Osby - Swedish Manufacturer

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Como

Minister of Fire
Jan 28, 2008
885
Colorado
www.comodepot.net
I met a local distributor of these Boilers, I asked for a price, looks nice and therefore probably more than I can afford.

Just wondered if anybody else had come across them?

www.osbyparca.se
 
Como said:
I met a local distributor of these Boilers, I asked for a price, looks nice and therefore probably more than I can afford.

Just wondered if anybody else had come across them?

www,osbyparca.se

Minor typo in the site address, should be http://www.osbyparca.se/ - Hadn't heard of them before, but from looking at the site, it appears they make units that are more scaled towards the industrial / district heating side of things as opposed to the home-scale units that we spend most of our time talking about here...

Looked nice, but not where most of us are at... Also it appeared they were more targeting the pellet and chip burning market as opposed to the cordwood market (which makes some sense, as chips are probably easier and more cost effective to deal with at that scale of equipment.)

Gooserider
 
Ooops, corrected.

Their baby P500 starts at 100KW, which off the top of my head is 350,000btu. My peak is a little bit more.

So it is in range, whether it is price range I will find out....

They are building a new school near me, will be heated with a big brothers of these, probably several. One of the problems I saw with wood chips was getting a quality product. They are talking of setting a processing operation which will have quite a bit of spare capacity.

Looking around the Swedish sites I also found this one: http://www.swebo.com/en/companies/products/boilers/arimax-300-series.html

Not it seems available in the US, yet, seems a dearth of smaller chip boilers.
 
Como said:
Ooops, corrected.

Their baby P500 starts at 100KW, which off the top of my head is 350,000btu. My peak is a little bit more.

So it is in range, whether it is price range I will find out....
That seems unusually high - what is your application? I know the typical biggest boiler we see here is around an 80KW, or 275kBTU and most are in the 40-50KW range... Nothing wrong with bigger, but not a size we do a lot with - I suspect because that size is in the realm where major engineering work is involved, and they don't let us DIY types play in that neighborhood...

They are building a new school near me, will be heated with a big brothers of these, probably several. One of the problems I saw with wood chips was getting a quality product. They are talking of setting a processing operation which will have quite a bit of spare capacity.
Yes there are concerns with getting a consistent product - and again because of the scaling issue, I suspect that the smaller units would be less fussy than the big ones... The bigger the energy consumption the more cost can justifiably be put into the "front end" processing as well, which would also be a factor.

Looking around the Swedish sites I also found this one: http://www.swebo.com/en/companies/products/boilers/arimax-300-series.html

Not it seems available in the US, yet, seems a dearth of smaller chip boilers.
Another nice looking unit, but again bigger than our normal size range... I think the reason we don't see many small chip boilers in the US is that IMHO chips don't scale down very well... A cordwood person running in that 40-50K range can easily handle the needed wood by hand, even processing it onsite only needs a few thousand $'s of stuff for saws, a splitter, PPE, etc... As it starts getting up to the 80K range, you will probably want to add a tractor or other power equipment to the list, but its still pretty reasonable... No special equipment is needed to feed the boiler as you just place the wood in by hand.

OTOH chips start needing equipment to feed the fuel into the boiler, and it isn't very realistic to do manual fuel handling - even producing the chips is more of a cost for equipment, though chips are probably more likely to come from a 3rd party supplier. More realistically you will need considerable equipment to move the chips around and load them into the feed mechanism. Even storing the chips has issues - large piles have problems with heating and self igniting from decomposition (which also decreases fuel value) and an exposed pile that gets wet is likely to freeze into a solid, impenetrable blob... All of these problems can be handled if one throws enough money at them, but it doesn't take long before the life cycle costs of the needed equipment and infrastructure get to be greater than the savings from burning chips on a small scale.... The bigger the boiler load, the more "margin" there is to cover the costs of all the stuff needed for infrastructure...

Gooserider
 
My current solution is to get one Garn 2000 and hope it is enough. Back up with electricity and next year add Solar HW.

I appreciate that I am in the hole between residential and commercial. Small commercials is just too expensive.

There are some options for me, but certainly in this power range pellets are more obvious than chips. Pellets with bulk delivery are going for about $180 a ton, which is competitive. My concern with pellets is that I am tied into market forces. If the very worst came to the worst I can get cord wood for my labour and $10 a cord to the Forestry Service.

The school are tying in with wild fire mitigation, even after you have taken out lumber quality there is a lot left. And yes they are 10 times my load. The concern is as you mentioned material handling. We have a long heating season, actually any time we might have a heat demand. I am assuming about 850,000,000 btu's a year.
 
Let us know on the cost of the small system, I would think the hopper and auger systems need to be included in the cost. But wouldn't a wood chip burner by nice?

Tree services have lots of chip that they need to get rid of. Or you could chip your own waste wood. Chip it load it into a drying shed that auger is connected to and you are ready to go. Just keep in mind that chips can self spontaneous combust.

Also bark has the same energy content as the wood.
 
I will.

It seems a bit more complicated than that:

Chips need to be clean, I assumed that, no scraping off the ground.

Sizing, that particular boiler likes a certain type, function of size I guess, should have asked. Bigger the equipment greater the tolerances.

They said some bark was OK, but not a lot.

There is a log home builder near me where it is free for the taking, but probably not practical as a fuel source for small systems.
 
Heath+Robinson.jpg


A Heath Robinson affair.

I wonder if Swedish has the same connotation here as it did in my younger days...
 
You are finding some interesting equipment that's for certain... Looks like a good selection of "homeowner" size units - though they would still have the fuel handling issues w/ chips, it could be a possible for someone with the right set of needs...

Gooserider
 
There is one from Denmark called the REFO that modulates10%to 100%. very good reviews. The problem the distributor in the uk doesn't export and the factory isn't interested in exporting to the US. It burns woodchips, pellets, grain at moisture up to 45% It is sized for the residental market, 30, 40, 80 I emailed to co. and said I was interested in 3 units but never got a responce
I have the pdf files on it if anyone is interested I can email them to you just send me a PM. I don't know how to post them here.
www.farm2000.co.uk the uk dist. Danish web site
Danish web site http://www.refo-energi.dk/
leaddog
 
Interesting thread. I am in the very early stages of looking into the instalation of a solid fuel powered district heating system for a local Christian training center. We're looking at roughly 300000 btu which seems to be the upper end of the residential boilers. I wonder how much labor a self feeding chip system would save over chord wood on that scale. My guess is not a whole lotvwhen you factor in the maintenance on the extra machinery. And I share the concern over being dependant on market pricing of a processed fuel. Leaning towards a large garn or two but it'd be interesting to see pricing on these units if you find you anything.
 
Frustrating isn't it?
thumbnail14a9ce28b56a15.jpg


Cord wood and wood chips and pellets and available in 3 sizes 45 to 85KW. The larger one would be ideal, but you guessed it, not for a few years.
 
Viesmann, a big company in the US, but bigger back home. They have recently launched their commercial boilers in the US, but they start at $125,000. I was told it would be a couple of years at least before these are in the US.

The big plus for Biomass is that every plumber has heard of Viesmann.
 
leaddog said:
There is one from Denmark called the REFO that modulates10%to 100%. very good reviews. The problem the distributor in the uk doesn't export and the factory isn't interested in exporting to the US. It burns woodchips, pellets, grain at moisture up to 45% It is sized for the residental market, 30, 40, 80 I emailed to co. and said I was interested in 3 units but never got a responce
I have the pdf files on it if anyone is interested I can email them to you just send me a PM. I don't know how to post them here.
www.farm2000.co.uk the uk dist. Danish web site
Danish web site http://www.refo-energi.dk/
leaddog

There's a lot of really sweet stuff over in Europe that we will never see because our government doesn't seem to interested in helping to cut through the red tape involved with getting it over here. There's too much money going in the pockets of politicians from unions and ratings agencies. A things stand now our residential wood burning market is too small to warrant the huge investment required to certify boilers to ASME, UL and CSA standards. I have contacted at least 12-15 manufacturers regarding making their product available here to no avail. You better have money to the tune of high 6 or low 7 figures burning a hole in your pocket to do it right.
 
churchillrow said:
Interesting thread. I am in the very early stages of looking into the instalation of a solid fuel powered district heating system for a local Christian training center. We're looking at roughly 300000 btu which seems to be the upper end of the residential boilers. I wonder how much labor a self feeding chip system would save over chord wood on that scale. My guess is not a whole lotvwhen you factor in the maintenance on the extra machinery. And I share the concern over being dependant on market pricing of a processed fuel. Leaning towards a large garn or two but it'd be interesting to see pricing on these units if you find you anything.

The Garn I saw was at a Christian Camp, they have a single 1500. I have been in contact with another who have just installed 2x200.

If you have a fairly constant 300k load then 2x1500's might be the way. We have a high peak load, but the weather is very variable. I am thinking of one 2000 mainly because of cost, 2x1500 would be better.

The Garn has a lot going for it, the big minus is that it has to be manually fed.
 
gorbull said:
http://www.finkmachine.com/

These guys carry the KOB commercial products but they will bring in the smaller residential units if you wish to obtain one.

P.S. German, good but not cheap.

I am in the US, just wonder how that would work, would Viesmann US have issues, backup, certification, inspection, electrical supply...
 
Como said:
gorbull said:
http://www.finkmachine.com/

These guys carry the KOB commercial products but they will bring in the smaller residential units if you wish to obtain one.

P.S. German, good but not cheap.

I am in the US, just wonder how that would work, would Viesmann US have issues, backup, certification, inspection, electrical supply...

From my conversations with Viessmann, they don't seem to be in a hurry to do anything on the residential side. Kob is part of the Viessmann group and their commercial sized stuff is available here in the US through them. Fink Machine is primarily a Canadian distributor that had a relationship with Kob prior to Viessmann's acquisition of them.

PS: You are correct. It is very very good stuff and priced accordingly.
 
Como said:
churchillrow said:
Interesting thread. I am in the very early stages of looking into the instalation of a solid fuel powered district heating system for a local Christian training center. We're looking at roughly 300000 btu which seems to be the upper end of the residential boilers. I wonder how much labor a self feeding chip system would save over chord wood on that scale. My guess is not a whole lotvwhen you factor in the maintenance on the extra machinery. And I share the concern over being dependant on market pricing of a processed fuel. Leaning towards a large garn or two but it'd be interesting to see pricing on these units if you find you anything.

The Garn I saw was at a Christian Camp, they have a single 1500. I have been in contact with another who have just installed 2x200.

If you have a fairly constant 300k load then 2x1500's might be the way. We have a high peak load, but the weather is very variable. I am thinking of one 2000 mainly because of cost, 2x1500 would be better.

The Garn has a lot going for it, the big minus is that it has to be manually fed.

I have a customer driving a peak load of about 310-325K with a single 1500 and it handles it fine as far as firing capacity. During max conditions he has to burn 4-5 times a day. Normal conditions from 15-25* he burns it 3, maybe 4.
 
I take it you can read German. Handy in the world of biomass, there is so much going on over there Which is unaccessable to us unilinguals.
 
churchillrow said:
We're looking at roughly 300000 btu which seems to be the upper end of the residential boilers.

If I recall correctly, Econoburn will build 500,000 and 1 million BTU/hr units for burning firewood. They're available with ASME rating, too, which is often required by certain codes.
 
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