I have not looked at one of those outdoor boilers in over ten years. It looks like they really got the technology dialed in with them now.
When anyone asks me what the best heating method for a house (or building) is I always point them towards those kinds of setups.
Oh cool, yeah the Firestar controller is pretty cool. The guy that installed mine has one too but his has a manual gauge on it.
Nice, good to know I am on the right track. After we got a very cold day last year I called my HVAC guy and asked him what I can do to deal with this better.. He said the wood furnace solution is the way to go and my adventure started there.
Yeah the setup is pretty intricate but once they are up and running they take very little maintenance.
I am really unsure about burning things like pine in them due to creosote buildup. Some models deal with it better than others. It might be worth asking the technician about it to find out.
The really awesome thing about those units is just how efficient they are. Once you get it up and running for the day you can put in a tiny load of dense wood (like black locust) and it will burn for 8-10 hours without needing to be fed again.
Mostly it seems just cleaning out the ash is the main thing that needs to be done on a regular basis. Yeah he said we can burn pine and even green wood if we want. It burns better with seasoned hardwood but it can handle just about whatever timber you throw at it. At least that is what my installer told me.
Ah yeah black locust would be superior but handling it is such a pain in the ass with all its thorns.
That is awesome that it can burn a variety of wood types!
Once black locust is no longer a juvenile tree it loses its thorns and some strains of it have very few thorns to start with.
If you think those are thorny check out the Honey locust tree that just gets thornier with age!