oh the headaches of trying to do things right, alternative enegy

Well when we put in our wood boiler and built a building to house it we were doing it to save money..i knew it was not a good idea but couldn't fight the MEN in the family.
Well I built a 16x16 building around the wood boiler, to hold wood, and to make it easy for my hubby to get wood inside i put in a very expensive double steel door that opened out from the center with 9 light windows in the top for sunlight..
so far it had worked really nice, until the 4th load of wood yesterday.
Hubby (head injury remember) was driving tractor with bucket full of wood trying to get it close to the shed to be able to reach it easily thru the door to stack it..and WHAMMMMOOOOO ! he hit the door with the tractor..embarrassed he went into the house..son next door had witnessed the accident and changed and hurried over to help..door on left side (2nd to open) hanging by fractured splinters of wood ready to fall off..all screw holes shattered where hinges go on..we managed to get it off before it fell and broke any glass..and there wasn't a lot of metal damage to the door but the entire frame was shattered into tiny little splinters.
we had a snowstorm moving in and it was nearly dark..but we put the door inside and went to work on the frame to reinforce it with some shims and screws to temporarily get it fixed well enough to run 3" screws through to the framework of the buildingand try to rehang the door..after 2 hours in freezing temps, we managed to get the door rehung, all out of square and didn't want to close..more shimming and moving screws around we forced the door closed and locked..the right hand door worked fairly well..so we can still get in and out..but there is a note on the left door "do not open this door" and we won't be able to properly fix it until summer when it is warm enough to take it all apart and try over..hopefully we'll be able to figure it out at that time, in the meantime i'm trying to not make hubby feel too badly..as his depression is bad enough..

but we did get over a cord of firewood in before the storm, i got up this morning and he had sneaked in with the wheelborrow another cord..bless his heart..he felt so bad..

Do you have a picture of this building?

yes i do, think most of them on my other computer but i can take one and put on this computer..haven't had success posting photos on this site yet..but I'll keep trying.

what i did was we had an 8x16 woodshed up on a deck, about 4' on the west side above an open field..for wood for our indoor fireplace..and when we decided to put in the outside boiler the plan was to make a lean to off of the roof of the existing shed (so that made the lean against wall 12' high..8 + 4 to the ground..so we brought the rafters out 16' and put it on  poles, that low side which was just 8' high we installed double steel doors with 9 lights that opened in the center, on the south wall up on the deck by the steps we installed a single steel door with 9 lights..and beside it put in the wood boiler..leaving the other 8x16 open area for firewood..we never got finished with the n wall before snow hit but we blocked it in..so it is sealed..but hubby decided that 16x 16 was too small for the amount of wood we use, so we are going to add another 8x8 off the north end..kinda a lean to on a lean to..
i wonder if i could copy and paste a picture on here off of my blog, i have photos there..?? I'll try.no it won't let me copy and paste but if you have yahoo..360..you can enter and check out my blog

ronbre_2000@yahoo.com

there are some pictures when we were working on the wood boiler building, but not with the door put in, just the opening.

ok i went out and snapped an inside photo of the door,  blurry tho, and it is storming so this is just a try to see if i can figure out how to get a picture on here..if it does work this is taken from the top of the steps just inside the south door looking ne at the double doors..orange sign is on door that  was hit from outside..far left casing is the one that was shattered, we put together best we could till spring.

that wasn't so hard, the photo worked, and yes i knew it was blurry, but some other time i'll take better photos..my husband was asleep so i didn't want to go back out and take another as opening the door wakes him up, he is sleeping just 5 feet from the door..he needs his rest..maybe tomorrow or some other time

by the way, can't remember who told me how to post photos on here, but thanks, i'm glad it worked, this makes the site much more exciting for me to use..blessings..bre

So this is inside your fire shack?

The green thing is the wood burning contraption?  And your house is a whole different building?

yikes i sure let this post slip..forgot about it.

Yeah the green contraption burns wood and heats our house..our sons house 115' of pex away and his garage..with hot water heat..through the pex.

it ended up  using about 40 cord of wood this year to heat both houses..might be just cause we weren't familiar with it..heated with wood for 38 years but NOT this boiler.

hopefully next year will work out better

40 cords is  ..... bizarre!  I cannot imagine trying to bring in that much wood in one year.  Burning it would almost be a full time job!

it was bizarre, we used to heat with 12 to 13 cord of firewood..but we do live in Michigan and we were heating 2 homes..but we had to LEARN a whole new system with this wood boiler..we did realize that the adjustements weren't right the first few months..so it burned more..has to be tinkered with..the drafts, the water pressure and temperature range..needed to install all new thermostats..etc.

installing it ourselves we didn't know what had to be done and it was just left here by the dealer and never hooked up or anything ..although we paid to have it installed.

another story.

but we hope to have it figured out this year.

also the first wood we had had been wood we had bought for our fireplace..smaller and not really the type needed for a huge boiler..now we have purchased 27 cord of wood that is in poles..we will cut the lengths ourselves..to fit right in the stove..we will also cut junk wood..like aspen that has been dead..to burn in the spring and in the fall..this spring we had some dried aspen laying around in a pile from clearing our son's land for his house..down 2 years..and it burned really well in that stove..which was a surprise..as we were told aspen wasn't good for firewood..actually in these wood boilers..it works fairly well and will hold fire for 4 to 6 hours..if it is done right..adjusted right.

hopefully this next year things will be a lot different..as we were nearly begging for firewood by the end of last heating season.

i also happened to think that in the pacific NW you folks might not realize how severe our winter was..it lasted 6 months (we still are heating..but using our propane now as we ran out of wood over a month ago)..our highs for most of the winter were below freezing and our lows were -30 for a large part of the year. We had 141 " of snow by April 1..they stopped counting after that. This was the worst winter in N central Mich in over 60 years...go figure we would do this new system in the worst year we ever lived through.

we had bought wood for a smaller stove..so we weren't prepared for this huge boiler..[/img]
door has a very large air gap for an "airtight stove" and they won't answer our phone calls, letters or emails...and honor their warranty.

we will work around it by repairing it ourselvs with some repair rope this year..when we actually have TIME to mess with it..put the furnace in in November 2008.

we were so rushed we couldn't even FINISH the building ..our hands were freezing..so we temporarily tacked up stuff to keep the snow out..we are going to put another 8 x 16 like a lean to here..to store more firewood inside the building..as the building only has an 8 x 16 area now to store wood which isn't enough for us to have inside for a winter for sure.
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this is the south side of the building..we got that nearly done..Ron was shovelling snow..the east side has a double door for bringing in the wood..which you can see in the other thread on the woodstove..