Was bored and tried something of interest

Andy,
Have you collected enough data yet to calculate your return on investment? Does the Tarm emit any visible smoke while burning the briquets?

I haven't pulled it all together yet. I want to put an hour meter on the oil boiler to keep tabs on the run time while I'm away. I know I burned about $5800 in fuel oil last heating season. This winter I'm at $850. A rough guess would be about 5 years for ROI. I see hardly any smoke when the briquets get going.

I wanted to post a picture of the briquets burning

Briquetmaker said:

I haven't pulled it all together yet. I want to put an hour meter on the oil boiler to keep tabs on the run time while I'm away. I know I burned about $5800 in fuel oil last heating season. This winter I'm at $850. A rough guess would be about 5 years for ROI.

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Wow the Weimar must have cost a shiny penny! But I get excited about heating with waste. Great pics too! Thanks for sharing.

Thank you everyone for the great comments. It was a fun project. I plan on a few tweaks in the summer and adding another 200gal of storage. My briquet press was a no-brainer, got rid of a 48ft trailer in my yard and a 10hp blower to get the saw dust into it and not to mention swapping out the trailers in the winter/rotten weather. That alone saved me about 2-3 thousand a year. I had gotten quotes to replace my oil boiler and pre plumb for the wood boiler coming in at 19 - 22K. They're nuts. I bought both boilers and all the parts for $19,500 and did the install on my own. The Tarm guys were a great help. I followed the Tarm drawings as close as possible and got great support from them as I was doing the install. It's hard trying to take a 1D drawing and putting into 3D. My head was spinning but when I got it it got even more exiting until my shoulders couldn't take threading any more pipe. I think in the long run it was a great thing to do. The first thing I do when I get to work is turn the BLT control to wood only. $3.20 a gal@ 2.5 gal/hr. I do want to put the hour meter on the oil boiler to really get an accurate cost. Anyway thanks again

Briquetmaker, What year scandtec is that and model? looks Mine is a solo plus 40 that i bought in 2008. Just curious cause it looks different. BTW.... Absolutely AWESOME Boiler room!! I installed my boiler is in a shed outside and and let's just say your install is very nice I told my wife to check out that pic and she just goes "your jealous, aren't you". I just said yes, lol. looks like a great install for 19500. Mine ran me about 10,000 or so.

Mine is a 2009 Solo Plus 60 and because of the hot fires with the briquets I added turbulators. Stack temps have been more steady with them

wvwoodchuck said:

I'm kind of curious about this. How would this work (pellets) in a non-gasser boiler?

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I tried this 4 to 5 years ago.
It works great as long as you have primary combustion air on top, not an underburn. You need a top down burn.
With an underburn the pellets suffocate the fire and you get a lot of smoke.

Only one practical problem, all pellets are sold in plastic bags.
It would be easier if they would make them available in paper bags.
I don't like the idea of buying bulk and bag them myself