try something else came along, we discovered what the folks from PA had know for decades: coal is not just a four letter word.
I have burned for 31 years now, and still learn daily from my experiences and this forum.
Many of you may know that the Pellet Industry is attempting to get a large number of folks in Maine to change over to Pellet Boilers imported from Bosch, and are setting up distributors for bulk delivery since last Sept.
They sure have enough wood to make pellets out of....for now. What will be the "NEXT BIG THING"?
If a better mousetrap can be found, perhaps they will catch a few more mice. Chime in Freddy, please.

The russian stove is heat in its most basic but most efficient form!
A true KISS design.
During the New England ice storm my friend had his yearly Christmas party.
No problem big house with the russian heater toasty warm, just had to fire it twice because it was heating the whole house now!
Needs no electric and holds no water burns clean it is a perfect wood burner.

whistlenut wrote:They (Maine) sure have enough wood to make pellets out of....for now.

Yes, and no. While we do have enough wood, there's a problem with supply. We put all wood in one category: fiber. They'd like the pubic to think that pellets are made from waste....sawdust, twigs & branches. Well, the reality is that most are made from fiber, that same fiber that feeds the sawmills, paper mills, and OSB factories. The high cost of diesel drove a bunch of loggers out of business and now there's a shortage, hence the price of pellets now rivals the price of oil. Then toss in rich tree huggers that buy up large kits of land & shut it off to logging. It all adds up to both a shortage and higher prices. I honestly don't know how well the "20% of homes will heat with pellets within five years" plan is going. I'll be real surprised if it works out as hoped.

I looked into wood gasification boilers. Pretty cool, but it is still wood. And unless you live in the sticks, wood is not cheap.
Anthracite coal came up a winner on all fronts when I was looking for an oil alternative. As far as being green goes, when
you compute production,refining and delivery, even on the CO2 front, coal is greener. Wood though renewable, is pretty
dirty all in all. How renewable is it? For every tree cut down, is another planted? Because if it is not, then it is not renewed.
So, yes it is renewable, but probably not renewed. Anthracite is tough to beat, I have not found a way. Coal On