woodpecker wood pellet boilers

[Fred61]

Although I am commited to burning chunk wood, I went over to Rutland and was given a demonstration of the Woodpecker Boiler by George. I was some impressed with the quality of the unit and the engineering it displayed. Although you cannot see the combustion chamber you are able th see the flame as it fires like an oil burner. It operates altogether different from any other solid fuel unit I've seen. Scavenges and dumps it's ash, modulates with load, cycles off when no call for heat, large fuel hopper and many other features which make it simple to operate. The one thing I could not determine was that if all the features worked without failure but after an hour of poking and peeping, I feel confident with the claims. I was also impressed with George's knowledge as well as Blodgett Supply's many years of quality service in this area.

 

[Kevin Seburn]

Hi, i just joined and want to share some info with you.I have spent months reserching wood pellet boilers ,covered almost every one you can think of.Then i came on the GerKros woodpecker boilers,and to my supprise they are availible in the us .A great boiler, heats domestic hot water, heats conventional baseboard, radient and forced air. Price wise its great ,they have different catogories to choose.

I had a 25KW Woodpecker installed in February 2010 and it has NEVER worked properly. To date it has had every major component, including the main controller board replaced and it currently sits inoperable in my basement. Pellet quality was identified as the problem and was blamed for the fact that the system only ran, on average, for 7-10 days without shutting down with one of several different operating errosr (Er04 mostly) during the first 2 years or so. I have changed pellet type twice and this has not helped. Most recently, with the system still shutting down repeatedly the main circuit/controller board was replaced and the situation is now actually worse. The boiler currently only runs for a few hours before it shuts it self down. I can confidently say that the boiler will not burn your house down because when it does not function properly it shuts down. I cannot recommend it as a reliable, low maintenance pellet boiler that it is advertised as.
Revision Heat of Portland Maine installed the boiler and their service and follow-up has been exceptional. They have been diligently trying, at not cost to me, to get my boiler to work as it is supposed to for the entire time, and continue to do so, but so far without success. I would note that Revision no longer sells Woodpeckers but now offer a different manufacturers system in a similar price range. I am not privy to all of the behind the scenes goings on between Revision and Woodpecker, but the support that I personally have received from WebBiomass and/or Woodpecker UK has been extremely poor.
All of this said, it would seem that my system is simply some kind of a lemon because from all the evidence that I can find the system has been successfully installed in many homes in the US and, of course, for a long time in Europe. My problem has been with getting an adequate response to my problems from the US manufacturer and/or Woodpecker UK.. After nearly 3 years of stress and worry with an unreliable system I no longer want the thing in my house.
Do your homework carefully and look at the technical characteristics of the burn controls to make sure you select the most sophisticated system you can afford.

 

[heaterman]

These are available here now also. Definitely a company that has been around for a while.
From what I understand they will have their entire bio fuel line here
within a year or so.


http://www.windhager.com/int/products/pellet-heating-systems/biowin/boiler-design/

http://www.windhager.com/int/products/pellet-heating-systems/biowin/downloads/

 

[Kevin Seburn]

These are available here now also. Definitely a company that has been around for a while.
From what I understand they will have their entire bio fuel line here
within a year or so.


http://www.windhager.com/int/products/pellet-heating-systems/biowin/boiler-design/

http://www.windhager.com/int/products/pellet-heating-systems/biowin/downloads/

Hey Heaterman,

Not sure about the point of the link you sent, my post was about the GerKros Woodpecker. In any case the link underlines the point that there are more and more choices out there for good quality pellet boilers to heat your home. In my "non-professional' opinion, a system that has real-time monitoring and adjustment of combustion is a key feature to look for. Higher end systems have this feature (e.g. Okofen) and even lower priced systems (e.g. Kedel) are now including them (unlike my Woodpecker). This kind of real-time adjustment should reduce ash, increase efficiency and help compensate for the still unreliable quality standards of US pellets.

 

[heaterman]

Hey Heaterman,

Not sure about the point of the link you sent, my post was about the GerKros Woodpecker. In any case the link underlines the point that there are more and more choices out there for good quality pellet boilers to heat your home. In my "non-professional' opinion, a system that has real-time monitoring and adjustment of combustion is a key feature to look for. Higher end systems have this feature (e.g. Okofen) and even lower priced systems (e.g. Kedel) are now including them (unlike my Woodpecker). This kind of real-time adjustment should reduce ash, increase efficiency and help compensate for the still unreliable quality standards of US pellets.

Just news on a news type thread.

 

[George Robbins]

I am George Robbins President of Webiomass Inc. responding to Mr. Seburn's post. Unfortunately prior support for Woodpecker products has been "spotty at best." However Webiomass Inc. has not connection with Woodpecker products not produced by us, we have simply licensed the design for US manufacture. As Mr. Seburn stated he seems to have a "problem" unit as I am unaware of any previous Woodpecker model not working properly, and there are Certainly no Webiomass products in the field that have any issues. I cannot offer support to products manufactured and distributed by others, nor provide warranty, asWebiomass Inc. has no connection to those. Similar to taking a Dodge car to a Chevy dealer and asking them to warranty the product. I have however, outside Webiomass Inc. offered my personal assistance and technical knowledge to quite a few "older" Woodpecker owners and dealers, including Revision Heat and Mr. Seburn. In fact many months prior to even forming Webiomass Inc. and even negotiating the license for Woodpecker products, I visited the jobsite to lend technical help to Revision Heat, at my own personal expense. To intimate that the US Manufacturer (Webiomass) support has been lacking is untrue, this is not our product yet I have personally provided free support and even free components in an effort to get this unit working for Mr. Seburn. As recently as a month ago I offered to again visit the site, outside Webiomass and on my own time, to assist. I did expect to be compensated for fuel as the site is an eight hour plus drive one way. All I asked for in return was that Mr. Seburn understand that Webiomass Inc. has no connection other than buying a design, to Woodpecker Energy UK, or Gerkros the past owner of Woodpecker products. Unfortunately Mr. Seburn feels Webiomass should accept responsibility for someone else's product. I am truly sorry this unit did not work out for Mr. Seburn. Webiomass dealers receive more stringent required training that was previously provided and issues like this simply do not occur with our products. Webiomass Inc. takes pride in our customer service and is the only boiler manufacturer with 24/7/365 technical support for our dealers. If Mr. Seburn wishes to reconsider, the offer still stands for my personal assitance.

 

[Patti]

Hi,
I am in the process of installing a wood pellet boiler in my shop that will heat my house and shop. I have just started looking for heat exchangers (water to air) on ebay and I need to know what size of heat exchanger I need for my system.
I will give you a bunch of information (some of the info probably won't be any use to you, but I'll include it anyways, just in case!) and I hope you can help me with some questions...

-The pellet boiler is a Woodpecker 25kW (which, I think translates to approximately 85360 BTU's??? Is that correct?)
-I have a 600 gallon insulated stainless steel storage tank that will store water in the shop (but I can add more water storage if necessary).
-I have a new electric water heater for the house, and will be getting some additional water storage containers for the house soon.
-We've installed about 110 feet of Pex tubing from the shop to the house.
-The pellet boiler is going to be used to heat my domestic hot water, forced air heating, the in-floor radiant heating in the kitchen, a hot tub (inside the house), a 16' x 24' pool, and the shop.
-I would like to run central air in the summer as well
-The shop is an insulated steel building, 40 x 50, but it won't be heated above 60 degrees.
- The house is 2500 sq feet (not counting the basement of course).
-One and 1/2 storey 1857 log cabin.
-New roof and spray insulation
-Windows need to be replaced, so I currently lose a lot of heat there
-The duct work might need some additions, and more return air ducts added
I assume that I need two heat exchangers- one for the shop and one for the house?
What size would you recommend for each building?
I want to be WARM!! I live in the snowbelt in Ontario, Canada and we have brutal winters, so I want to make sure that whatever I use in the heating system is going to be large enough to make sure I stay warm * happy

Any help or information you can give me would really be appreciated!
Thanks.
Patti