I know I am asking to make an apple taste like an orange but does it exist?

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Wood boiler that modulates?


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NE Poultry Supply

New Member
Aug 18, 2015
42
Southern Maine
Wood boiler that modulates?
My wife says no pellets as primary. I want pellets to take advantage of Maine Rebates. I like that some pellet boilers like Kedel don't need storage because they can modulate heating (ramp up and down based on need).

Can I find a wood boiler (indoor preferred) that has a large enough firebox that it can ramp up and down heating and only be filled once or maybe twice in the worst of winter? Oh and have a pellet attachment on the door with a hopper that holds 500 lbs of pellets and must be certified as either an EPA Phase 2 Biomass Hydronic Boiler or a EN303-5 Class 3 efficiency or higher so I can get my $5k rebate?

Possible or fairy tale?
 
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I am sure others will chime in but wood boilers that try to modulate will either have emissions that are unacceptable or other problems that affect durability.
Pellet boilers tend to operate well without them, but there seem to be a growing number of those companies that also use small buffer tanks.
 
Just to play devil's advocate, I will say that good quality cordwood doesn't show up on the side of the road either...
 
Wood boiler that modulates?
My wife says no pellets as primary. I want pellets to take advantage of Maine Rebates. I like that some pellet boilers like Kedel don't need storage because they can modulate heating (ramp up and down based on need).

Can I find a wood boiler (indoor preferred) that has a large enough firebox that it can ramp up and down heating and only be filled once or maybe twice in the worst of winter? Oh and have a pellet attachment on the door with a hopper that holds 500 lbs of pellets and must be certified as either an EPA Phase 2 Biomass Hydronic Boiler or a EN303-5 Class 3 efficiency or higher so I can get my $5k rebate?

Possible or fairy tale?

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Thats a fairy tale unless you have gas powered steam;

You can burn even less fuel by using a boiler bypass circuit
(THEY WONT TELL YOU THAT)

That will happen only when you get into steam heat because the small modern steam boilers
ramp up so quickly.

Your better off spending the money installing a boiler bypass loop on the Kedell boiler to make
the house warmer and to make the boiler think it has to work less by reusing 2 GPM to add heat
back to the house without sending that 2 gallons perminute back into the base of the boiler.

The smallest Kedel is too expensive to buy for my use even with the NYSERDA grant monies
the installed cost would be 13K B4 the boiler left the retailers storage room.
 
Look into the Heatmaster SS G series boilers. they fit the first set of criteria. the second is a no go for the time being, is certainly possible (effecta from sweden does the pellet burner thru the door thing, but no modulation) but no one else that I know of does that's available in the US for the time being.

the technical end is not terribly difficult, it's mostly paperwork on getting the various listings etc, to have it be ok for insurance.

oh yeah, the Woodmaster Flex fuel series does all the above too. modulation, wood, and pellets, . but it is indoor only (heatmaster is indoor or outdoor) needs buffer tanks, and is quite pricey. you can kill many birds with one stone, but that's a pricey stone.

karl
 
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/owhhlist.html

the top ones (emissions wise) that aren't exclusively pellets are:
Woodmaster Flex fuel and
Steeltech (parent company of HeatmasterSS brand stoves) GARN.
They're all good stoves.
 
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