Anyone familiar with HS Tarm wood-fired boilers?

BlockInlay

BlockInlay

Octavate.band
Specifically the older models?

The house I just bought has one. I haven't used it yet (waiting for our over-booked chimney guy to give it a thorough cleaning and inspection first). Starting to learn up about it in the meantime. Just curious if any of you know about these things?
 
Here's the image that immediately sprung to mind:

Steam_locomotive_IS20-317.jpg
 
My jam-band in the 80s used one to run turbines, which in turn created stage power for the PA etc. Crude but effective. We found that "wood-fired" is really just a suggestion; you can burn other stuff in them. If you know what I mean and I think you do. :hippie:






Sorry - I got nothin'. :shrug:
 
Looks like you got a dripping relief valve or does it pop once in a while? I just noticed the bucket with water in it under the relief valve
 
Inside of the bucket is stained. It's dry at the moment but I haven't fired this bitch up yet. Previous owner was a DIY-er...though I'm hearing tales that he wasn't the smartest DIYer out there.
 
Well the chimney guy gave it a thorough cleaning and said it's ready to rock. I have enough wood for this year but need to start preparing for next year etc. Unfortunately, this will require the purchase of various implements of destruction and recruiting a friend or two to pay a visit with their chain saws. Lot more fun than paying an oil bill and I have an excuse to get outta the house.
 
I have an oil burner boiler, and while it appears to be in better shape than yours (at least it's newer), I cannot for the fucking life of me figure out how the hell it works.
We have hot water heat in 3 zones (basement, first floor, second floor) PLUS our hot water for our taps and it just baffles me. There are fucking pipes and valves and shit and gauges and all kinds of shit all over the place.

I'm afraid of it, to be honest.

I figure the little dragon in there runs on heating oil, so as long as I keep oil in the tank, I can figure it out later on.
 
P.S. A lot of the houses up here in NH have a gigantic wood boiler system OUTSIDE their house in the back yard. I know a few have conveyor belts hooked up that slooooowly turn and add more wood to the fire. It basically looks like a metal outhouse with a chimney sticking out the top with pipes running to the house out the back of it. Fucking crazy.
 
Oil burners are good if you stay on top of maintenance. If your fuel tank is indoors it's great. I haven't worked on oil burners for a long time but they were a bitch if not maintained
 
Coralkong said:
I have an oil burner boiler, and while it appears to be in better shape than yours (at least it's newer), I cannot for the fucking life of me figure out how the hell it works.
We have hot water heat in 3 zones (basement, first floor, second floor) PLUS our hot water for our taps and it just baffles me. There are fucking pipes and valves and shit and gauges and all kinds of shit all over the place.

I'm afraid of it, to be honest.

I figure the little dragon in there runs on heating oil, so as long as I keep oil in the tank, I can figure it out later on.
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our oil furnace is fairly new, much newer than this wood boiler. yeah, the plumbing is pretty overwhelming to look at when you're not familiar with it. i had my plumber walk me through a lot of it and it made way more sense when he was done. not enough sense that i'll mess with it, but at least i can tell (mostly) what's going on now.
 
BlockInlay said:
our oil furnace is fairly new, much newer than this wood boiler. yeah, the plumbing is pretty overwhelming to look at when you're not familiar with it. i had my plumber walk me through a lot of it and it made way more sense when he was done. not enough sense that i'll mess with it, but at least i can tell (mostly) what's going on now.
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Yeah, it was last inspected 1.5 years ago, so I am banking on trying to get it inspected/tuned up sometime in the early new year, when I will ask the guy to go through it with me.


And @Packerbacker, yeah, we have a 275 gallon oil tank in the basement. It has a filter on it, which is probably the cause of most of people's issues (running it dry WITHOUT a filter inline). Interestingly enough, if your tank is INSIDE your house, you need #2 fuel oil (or something like that). If your tank is OUTSIDE, you need #1 which has diesel fuel mixed into it and actually costs less than the #2.

Doesn't make any sense to me, either....but that's what the folks told me at the Fuel Oil place.

Seems to work OK, if not a bit noisy from air moving around in the pipes........so far, it doesn't seem to use much oil, but of course, it's only November.
 
Number 2 has more btu than number 1. But number 2 is too thick when it gets colder outside. Changing the filter yearly is easy and cheap and can save a ton of problems. You can buy a few to have on hand.

Having the fuel tank indoors seemed to cause a lot less maintenance problems-the fuel is room temperature versus whatever it is outside.
 
Packerbacker said:
Number 2 has more btu than number 1. But number 2 is too thick when it gets colder outside. Changing the filter yearly is easy and cheap and can save a ton of problems. You can buy a few to have on hand.

Having the fuel tank indoors seemed to cause a lot less maintenance problems-the fuel is room temperature versus whatever it is outside.
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Spoken like a man in the know. I figured it was something like that.......as for changing out the filter, the house sat empty for pretty much that entire 1.5 years (until this last July), so I figure the filter change can wait till the new year when I get "the guy" out here to tune it up.

But I hear what you're saying. I think the most important thing is DON'T RUN IT DRY and suck all shit in the bottom of the tank into your burner. When I lived in Delaware (I was young), we lived paycheck to paycheck and I can't count the number of times I ran that fucker out of oil (our hot water was electric, so, it didn't matter as much). Finally, the whole fucking thing cobbed up (there was no inline filter). I swore I would NEVER let that happen again. I had parts out, the house stunk like oil and soot, I broke the electrode by accident, stripped the nipple trying to prime the pump.....it was a horror show.
 
Exactly!! So you know the deal. And oil burner techs are becoming fewer and fewer( at least around here ) so the labor rate is high. When I got my job at the natural gas utility I was so thankful I wouldn't have to work on an oil burner again!!
 
Packerbacker said:
Exactly!! So you know the deal. And oil burner techs are becoming fewer and fewer( at least around here ) so the labor rate is high. When I got my job at the natural gas utility I was so thankful I wouldn't have to work on an oil burner again!!
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Quick,,,,what's this noise?

"woof.....woof.....WOOF! BANG! KA-BLAM!....woof...woof...woof.....BOOOOOOM!....woof, woof.....Brrrrr-oooooooooooooooom.........."

LOL.

Coupled with:

"BEEEP, BEEEP, BEEEEP, BEEEP"

and:

"Jesus Christ! Everyone out of the house. NOW! I think it's gonna blow!"

:lol:

Yep......been there, done that.......repeatedly.
 
I remember one time right out of vocational school on one of my first oil burner service calls. The basement reeked of fuel oil. Customer said only hit reset button "once or twice". I hit it and BOOM-house shook and a fireball came out of draft diverter. Felt like a fricken grenade went off. I was pissed. Customer had a sheepish look on his face and admitted he pushed it abut 20 times.
 
BlockInlay said:
Well the chimney guy gave it a thorough cleaning and said it's ready to rock. I have enough wood for this year but need to start preparing for next year etc. Unfortunately, this will require the purchase of various implements of destruction and recruiting a friend or two to pay a visit with their chain saws. Lot more fun than paying an oil bill and I have an excuse to get outta the house.
Click to expand...

Chopping wood is great exercise and one of the all time manliest activities. Grow yourself a fearsome beard and let the logs split!
 
Packerbacker said:
I remember one time right out of vocational school on one of my first oil burner service calls. The basement reeked of fuel oil. Customer said only hit reset button "once or twice". I hit it and BOOM-house shook and a fireball came out of draft diverter. Felt like a fricken grenade went off. I was pissed. Customer had a sheepish look on his face and admitted he pushed it abut 20 times.
Click to expand...

Yeah, man....that was EXACTLY the noise I described.

Along with all the smoke detectors going off, and me looking horrified at the wall of flame that just shot out the front of the furnace and all the smoke pouring out of every seam in the chimney and all the vents.....

And then the inevitable panic when you realize you're not just going to kill yourself, but all the kids and pets upstairs. Then you're REALLY going to look like an asshole, lol.

:lol:
 
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