Quote Originally Posted by Toolmaker51 View Post
Thanks for the tip diyfixman and oi789; you guys are the best!
Now tell me how to get 400k BTU rocket heating water for iron radiators. I really like the Euro ceramic concept; I bet they'd combine well. The 400k was established by a heating contractor for ~104,000 cubic feet, full of iron machine tools.
Were I work, natural gas blowers hang from the ceiling. Useless POS; blasts you in the face here and there, but machine handles so cold you don't even want to run them.
TM51 lets try to break this down a bit the contractor is saying you require approximately 400K BTU to heat your building Now I know from previous discussions that your building has thick masonry walls and you will have many tons of iron in the form of machines in the building which will serve as a thermal mass once the ambient is stabilized
you and I touched on this discussion a while back about the placement of your radiators. I believe I suggested they be located as low to the floor as possible But I know in doing so gobbles up valuable floor space so placing them on the walls well above work space encroachment becomes the next viable location adding down angled deflectors possibly even fan forced exponentially increases the thermal efficiency
Iron radiators have a 150 BTU output per sq ft /hot water and a 240 BTU output per sq ft steam so if you have hot water to get 400K you would need around 2667 sq ft of radiators for steam the number is 1667 sq ft lets call it 2700 and 1700 to err on the up side a 20" tall 64" long 10" thick wall hung radiator has about 104 sq ft of surface area so 16 of these that size would come close to 1664 sq ft
You get the idea I'm sure
Now dry wood is 50% carbon in rough figures and 1 lb of wood @ 20% moisture yields approximately 5000 BTU if burned in 1 hr (Carbon MJ/kg 32.8 BTU/lb 14,100 kJ/mol 393.5)
or 80 lbs burned per hour to get 400K factor in 80% efficiently and you now need the capability to consume 100 lbs of wood . Compressed dried pellets slightly less and dry corn possibly a little less than that.
I'm roughly thinking if you wanted to go with a wood fired boiler to get 400k in order to consume 100 lbs of wood per hour the thing would need to be huge.
to clarify here is a link to a 400,000 BTU wood fired boiler
Outdoor Boiler - 7400 OD Outdoor Wood Boiler by American Royall