Portage and Main

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Birdman

New Member
May 21, 2008
278
NH
I checked out the Portage and Main wood boiler. A friend told me about it here in NH. He is thinking of getting one. He wants enough BTU per hour to heat big spaces. A few questions. Is it a gasifier? It's website says 1/2 to 1/3 less wood? Is this true? How does it do this? And what is its aprox effieciency? If it's efficiency is so much better than the other wood boilers... why doesn't it give it overall efficiency ? Finally.. are there any wood gasifiers that can put out the BTU's my friend needs? Also... he would like to do chips if possible... hence the portage and main. Do any gasifiers do this? I of course told him how I can't wait for my Tarm to be hooked up( next week) and that gasification seems the best way to go... but the BTU ' s are not there for him with the Tarm.
 
Doesn't look to be a gasifier. Conventional boilers range from efficiencies in the teens, up to a max of about 60-65%. So they could easily use "1/2 to 1/3" the wood of some of their competition, without even hitting the top end of the conventional efficiency range.

If your friend is here in NH, I'd be happy to discuss the various options in commercial wood heating with him in person. If he's not local, I'd still be happy to go over the options online or over the phone. Email is [email protected], or he can call - 942-2028 (just make sure he leaves a message if no one answers - it's busy season right now, so the phone is often unmanned).

Joe
 
Vigas or Gilles. These look interesting. Joe, Thank you for your reply. I will pass on your name to him. Has anyone seen or heard of the beautiful set up at the High School in Penacook NH? Sweet wood chip boiler. Efficient, clean and heats 2 large schools. Saving the district a mint. Will pay for itself in 3 years I think? First one in NH for a public school setting. Joe, are there dealers that sell commercial wood chip boiler gassification systems but not on this type of hugeness? Looking for something smaller. As a matter of fact.. are there any that are real small....something like the size of my tarm? Why don't they make a tarm that uses wood chips? intstead of pellets. Pellets we have to buy from the place taht manufactures them.... chips can be had in other creative ways.
 
Birdman said:
Joe, are there dealers that sell commercial wood chip boiler gassification systems but not on this type of hugeness? Looking for something smaller. As a matter of fact.. are there any that are real small....something like the size of my tarm? Why don't they make a tarm that uses wood chips? intstead of pellets. Pellets we have to buy from the place taht manufactures them.... chips can be had in other creative ways.

Wood chips are not consistent, so they require larger-size equipment. The idea of a chip burner is to be automatic, but inconsistencies between chips make it hard to do that on a small scale. On a large scale, the differences average out.

The smallest chip-fired systems of any quality that I'm aware of (at least, commercially-produced, not tinkered together by hobbyists) are around 400kbtuh. Might be something that would work for your friend, but it's not going to replace your Tarm.

Joe
 
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