NEW WINDHAGER BIOWIN 150

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Sparky978

Member
Jan 18, 2015
48
Ma
I just finished the installation of my new Windhager Biowin 150. I have been reading and learning from all of you on this site for a while now and just wanted to thank you for all the useful information that I have received.
The install went very smooth and I am very pleased with the results. Marc was there for me anytime I needed a question answered. I kept my existing oil boiler and valved it so that I can run either boiler or both of them with the oil being a backup just in case the pellet boiler goes down. I have a 5 ton storage room with 3 suction probes with a changeover unit that alternates between probes when filling the hopper on the Biowin. I plan on replacing my existing BoilerMate with a new indirect that has a electric element for use in the summer months. For now I'm using the oil boiler for the summer. I have attached some pictures of my install. Being in Massachusetts and receiving a $12,000 rebate was a big part of my decision to install the pellet boiler. I just could not turn that down.

Steve

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Sparky978 said:
I just finished the installation of my new Windhager Biowin 150. I have been reading and learning from all of you on this site for a while now and just wanted to thank you for all the useful information that I have received.
The install went very smooth and I am very pleased with the results. Marc was there for me anytime I needed a question answered. I kept my existing oil boiler and valved it so that I can run either boiler or both of them with the oil being a backup just in case the pellet boiler goes down. I have a 5 ton storage room with 3 suction probes with a changeover unit that alternates between probes when filling the hopper on the Biowin. I plan on replacing my existing BoilerMate with a new indirect that has a electric element for use in the summer months. For now I'm using the oil boiler for the summer. I have attached some pictures of my install. Being in Massachusetts and receiving a $12,000 rebate was a big part of my decision to install the pellet boiler. I just could not turn that down.

Steve
Click to expand...
Sorry for the duplication of the pictures. I'm not sure what happened there.

Steve
 
I cleaned them up Steve. Thanks for posting.
 
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Sweet! Love the nice looking insulation on the pipes. Well, that plus the fact you have a five ton storage room! Well, that plus the fact you got the State to kick in $12,000!
 
That's a really nice looking install. I think you'll be really happy with that setup. Wish we had some rebates or something out here in the midwest.
cheers,
karl
 
Thanks Velvet and Karl. These pictures where taken when the project was about 90% finished. I didn't have the old boiler piped into the new system. I'll be taking some new ones soon with all the piping and insulation complete.

steve
 
Geez, beautiful. Everything square and parallel.

I think I've seen those controllers in Velvet's install. What do the two boxes mounted to Thermo 2000 do. I'm guessing the Thermo is a buffer tank?

Beautifully done. Congrats.
 
Thank you
Those are Ranco controllers, I installed the sensors in the top and bottom wells. The top one just reads temp only, the bottom one sends the signal to start the pellet boiler. Its set at 180* with a 20* differential.
 
Sparky978 said:
Thank you
Those are Ranco controllers, I installed the sensors in the top and bottom wells. The top one just reads temp only, the bottom one sends the signal to start the pellet boiler. Its set at 180* with a 20* differential.
Click to expand...
Sparky, your setup is different than mine, but do you really need a minimum of 160 at the bottom of the buffer tank? It would seem that the boiler would do more cycles that way, maybe unnecessarily. I, too, have only one sensor on the tank, but it is 1/3 down from the top and set to something like 135 to turn on the boiler. I have it set up so that the boiler turns itself off when it reaches its max. set temperature, (176 for mine I think). The tank sensor gets to something like 181, consistently, with the 11 minute post-burn fan run time.
 
velvetfoot said:
Sparky, your setup is different than mine, but do you really need a minimum of 160 at the bottom of the buffer tank? It would seem that the boiler would do more cycles that way, maybe unnecessarily. I, too, have only one sensor on the tank, but it is 1/3 down from the top and set to something like 135 to turn on the boiler. I have it set up so that the boiler turns itself off when it reaches its max. set temperature, (176 for mine I think). The tank sensor gets to something like 181, consistently, with the 11 minute post-burn fan run time.
Click to expand...

Velvet
That is how Marc had me set it up. I believe because I only use the pellet boiler for the heating season and I have 5 heating zones, heating close to 4000 sq. Ft.
That way I get 180* water faster to the zones. I only ran it for 2 weeks before shutting it down for the summer. I think next heating season I will be able to monitor the output and the starts and tweak it a little. I'm still new to this.

On another note Marc came by my house yesterday with Martin the lead technician for Windhager in Austria to have a look at my install.
 
That's a big place-a lot different than mine!

Sparky978 said:
On another note Marc came by my house yesterday with Martin the lead technician for Windhager in Austria to have a look at my install.
Click to expand...
Awesome! Maybe you'll be on some Austrian boiler blog, or something! The Euro people all seem to have white tile floors, so yours is still lacking there. :)
 
Sparky978 said:
Velvet
That is how Marc had me set it up. I believe because I only use the pellet boiler for the heating season and I have 5 heating zones, heating close to 4000 sq. Ft.
That way I get 180* water faster to the zones. I only ran it for 2 weeks before shutting it down for the summer. I think next heating season I will be able to monitor the output and the starts and tweak it a little. I'm still new to this.

On another note Marc came by my house yesterday with Martin the lead technician for Windhager in Austria to have a look at my install.
Click to expand...


Marc came by my house earlier this year with two guys from Windhager Austria to look at mine as well.

I, like you Sparky kept my oil boiler and I'm glad I did as oil is much cheaper than pellets at the moment. I picked up one of the Nyletherm heat pump water heaters for use with my indirect Superstor to do DHW in the summer/spring. It has worked out well so far but the recovery time is slow. I knew this before buying but the Superstor is only 48 gallons and when my kids get older and start showering every morning with mom and dad I think it may become problematic. Are you buying your tons in bulk? What brand and how much? I live in NH and the rebates here were not as generous as those in MA so I opted to forgo the bulk solution.
 
Dana,
I am buying my pellets in bulk. I have a 5 ton storage room so I had it filled this past spring. I hardly used any before I shut the PB down for the summer. I got my pellets from Sandri energy in Greenfield. I just had my new 70 gallon Vaughn indirect delivered the other day. I ordered it with an electric element so that I'll have the option to use electric or oil (cheap now) in the summer months. Going with bulk was part of the requirements of getting the rebate $$. I live on the North Shore so it would be nice to find others that need pellets in bulk so that we can get better pricing. I was very impressed with the delivery truck, its quite a piece of machinery.
 

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Sparky, it was also a requirement here in NH to include a bulk storage option to qualify for the rebate but our's wasn't for as much as it is in MA. I did not like the fact that there are very few companies in the area delivering pellets so your choices and ability to shop for the best price are very limited as opposed to buying by the ton. This will be my third season and hauling the pellets into the basement myself and manually feeding them has not really been a bother.
 
Hi guys. I like the 4x4x4 plywood bin I built after I didn't find a way to route the hoses to fill a big bin. Holds about a ton and easy to fill with bags. Dana, but then you'd still have to buy the vacuum option and hoses and pickup. I'm spending a lot of time in the basement fooling around with the controls, so it'd be no problem manual right now either for me, duh.
 
I have not priced out bulk delivery pellets but from what I understand they are more expensive as they have the delivery and labor costs factored into them that are not there with palletized pellets by the ton. My basement is completely open and I could have built a very large storage room/compartment if I'd been so inclined but I haven't regretted not going the bulk route once. I think I've contributed on more than a few posts on here in the past about the true motivations for the rebate program so I won't get into that but it sure would have been nice to have obtained that rebate with my manual setup.
 
velvetfoot said:
At that time, NYS didn't have any rebates at the time, and even so, last I heard it required outside pellet storage.
Click to expand...


Outside storage? The NH one, which I looked into at one point had a number of conditions such as minimum storage capacity, storage unit had to be within so many yards from the street etc etc etc Memo bis punitor delicatum!


They didn't make it easy.
 
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