Kemer said:
I want to pull the trigger on a garn but now you guy's got me worried
A little explanation about my favorite farmer. First off, he is a very dear friend. He and I have been singing together for over 20 years in a gospel quartet. (He's high tenor and I'm bass) He has a whole lot of things on his plate operationally speaking for the following reason.
His entire operation burned to the ground in October of 2007, the day after we delivered a single 2000 that was going to run his old milking parlor and house. We helped build a brand new double 20 milking parlor from the ground up during that winter and we used that 2000 to heat the building while under construction. (That's where I learned that a Garn is rated pretty conservatively). Needless to say, it was under a continuous firing regimen from about mid December of 07 through the end of February 08 while heating the barn as it went up. The combustion blower was simply hot wired with the timer control bypassed and whoever was on site just threw wood in it around the clock. The other 2000 was received and installed the first of March. The area being heated was a pole type structure that is about 110 wide x 80 long plus the outdoor holding area with tube in the cement. (3,800 sq ft)
Don't let my comment about the exhaust discourage you in any way. The crew firing the boiler on that farm is............is.........well........inept is the kindest thing I can say. If it's any indication at all, the farmer who owns this particular pair of 2000's loves them, even with all the self inflicted "wounds", so to speak. Despite the fact that his people over fire one day and forget to fire the next, burn green........and I do mean GREEN wood, forget to latch the door occasionally, he still says he would buy nothing else. In fact he bought another 1500 last fall which runs his old drafty 3,600 sq ft house, the farms machinery shop (2400 sq ft) and heats all the domestic hot water for a family of 9. Oh.....and the chicken coop too.
Additionally, I have to say that even though that pair of 2000's is serving a load which can peak at over 1.3 million BTU's for brief periods, and works under the conditions described above, we typically do less than $1000 in maintenance per year on them. That's including new chem treatment after "the crew from hell" boils them over a few times along with calling the Roto Rooter man when they really plug them off. What complicates the issue is that a some of the people firing the Garns think they run the same as the OWB's they own personally. We have gone there many times to find the firebox crammed full of wood and the combustion fan not running due to the loader not turning it on.
DUH! The owner simply can't be everywhere on that place to monitor what the dozen or so people there are doing all day and night. He figures those Garns still save him about $11-13,000 worth of propane per year and that ain't bad.
Just to clarify, when I say farm you have to realize that this is a 24/7/365 modern dairy milking about 1300 Holsteins 3x per day. The Garns are in use every day with no shut down. The guys light duty scoop tractor is a 155HP 4wd JD and they use a Cat payloader for the "normal" work. He puts more wood through those two Garns in a year than most homeowners honestly would use in 7 or 8 and that's not an exaggeration. I can say with confidence after observing how these things have run that a person really can't seriously hurt or damage a Garn under any circumstances that would be deemed normal. Or even abnormal.