Pellet or Corn-fired Steam Boilers? (Steamhead)

Steamhead (in transit)

We have a customer interested in a steam boiler using wood pellets or corn. Size is probably 500-600 square feet EDR, on a Hoffman Controlled Heat system with Differential Loop.

Thanks in advance-

"Steamhead"

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Steve Ebels_3

None that I know of

You could do a Google on corn boilers and see what pops up. Corn is nearly the same cost as oil when you figure it out. I wouldn't recommend it to any of my customers unless they could grow it and dry it themselves. Nearly all of the corn burning equipment I've had the pleasure (misfortune) of working on has had multitudinous problems with clinkers, augers jamming, ash buildup, poor combustion etc. Most of it due to fine material in the corn as purchased or incorrect moisture content.

Do the math on this:

Corn = roughly 550,000 btu per bushel and currently sells for about $3.70-$3.85/Bushel. Roughly $.70 per 100Kbtu. Now factor in an efficiency of 60% and you're looking at a fuel price of well over a buck per 100K. Maybe worth it if you like to constantly fix broken heating equipment but not so in my book.

Wood pellets on the other hand are reasonable and are going to come down in price due to excess capacity of OSB mills that are now idle and being converted to produce pellets. There's a huge Weyerhauser plant just north of me that is in the process of setting up right now to extrude over 70 tons per day. That's supposedly on a "trial basis" to test the market. Full capability is rumored to be nearly 350T/day. They think they have a pretty good market.

Paul Rohrs_4

Oh the humanity!

Ditto to everything Steve said.

(Why burn corn when you can eat it!)

There are ethanol plants popping up all over the country, let alone here in Nebraska. Prices are going to remain high.


Regards,

PR

Steve Ebels_3

Paul

Did you catch the pun in the first line. It's pretty lame but I tried

Paul Rohrs_4

Wow, missed that....

A good sign that the I should be home reading Harry Potter or something.

Regards,

PR

Brian_18

Alternate Heating Systems, Harrisonville, PA

Give Jeff Gingerich a call at AHS, they have loads of experience building multi-fuel boilers. Nice people, can build ASME. If he can't help he will know who can. They have a web site also.

Tom_80

Pellet fired boilers

Dan Holohan talked about wood pellet boilers he saw at a trade show in Europe a couple of years ago. He may have the manufacturers info.

Steve Ebels_3

Steamhead

Did you find anything worth talking about?

hr

bio mass

is what you are after. Most will burn corn, pellets seeds, cereal, cherry, olive and other pits.

I don't remember seeing much steam stuff at ISH?

Try Zenon at www.newhorizoncorp.com. He finds stuff from all over.

hot rod

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Steamhead (in transit)

Haven't had a chance, guys

Plenty of summer steam projects. We're working on installing another W-M 4-80 on a Vapor system, which should be operational Monday. Watch for pics.

Next week I'll set aside one day to stay at the shop and work the phones, and this will be the first thing I work on. Watch this thread.....

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Rich Kontny_4

Key Statement

Brians statement about multi-fuels is worth re-reading.I am old enough to remember the gas/oil combination burners we installed in old coal fired boilers in the seventies. Many of these were steam,however they also had constant attention as they were in commercial or institutional settings.

Then came along the gas and oil crunch of the early eighties when the standby oil was used more than the gas. We started to install large centralized woodburning boilers (usually hot water) that used waste wood sawdust and chips that were either augered into the firebox or blown in over the firing area.

In the late seventies I worked on a huge pellet factory that was built in the heart of Wisconsin's wood country. This ended up being the "Edsel of Heating Fuels" as it was way before it's time. Shortly after we were both blessed and cursed with a glut of both oil and natural gas. We were blessed because we once again had abundant and cheap oil and gas (along with it's conveniences) Cursed because it has lulled us into a false sense of security.

Ironically we are turning around and looking into the very same fuels that were high maintenance just a short while ago.

While the oil/gas security blanket is being challenged, opportunities for new technologies and shelved technologies are surfacing.

The key as stated by many posts above is cost-effectiveness (and one has to put a value on time) I can't see too many of the white collar type removing corn clinkers or pellet ash pans. However there are the handy blue collar and tinkering type who would enjoy corn, pellet and woodburning equipment.

If I was hearing Dan right at his seminar last fall I believe he said that the Germans and other Europeans do not allow water to be heated above 165'F. That is probaly why steam boilers were not on display.

All of a sudden the flexibility of multi-fuel heat sources makes great sense!

hr

A bio mass boiler installation I completed

last fall for a doctor in Kansas. He had his mind set on a wood fired gasification boiler. Not a lot of fire wood in western Kansas , so I sold him on this biomass.

Maintenance is a small fraction of wood burners,and the automatic shaker grates pretty much handle the cleaning.

I tied it to a HTP 20 gallon buffer tank and fed the radiant floor via a Caleffi mix station.

A glow ignitor and small fan light off the pellets in about 15 minutes. Temperature control has been very accurate.

The current International Issue of Sun and Wind Energy has a good article on pellets.

The selection of fuel sources is pretty wild. France uses grape stalks. Spain and Italy almond and olive stones, sugar cane stalks from Brazil.

Japan uses wood bark and have small pellet stoves that fit under their low dining tables to blow warm air into the space.

Canada is number two in pellet production with @ 1.2 million tons produced. USA 3rd with @ 500,000 tons.

The Swedes are the number one consumer at 1.6 million ton per year, according to the article.

(the wood brace under the flue was temporary

hot rod

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Eric Johnson

Nice installation....

As usual, hot rod. I'm getting my EKO 60 in a couple of weeks. Getting everything all piped up and ready for the new boiler has been a fun summer project.

The pics on this board are always an inspiration, as well as a regular exercise in humility. It's always useful to have something to shoot for.

And BTW, I'm a white collar type (magazine editor) who loves to fool around with wood-fired heating equipment and hydronic systems. Of course, I work for a logging magazine, so that might have something to do with it.

Rich Kontny_4

Surname

Johnson tells me you may be Scandanavian, could that have something to do with your logging and woodburning passion?

My mother was 100% Swedish(her mother's maiden name was Johnson) My grandfather ran lumber camps in northern Wisconsin. When economic times were hard in Sweden he came to America and worked the forests in northern Wisconsin.

Hot Rod has a gift, he not only talks the talk he walks the walk.I have to believe he is more than one person with all he is involved with.

Eric Johnson

Danish blood...

...with a Swedish spelling. An Ellis Island foul-up, I suspect.

And yes, I spent my formative years studying Journalism in Madison and cutting pulpwood in central Wisconsin before moving to the Adirondacks.

Biomass energy is probably the only thing that can save the forest products industry in this country, since most of our traditional manufacturing (pulp & paper, sawmilling and furniture mfg.) is rapidly heading offshore.

Hot rod is one of the many inspiring professionals on this board.

Rob_36

Gasification boiler

Although its not steam, newhorizoncorp shows a NextGen BioMax which it says will burn "Seasoned Wood, Corn Cobs with Kernels, 50% of Coal, Saw Dust, Wood Chips (50%), any kind of pellets". Anyone have thoughts on this?

Eric, did you check out other boilers before deciding on the EKO-60

Steamhead (in transit)

Thanks much, guys

Talked to Jeff and Zenon today, and got a lot of good info. We'll keep you posted.

"Steamhead"

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