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Case Studies

Ave Maria – Goes Green with Expansion

 

Ave Maria Community Care Homes, Inc. (Ave Maria CCH) is one of the largest employers in Richford, Vermont.  Ave Maria completed a 6,800-square-foot expansion to its Memory Care Center located at Our Lady of the Meadows Home.  A single GARN® 3200 heats the addition.  The project infused more than $1 million into the local economy through the use of locally based construction firms.  The addition accommodates up to 19 new memory care residents in a warm, expansive home-like setting.

 

Click Here to download the full story

 

Some pictures of the installation.

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Case Studies

Award-winning Wisconsin barn-conversion home heats with GARN

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Habitat for Humanity of Dane County, WI presented Hank Daum and Heidi River, owners of an innovative barn conversion, with the first ReStore Project of the Year Award in September 2012. Daum and River spent six years remodeling a barn into an energy-efficient home with many materials purchased from the Habitat ReStore.

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The three inches of closed-cell polyurethane foam used to encapsulate the Barome project yields a maximum R-value of about 21, which is not outstanding given the total area of 9,000 sq ft. Most of their energy savings is due to the GARN® method of wood heating–hot, fast, and smokeless using thermal storage and no smoldering “idle” combustion condition–which we at GARN® maintain is the only way to burn wood efficiently and cleanly.

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Daum and River sing the praises of their GARN® wood heating system. During the 2010-2011 heating season, they used a Brand X outdoor wood burner to heat their old 1,800 sq. ft. farmhouse, using 32 cords of wood and needing to load it twice a day every day from November through April to maintain a temperature of only 64 degrees on the coldest days.

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In their new, 9,000 sq. ft. home (five times the square footage of the old farmhouse) in the 2011-2012 heating season using the GARN® wood heater, they used just 17 cords of wood and were able to keep the temperature steadily between 72-74 F with a maximum of two 3-hour burns per day, with single burns needed in November and April.

 

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Their old leaky farmhouse was used by the local fire department for training.

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To download a PDF of this article, Click Here.

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Case Studies

Green Mountain Technology & Career Center

Green Mountain Technology & Career Center

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Green Mountian Technology & Career Center
Hardwick, VT
Black River Design
7,000 Square Feet

The Green Mountain Technology and Career Center in Hardwick, VT is a 7,000 square foot classroom building for students with an interest in forestry and related areas. It contains a large forestry lab, a maple products lab, and two large classrooms, as well as administrative space and tool rooms. The building is extremely well insulated with 6.5″ structural foam panel walls and foam panel roofing with low-e fiberglass windows. Heating is provided by a Garn wood fired storage boiler with an oil/biodiesel fired backup boiler. The Garn boiler consists of a high efficiency firebrick lined combustion chamber surrounded by 1500 gallons of water storage. The boiler is fired with a batch of wood and heat is exchanged from the flue gases into the water storage. After the batch of wood is burned the fire goes out and the stored heat is used to heat the building. The results is a clean burn of the wood without the need to constantly tend the fire and the ability to heat from storage overnight in the most conditions.

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Case Studies

Crawford Notch

Appalachian Mountain Club Highland Lodge and Education Center, Crawford Notch, North Conway, NH

Single GARN® 3200 (950,000 BTUH) with biodiesel backup providing district heat for:

 

  • 38,000 sqft Highland lLodge
  • 11,700 sqft Thayer Hall Carriage House
  • Lodge building serves 120 guests with lodging, meeting rooms and library
  • Carriage House provides offices, staff housing and assembly room seating 200
  • GARN® is fueled by sustainably harvested local woodlands.
  • System Design
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Case Studies

Cobb Hill

Cobb Hill CoHousing, Hartland VT
  • District Heating for 22 housing units and community center totaling 25,000 square feet.
  •  Heat and hot water by GARN® WHS 2000 (450,000 BTUH) with LP backup.
  • District heat distribution by insulated underground pex tubing.
  • System design by Kohler and Lewis of Keene, NH.
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Case Studies

Ucross Foundation

Site: Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, WY

Year Built: 1882

Size: 13,000 sq. ft.

Existing heating system:  2 propane boilers

New System:

  • 2 GARN® WHS 2000 units located in existing 2-car shop/garage
  • Four packaged terminal units provided heating and cooling to four separate offices on the lower level.
  • Replaced existing air handlers and coils, several pumps, all controls and some duct.

Wood Source:

  • Cotton wood, standing dead, and downfall – all harvested locally.

Construction start/end: November, 2007 – July, 2008 Annual fuel savings: 2,500 gallons of propaneProject manager and overall concept: Martin Lunde, PE, Dectra CorporationHVAC design:  McKinley Wood, PEConstruction Supervision:  Ken Thorpe, Powder River The Ucross project was funded by the Ucross Foundation, through generous support from Ucross Founder Raymond Plank, with the on-site personnel support of:  Director Sharon Dynak, maintenance guru Mike Latham and other Ucross staff.

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The Ucross Art Gallery and Conference Center

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The renovated upper level air handler room.

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The renovated upper level air handler room.

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The main level Art Gallery where temperature and humidity control are critical.

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The new air handler for the main level with precise humidity, ventilation, and temperature control.

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The Duo 2

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The existing 2 bay shop/garage that was converted into a mechanical building.

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The two GARN® WHS 2000 units set into position in the mechanical building.

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The two GARN® WHS 2000 units after installation was completed.

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Ucross Foundation Office

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Ucross Foundation office

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Unloading of the preinsulated underground piping. Approximately 300

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Below is the building where the two GARN® units are located. It houses the two GARN® WHS 2000 units and is their on site maintenance building. The GARN® units are located behind the left overhead door.

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The primary wood fuel is dead cottonwood available in many areas of WY. Although the BTU/lb is significantly less than oak or other woods, it is still a viable renewable fuel.

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For information about the Ucross Fundation visit:

http://www.ucrossfoundation.org/

 

Categories
Case Studies

Billings Farms Forest Service at Woodstock, VT

 

Billings Farms Forest Cente – Woodstock, VT

 

[box] The Mill Complex Forest Center is a 2000 square foot mini conference center located on the Billings Farm Museum in Woodstock, Vermont. The building is designed to be heated entirely with renewable wood harvested on the site and burned in a Garn storage boiler. The ventilation system incorporates both natural ventilation and an air-handling unit with CO2 demand control to handle variable occupancy. Cooling is provided by an ultra efficient SEER 21 condensing unit. More than half of the electrical energy will be provided by a PV Array. The building as modeled by Carrier HAP V4.34 is projected to use 35% less energy than a code building. The building was awarded a Leed platinum rating in 2009. System design by Kohler & Lewis of Keene, NH.[/box]

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For information about GARN® products and projects in the New England area, please contact our local representative:

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Case Studies

THE GARN WOOD HEATING SYSTEM

The GARN® WHS is a simple, efficient, and durable wood heating unit. What we manufacture is a state-of-the-art wood fired hydronic heating system with 30 years of tested technology and experience. Our wood burning boilers use a large hydronic thermal storage tank to store the heat from a fast, clean, and efficient wood burning gasification process. GARN® wood heating systems can burn cord wood, slab wood, pallets and other scrap wood, dense wood briquettes, and air-dried corn on the cob. GARN® hydronic heaters produce virtually no smoke because of their patented, two-stage wood gasification technology. A GARN® is not an outside wood furnace, outside wood boiler or an outside wood stove. The GARN® is installed indoors and provides hot water for heating your home, shop, business, or district heating system. All of our models combine high-efficiency wood combustion and hydronic thermal storage to produce the most efficient and simple wood heating units on the market.
Ask anyone who owns a GARN®. Our simplicity, longevity, and efficiency sets us a world apart from anyone else in the wood burning industry. Click here to see a unit in operation.

 

Fuel oil and propane prices are higher than they’ve ever been. Consider a GARN® wood heating system and save money on next year’s bills.

[learn_more caption=”Two-Stage”] low emissions so there is virtually no smoke, creosote, or ash. *Approximately 10 minutes after starting a fire, your GARN® unit burns so efficiently, that it’s virtually smokeless![/learn_more]

[learn_more caption=”Simple”] three moving parts: handle, door, and blower.[/learn_more]

[learn_more caption=”Five-Pass Heat Exchanger”] efficient combustion heat transfer into thermal storage. [/learn_more]

[learn_more caption=”Integrated Thermal Storage”] the GARN® puts the energy of the fire into a large hot water tank. It burns clean, quick, and efficiently. [/learn_more]

[learn_more caption=”Water Delivery”] water has a large specific heat, conductivity, and requires little power to move around. Water delivery ensures efficient transfer of the stored heat to the building or application. [/learn_more]

[learn_more caption=”Easy Integration”] radiant floor, hot water baseboard, cast iron and European style radiators, forced air furnaces, or other heating systems allows the units to be added into existing applications or new construction with ease. [/learn_more]

GARN® units comply with all applicable UL and CSA safety standards, and because of their low exhaust temperatures, are the only wood-fired hydronic heaters certified for both horizontal or vertical flue venting in the United States.
Every GARN® unit ever sold has been 100% manufactured in the USA.

 

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