Quote:
Originally Posted by strider3700
I was thinking of adding an outdoor wood boiler to begin with, and eventually get solar water heating as well.
Has anyone done or seen anything like this? thoughts?
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I designed a similar system for a coworker way back when. A wood boiler heated an 1100 gallon water tank, with gas boiler backup. The wood boiler was in the house next to the tank.
The control system was fairly simple. He had a four zone hydronic system with a thermostat for each zone. As long as he kept an eye on the tank temperature, and fired up the wood boiler as needed, each zone stayed at the setpoint temperature.
A fifth thermostat was in a central location. That thermostat was set to a lower temperature and controlled the gas boiler. If the tank temperature dropped too far to maintain temperature in the house, the gas boiler automatically kicked on.
He could keep the gas boiler from kicking by building a wood fire once a day in the evening if the outside temperature was above zero degrees F. If colder than that, he built a small fire in the morning.