Seton had a meltdown. Help me pick the replacement!

There was a thread below yours which said the Seton was 200% efficient. Not sure you are going to be able to match that!

Did the Boiler when it was working meet your needs, do you have storage, do you want storage. A Garn needs a lot of space, do you have room for one?

There is the Froling if you ant to go high tech and have the budget.

i had mine do that when i first got it during a storm. im a lineman so i wasnt home to know that it was melting down.

Even tho I'm having some trouble with mine currently, I do believe I will get it working the way I want. however, with that said, I wish I would have researched better before deciding on the Seton. There are much better boilers available IMO. Good luck with whatever you decide. What are you going to do with the Seton?

That sucks........Had a couple of power outages my first year but was home at the time. You have never seen someone unload a boiler ( that was mid burn ) as fast as I did...opened the door and manually opened the damper after all the wood and coals where out to cool off the refractory as much as possible. The blow off went at 210*.....still had pressure in my well tank so there was water there to replace it with the automatic fill valve.......went pretty well after that, blew off for less than a minute. Now I have a circ plugged into a UPS (wired to two 12V batteries) to help with the no power event.


PS How much for the Seton Edit: I see Pat53 beat me to it

Jesse said:

That sucks........Had a couple of power outages my first year but was home at the time. You have never seen someone unload a boiler ( that was mid burn ) as fast as I did...opened the door and manually opened the damper after all the wood and coals where out to cool off the refractory as much as possible. The blow off went at 210*.....still had pressure in my well tank so there was water there to replace it with the automatic fill valve.......went pretty well after that, blew off for less than a minute. Now I have a circ plugged into a UPS (wired to two 12V batteries) to help with the no power event.


PS How much for the Seton Edit: I see Pat53 beat me to it

Click to expand...

LOL, hey, I don't want the damn thing, just wondering what he was going to do with it. Perhaps one of the many commercial fishing boats in Alaska could use it as an anchor !!

EP
Sorry about your boilover, but I find it unbelieveable you would replace
your boiler because of user error.
My mother used to say " Fools & their money soon part"
BACKUP BATTERY is a simple fix.

id use the money to buy a generator and parts to get the polished turd up and running again. someday you might be happy with it. i do think there are way better boilers out there, but id get my money out of the one you got first. call fred, he might be able to sell it for you for more, seeing how its now 200% efficient. that would be around 18k. if he does ill sell mine too.

Tarm 60 with 1000 gallons of pressurized storage is a nice match. Your square footage is bigger than mine and your probably colder. If you had the room for 2000 gallons storage the 60 would handle that OK too.
There is a bit more to the equation of heat load / boiler / storage relationship than the above.

If you have a place for it, a Garn would be tough to beat for your situation.

A low temp system such as you have will not bother a Garn in the least. You would be able to run water temps all the way down to the 110-120* range without damage to the unit or creosote problems. A normal gasification boiler has to be kept above 150* or you may have some issues.

Another thing that comes to mind right off the bat is that a power failure or loss of circulation in mid burn will have no ill effects on a Garn. That's one of the big advantages of having your firebox and heat exchanger completely surrounded by water.

heaterman said:

If you have a place for it, a Garn would be tough to beat for your situation.

A low temp system such as you have will not bother a Garn in the least. You would be able to run water temps all the way down to the 110-120* range without damage to the unit or creosote problems. A normal gasification boiler has to be kept above 150* or you may have some issues.

Another thing that comes to mind right off the bat is that a power failure or loss of circulation in mid burn will have no ill effects on a Garn. That's one of the big advantages of having your firebox and heat exchanger completely surrounded by water.

Click to expand...

If I were starting afresh and had the physical space for a Garn, it'd be my choice, too. Remarkable combination of simplicity, efficiency, and ease of use.

Froling or Garn would be my top 2 choices. There are other good ones, its just that these seem to be as troublesome as an anvil, Randy

I just installed my Garn 1500. I see you say not so much thinking that way...but I guess I'd ask why. If you need only cool water, that is ideal. No worries about power outage...you're not going to overheat. Very simple. Yeah, it might not the the epitome of efficiency....but it seems like it might be as close to the epitome of simplicity. I'm happy, my wife is happy, and I've never spent more on any single subsystem in my life!

If you haven't looked carefully through past threads, you may wish to. Take a look at the thread recently about "a day in the life of a gasser owner"...or similar. For the Garn, you load and fire, maybe reload, maybe a third time, (with an hour between loads or so) and your done for 24 hours. Time spent loading....about 60 seconds each time. Starting the fire might be 3-4 minutes....though there's usually enough coals to get it going again.

The Tarm Solo60 can be run with out storage. But with storage you can run year round. I bought the Solo and added storage the second winter. Split up costs and time.
Not really sure what 130 gallons would get you.
Try emailing Tarm USA their real helpful and have different options, including Froling

Power outages and wood boilers don't work well together. I've gone powerless a few times, and it sucks :shut: Heaterman says the Garn can handle power outages, but what about the rest of the house? If you need a generator to run circulator pumps, then buy the Genny and get the hydronic you want, not the one that handles power outages the best.

You know me, if someone handed me back my investment in the GreenWood I would have this awesome boiler!

ISeeDeadBTUs said:

Power outages and wood boilers don't work well together. I've gone powerless a few times, and it sucks :shut: Heaterman says the Garn can handle power outages, but what about the rest of the house? If you need a generator to run circulator pumps, then buy the Genny and get the hydronic you want, not the one that handles power outages the best.

You know me, if someone handed me back my investment in the GreenWood I would have this awesome boiler!

Click to expand...

That looks like a step or 2 above my Atmos, lol. How in the heck can they get that up to operating temp or combustion temp. in 3 minutes?

ISeeDeadBTUs said:

Power outages and wood boilers don't work well together. I've gone powerless a few times, and it sucks :shut: Heaterman says the Garn can handle power outages, but what about the rest of the house? If you need a generator to run circulator pumps, then buy the Genny and get the hydronic you want, not the one that handles power outages the best.

You know me, if someone handed me back my investment in the GreenWood I would have this awesome boiler!

Click to expand...

Are they available yet in the US, and how much. I have a feeling they will cost a bit more.

To be honest this melt down issue is your own fault. What do you think would happen to a top of the line Froling or any other unit with out power loss protection. I agree the Seton is not worth $$ and I also agree other typical gasifiers are probably more efficient, I TOTALLY disagree with the unit being a piece of trash. Yes I am a bit biased because I own this style boiler (Greenfire). I can honestly say overall I am happy with it. It is my third wood boiler. I used to have smoke dragons - Memco, Buderous. All 3 give me plenty of heat but ONLY the Greenfire is even close to efficient. I dare say I have cut my wood consumption in half. The exception may be Adobe which used sub par materials and may very well be a piece of trash.

I think 90% of people that have issues with these units = 1. Bad install 2. Operator error. You will find many happy owners of these style units.

If you can get your money out of selling the boiler, I am sure it would be worth changing units because you hate yours so much.

But if you take a severe $$ loss, I think it would be a mistake to change units. These units work well both with storage and with out. I run mine both ways. Since you have a low temp application 130 gallons hot water storage is not even close to sufficient...


Also, the Kaowool or mineral wool insulation does not need to be replaced because it got wet. This type insulation will dry out and not lose any r-value. Not sure about the high temp ceramic (white stuff). I suspect it will be fine once it dries also...

I'm looking at one of these. Any thoughts?
http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-inverter-store-product.php?model=pwr3axfer30-front-large#

snowman49820 said:

I'm looking at one of these. Any thoughts?
http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-inverter-store-product.php?model=pwr3axfer30-front-large#

Click to expand...

Why would you want a transfer switch? Do you have some other source of power or have you mistakenly identified this unit as a inverter?

This is the unit that I purchased:
http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-inverter-store-product.php?model=pwric150012s