Thanks JO. Also, this PE pipe is frost resistant. In theory, l may never even need to empty the sistem. If the solar collector freezes, so be it. When it thaws, and when ever the top part of the collector gets warmer thain the lower, it shuld auto syphon automaticly. If not, the cool water shuld just hang out in the lowest part, the collector. Or am l thinking wrong?
4 Likes
Right! That will work just fine as long as no part of the hose is still frozen/plugged.
Also, stick to A and you get rid of blocking bubbles for free as well. No high spots.
5 Likes
Kristian, you are a genius! I like it. No extra things to keep it functioning. Whatever is not there, cant be broken. Every detail from cooking to double chimney, genius.
One thing, how do you manage that the boiler doesnt start boiling? Overheated?
PE, I knew. Very nice material to work with. And now you are lucky to live in a hilly area.
5 Likes
Here is a video of the wood heater for my house. I mentioned how hot I keep the fire in the box. I forgot if I mentioned that I run the heater 12 to 14 hours a day and in the dead of winter it uses about 3 wheelbarrow loads of wood a day. Our heating season is from mid-October to mid May or early June. That amounts to a fair amount of wood every year not to mention what I burn to keep the greenhouse heated all winter. Once the stove is running in the morning it produces no smoke because all the tars and wood gas is burned in the stove. Even though I burn it that hot, by the time the hot air gets to the flue, the flue temp never goes past 300F. The water in the tanks stays about 140F as it is pumped through the piping. It will go past boiling with the pumps turned off but I leave the tanks open to the atmosphere so they just vent off a little steam.
13 Likes
Tom, I was saving your video to watch it later and almost forgot about it.
That’s an impressive system. Three wheelbarrows and 14 hours a day will certainly keep you busy during winter - just to keep warm.
I don’t think people heating with electric or natural gas realise how much energy is required to heat a house. Same with driving on wood. Makes you realise how energy denst ff really is. Also, makes you wonder for how long buying stuff from far away will last- wether it’s fuel, food or gizmos.
14 Likes
Tom, thank you wery much! I enjoyed the video. Hope to see it operating too!
7 Likes
Was this fire box/boiler unit built after the house was built?
So very cool.
Bob
4 Likes
It was built with the house Bob. It would be hard to retrofit. I built the house myself. One reason why I use so much wood is because most of the south face of the house is glass. I thought it would give solar gain. I didn’t take into account that we get very little sun during the winter and spring. My wife won’t let me cover the windows with some insulated curtains. That would help a lot but the views of the woods are nice too.
7 Likes
I am still playing catch up.
Poplar has a deep taproot, it grows in most soils even poor clay soils. It is related to the aspen that grows on rocks. There was a lot of work done researching and growing it dense and then harvesting after like 5-7 years.
You are searching for ‘coppicing’ or ‘pollarding’. Coppicing you go closer to the ground. Pollarding leaves 8-10ft of the trunk that is done to keep grazing animals from killing the tree by eating the young shoots.
There are a lot of species that have varieties that do coppice or pollard well. But I don’t know what works in your area. I am guessing there is some variety of poplar, birch and willow, then some that will coppice like apple but aren’t great for just wood.
2 Likes
Thanks for answering the question i had in my mind.
Poplar spreads under ground. A friend of mine grows it. It s a mess.
On our property there are a lot of willows. Took some extra down after the last storm. And planted some black alder last winter. Lets see if it will grow. On paper it is a little more dense. The plan is to harvest a la JO size. Only a small chainsaw is needed. They scare me. And big trees falling. Saw a one food willow bounce two feed up when falling. For soft wood it still is a lot of weight.
1 Like
some of it does yes. 
Japanese popular doesn’t. I doubt it grows as fast as other species that can grow supposedly 20ft/yr though.
I will correct myself. I was thinking popular grew roots straight down, but they don’t.
I was told they were good for clay soils but it looks like only certain species have the strong roots.
This is a pretty good article, but it is uk/ireland based and they don’t have some of the growing conditions you have, and some of the trees they mention like hornbeam are slow growing. But they mention a couple of fast growing alder species.
3 Likes
I cut a lot of wood Joep, but I don’t claim to be a logger. I have no qualms about putting a cable up the tree a ways and pulling some tension on it with my truck to make sure it goes safely where I want it to.
6 Likes
Hello all.
I have had some issues with my wood heater . When the heater is cold and I try taking the ash out there will be very fine dust that will escape . I could build a hot fire to make the heater draw good but on these 70f days it just doesn’t seem right to have a hot fire going . I have an ash dump door in the heater but to rake the ash into it the front door needs to be open about half and the dust still will escape .
I thought about adding a little pressure to the inside of the house to see if it would help and it did. After I laid down the camera so I could use both hands and hold the ash bucket up in the door it seemed I skinned that cat 
14 Likes
Same here. I will also wedge them. It is amazing to me how much a wedge helps straighten up a tree.
5 Likes