Wood Pellet boilers

Anthony Possidento

I just saw Dan speak today up here in CT. I became interested when he spoke about wood pellet boilers with hoppers in Maine, CT. anyone know anything about certain manufactures and their quality? recommendations would be great! Thanks Tony

chd

Re:Wood Pellet boilers

Hello Anthony,



There are a number of wood pellet boiler manufacturers out there and there is a range in quality. A number of American manufacturers sell boilers that have to be fed daily, it sounds like this doesn't interest you.



Most if not all of the automatic wood pellet boilers on the market now are imported from Europe where this technology is more or less old news. The two highest quality boiler manufacturers are (at least in my opinion) from Austria: OkoFEN and Froling.



Both of these boilers are currently being imported into the U.S. and are %100 automatic. You heat your place and never so much as see a wood pellet. Both of these boilers also have automatic ash removal so there is no need to shovel out the ash.



The big difference between the two is that the Froling requires a water accumulator as a thermal energy source/sink because it only has one power output, the OkoFEN however modulates and doesn't require the accumulator.



The company importing the OkoFEN is Maine Energy Systems http://maineenergysystems.com



The company importing the Froling is Pellet Heat USA http://woodboilers.com



Hope this is of some help. I am happy to see people take interest in wood pellet boilers.



Charles

hot_rod

One installed

It was a Verner brand which was imported by AquaTherm. It worked very well. It had a self ignitor and a unique fire extinquisher feature should the fire ever attempt to burn up into the storage bin.



I found that the pellet manufacturers, around here anyway, adjust their price close to what LP sells for. So pencil the numbers carefully.



I will say pellet burners are much easier for the homeowner to operate, clean, maintain. Burning cordwood is more work than most homeowners bargin for. Keeping gasifiers burning in their "sweet spot" requires quality, dry wood and some stoking, and weekly cleaning in some cases.



Piping, especially return temperature protection and buffer capacity is also crucial.



Caleffi Idronics # 9 will go into good detail regarding bio burners.



hr

Pat_11

Take a look at this

http://www.pellergy.com

Webiomass

US Made

http://www.webiomass.com

Manual or bulk fed, direct vent without additional equipment.

Solid_Fuel_Man

I have installed a Harmon

PB105.  I liked the unit, and it comes with factory outdoor reset capability.  Once piped up and filled it self ignited and was very quiet.  American Made, overall I was impressed with the unit.  I have seen a Froiling at trade shows and it was in a whole different class. Europeans have these things down, but the price reflected it. I beleive the PB105 is around $6-7K, manual ash removal and cleaning.

Taylor