This is my first winter heating with a wood boiler, and so far the only thing I can say is ... I Love It!  You can click on my profile to get the full story of what lead me to my Garn, but long story short, It's efficient & basically easy to operate and maintain.  We had it plumbed by late October and heating the house by first days of November.  So far, I'm averaging approx. 1 face cord a week.  I'm usually doing 2 burn cycles a day.  I fire it at about 5 pm (water temp usually around 130 degrees) for  3 hrs, then a second load around 8-9 pm (water usually up to around 160 degrees) for about 2 1/2 hrs.  Ending water temp between 180 - 190 degress.  This lasts me until early evening the next day.  I'm heating approx. 5,000 sq ft (all radiant - in-floor and radiators) and the barn where the Garn is housed has yet to see a temp below 40 degrees with outdoor air temps below zero at night (lately)  and day time temps averaging high teens.  The pole barn is usually around 50 degrees.  I used 10 in. fiberglass insul. around the boiler and we had foam insulation sprayed on the pipes underground (which run about 200 ft. each way) between the barn and house.  Hopefully going to still plumb in a hot tub and stubbed in shut-offs for a possible air handler in the barn if needed.  I'm going to to try to add a few pictures with this post.

Boiler piping and Heat Exchanger 

Heat Exchanger

House side piping

Temperature readings

Water temp:  17 hrs from prev. burn                                   Outdoor air temp @ 5 pm

Distance from Pole barn to house (approx. 200ft each way)

Pipes entering/exiting basement in house

 Mechanical room piping in basement with propane gas boiler and domestic hot water tank. 

Radiator and In-floor manifolds for half the house

Great piece of enineering by my father-in-law, Steve Ebels. You can also find him here on the Garn forums.

And finally the "Models" that love to have their pictures taken, my 3 oldest daughters.

Also a nice bit of free advertising for Garn and Ebles Heating!!!!! 

 Nice setup Mike!

I will soon be working on my installation, I will reference your post for ideas. Thanks for posting.

Mike - beautiful family, beautiful house, beautiful GARN install!  Thanks for sharing.

Forgot to add a picture of my homemade wood bins.  Made with a pallet and 1pc of cattle panel.  Each one holds about 1 face cord  Easy to move in and out of the barn with forks on the trusty Kubota

 Just a note on the HX location. I chose to install it out on the Garn about 220' from the house for a couple reasons. Number one was the fact that being connected to the house piping in this way, it's all pressurized which makes air elimination a cinch.

Number two is that it allows all the underground piping and nearly all the exposed piping in the "garn barn" to be antifreeze protected along with the house boiler. We never have to think about "what if....." The loop is simply primary/secondary into the return of the house boiler, heating it up before it hits the boiler.

The house system is a combination of Climate Panel and steel panel radiators. The Climate Panel is supplied as a low temp circuit with a motorized mixing valve adjusting the floor temp based on outdoor conditions. The panel rads all have TRV's on them which provide room by room temp control. There is no traditional "thermostat" in the house and we didn't have to make any changes to the house setup or control scheme.The HX is a 10" x 20" - 50 plate. I sized it to get the approach temp as close as possible. In other words, if we're down to say.....125* in the Garn, I can still get nearly the same temp out to the house.

Steve Ebels:

 Just a note on the HX location. I chose to install it out on the Garn about 220' from the house for a couple reasons. Number one was the fact that being connected to the house piping in this way, it's all pressurized which makes air elimination a cinch.

Number two is that it allows all the underground piping and nearly all the exposed piping in the "garn barn" to be antifreeze protected along with the house boiler. We never have to think about "what if....." The loop is simply primary/secondary into the return of the house boiler, heating it up before it hits the boiler.

 

The house system is a combination of Climate Panel and steel panel radiators. The Climate Panel is supplied as a low temp circuit with a motorized mixing valve adjusting the floor temp based on outdoor conditions. The panel rads all have TRV's on them which provide room by room temp control. There is no traditional "thermostat" in the house and we didn't have to make any changes to the house setup or control scheme.The HX is a 10" x 20" - 50 plate. I sized it to get the approach temp as close as possible. In other words, if we're down to say.....125* in the Garn, I can still get nearly the same temp out to the house.

Steve - thanks for the details.  Per my other post, I am dealing with an undersized HX.  I let someone else do that analysis and should have done it myself.