woodgun

Welcome to the Boiler Room, kimko. What kind of ceramic failure--in the nozzles or another part of the combustion chamber?

nozzles are done , tubes are flaking with fibers showing.It does take a likin , 1st yr green house application and needs to tighten up his thermal losses but unit just does the load now ,btw its nw ontario, he wants to tie in the storage but I think it will increase his losses at least right now .

Kimko

have you had any experience of the woodchip auto feed woodgun as I am looking to operate it on a 24/7 basis hopefully using thermal oil if I can get a response out of ahs.

i had just got prices today on the woodgun from ahs e140 asme cerifed was 8900.00 e180 was 10,380 for asme certified 2000 less un certified just a note

Never chips, but if you had a good source of chips it would make life alot easier,and probably get a more consistent burn.
For the price of the wood gun I feel you get alot more for your money than its compeditors.

those are one of the boilers I've been gathering on as well. These are the prices in cert steel or non cert ss, just to note for the readers that may have thought those were the ss cert prices. like firebird said, take off $2k for non cert steel, or add another $2k for cert ss.

Petrol (Gas) unleaded is about $8 a US Gallon.

An interesting site, bookmarked.

I think I predate as far as English is concerned, but lose out on location.

And we're all worried about $3-4 a gallon. SHEESH!

As far as the UK forum, it looks like a lot more involved than just wood combustion. Thanks for the lead renewablejohn; I needed a new time sink!

If i may be so bold, what kind of "views" are we Yanks going to run into? We're all in this together and the way I see it, Europe is a little ahead of the curve, IMHO.

Cheers!

Chris

I would suggest starting a new thread for this discussion as I dont want to hijack this one. I am seriously thinking of buying a woodgun but I would like some reassurance that problems kimko had do not occur on a regular basis and ahs are doing something positive about it.

I was over in the UK last November and as we have a major project just starting had a ook at was available. I wish I had been able to go to the Eco show a couple of weeks back.

And here is me wishing I could access stuff available in the UK and you looking at stuff in the US, from what I know about the Wood Gun I do not think it is your solution but I am no expert. If you look on this board you will see quite a few people wishing they could get hold of Eastern European stuff, where I am is more similar climatically.

Such is life.

And as far as the UK Boards are concerned, for example taking the piss is a national sport, in the US people can take it the wrong way I try and be bery conservative in my language with people who do not know my ways.

I'll be happy to start a new thread, renewablejohn, but I wouldn't know what to call it. "Why would the Brits want to get into a pissing contest with the Yanks on the topic of renewable energy?" maybe?

Back to the topic at hand, I spent part of my commute to work this morning pondering the implications of a pinhole leak in a pressure vessel full of oil, specifically if said pinhole was in the firebox. You've given us some rather cryptic bits of information so far, but I don't have a clear picture of what you're talking about. Can you lay it out in some detail? Does the whole pressure vessel need to be stainless steel, for example, or just the firebox?

eric

the storage tank containing the thermal oil would need to be stainless with stainless feed and return to the steam evaporator the thermal oil pumped by a high temperature thermal oil pump. does not need to be at high pressure as the pressure is raised in the steam evaporator due to the difference in temperature between the thermal oil and water. As for a pinhole leak you would pressure test the storage tank prior to putting in the thermal oil. Lots of industry particularly in italy are using thermal oil and yes it does make a mess if it is allowed to escape but you could say the same for steam.

Durango

problem with a lot of european stuff is that it is to sophisticated having a lot of electronics near the water jacket which at 100C is not a problem but when you increase the jacket temperature to 260C to 300C all your sophisticated electronics melt.

I am building a cabin and researching various gasifiers. I am not in the biz and have no ax to grind. I have spoken with Jeff Gingerich at AHS (717 987 0099) several times and have found him readily available and very helpful. From my conversations, I can get the stainless version (not certified) of the 100,000 BTU unit with all the appropriate accessories for around $11,000- $12,000 with shipping. Don't understand why you guys find them hard to reach.

I have only heard about thermal oil sytems used for a few very specialized applications. We're still stuck in the steam era on this side of the pond. I have seen high temp hot water systems, but they make me nervous. Something about 350F water at 400psig i find really intimidating.

We do have district heating plants in come larger cities, and Baltimore has a district chilled water system downtown, but this "technology" isn't really spreading. The Scandinavians are way ahead of us there...

Frying sophisticated electronics is fun! I like to do it as least once a week. Most electronics can be moved and "ruggedized" when necessary. I would be more concerned with what's going on in the heat exchanger. Why not just use low pressure steam? Its technology that has stood the test of time.

I haven't heard much chatter on here about Chiptec http://www.chiptec.com/ I believe their gasifier will bolt up to just about anybody's boiler or heat exchanger.

Chiptec has done a lot of work with small to medium sized industrial chip burners in Vermont. They've done a couple of schools that I've seen. They're well thought of in the forest products industry, too.

Nickr

the reason ahs have not responded might be because i am uk based or as redox says my request of using thermal oil is not standard in the US.

Redox

Chiptec looks very interesting I will be contacting them shortly.

this is a site of a new gasifier and they mentioned that they were working on using oil for steam generation. They are in the working proto type stage.

http://www.biomizer.com/

It looks interesting
leaddog

Bought my wood gun from Jeff Gingerich at AHS. Have called him many times. He has always taken time to answer my questions or return my calls. My experience with him and his
wife have been nothing but positive.