Considering the Vigas

Hi, Welcome to Hearth, I would only add, don't overlook the Vigas Lambda or the other Lambda boilers, Randy

Be sure to take a look at the effecta lambda gasification boilers too.

I have seen several hearth members discuss these boilers and several have purchased them also.

Be sure to study the features and benefits that the different boilers have and get your hands on their individual pefromance data if available before making a final decission.

The Froling is also a very nice Lambda boiler.


The website is www.effecta.us

Good Luck

Hello Turfman. Welcome. Since repairs are few and far between, and efficiency is everyday of operation. I would consider a Wood Gun. I have an E100 S.S. that I bought last spring. Just now got it online with 400 gallons of storage. An experienced and wise individual on this sight, who goes by Jebatty, has had the oportunity to run a larger model Wood Gun and a Garn. (I am jeleous) And his findings are very interesting. Do a search on Wood Gun and you will see his "Date with a couple of beauties" threads. At least take a hard look at it. The Garns, H.S. Tarms, Econoburns, Vigas and many more are all good boilers, I have no doubts. But the Wood Gun is also a good boiler and 10-15% more efficient. I have only had my Wood Gun on line for less than a week. So I am no expert. But I can not believe how simple it is to operate. How quick it brings itself and 400 gallons of storage up to temperature. They are simple, parts are obtainable almost anywhere, and are built like a tank. And built here in America. Creating jobs here in the U.S.A. Just something to consider. Keep us up to date on your progress. Have a good one. Go Yankees!

Hey Gasifier,

Careful with those efficiency numbers.

If I recall correctly, jebatty has calculated his overall system efficiency right around 80%(Tarm solo 40 with 1000 gallons)
10% more efficient is MAYBE possible with one of them fancy($$$) lambda boilers.
15% more efficient would mean a condensing gassification boiler, which to my knowledge are not on the market. And for good reason.

Not taking anything away from the Wood Gun, I'm sure its a great boiler but definitely not 95% efficient.

Noah

turfman said:

Hi everybody. I have been lurking around this site for a few months now trying to glean wisdom from all of you and your experiences. I have to say it has been extremely helpful thus far. I have lived on wood heat for the better part of my adult life and love it, but it has always been wood stoves. I am almost ready to take the plunge into the gasification world and really like the looks and sounds of the Vigas (the price only scares me a little -- but less than the price of propane!!). Just wondering how many Vigas owners are out there and how it is going so far.

I have talked with Mark at AHONA a couple times and he has been extremely helpful. Just wanted to hear from some consumers before I pull the trigger.

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

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Turfman, I can tell you first hand that Mark is a great guy to deal with and very, very good at what he does. I bought a Paxo 60 boiler and his ready to go propane storage tanks. That's my set up on his site under customer installs. I've since sold my other home and back to a wood stove. You should take a trip out to see Mark. You'd be impressed. He also answered the phone after the sale , everytime I called. He can also layout out your whole system, so everything works correctly. Good luck in what ever you decide on. You will also need dry wood, or you'll hate your boiler.

I ran my Wood Gun for 9.5 years then sent it to the scrap yard. Stick with Mark. You can't go wrong.

Hey Floydian. Good to hear from you. Have you read this?

Garn WHS3200 & Wood Gun E500 – Another Night Out [Part 4]
jebatty Posted: 27 February 2011 03:46 PM [ Ignore ]

Pyro Extraordinaire


Northern MN
Total Posts: 2764
Joined 2008-01-01 See Part 1 for general information; Part 1 and Part 2 for specific information on the Garn; and also Part 3 for additional pictures.

Wood Gun E500 - Update

Plumbing Problem Data Fix
The plumbing problem I identified earlier with regard to the WG was an incorrect installation of the mixing valve to provide return water protection to the WG. It was installed backwards with the effect, based on the sensors, of mixing down the WG supply to 160F based on the return line location of the mixing valve control sensor. The net effect was to mix-down WG supply to the system to about 165F+/-, as well as more than likely creating some return/supply turbulence in the area around the valve which affected my temperature sensors from the burn a week ago, resulting in the anomaly I mentioned. To obtain accurate readings of WG supply and return temperature, I moved my return sensor to a point about two feet above the return fitting on the WG, which also was more than10 feet from the mixing valve. I moved the supply sensor to a point between the WG supply fitting and the circulator, which is installed on the supply line with the mixing valve on the opposite side of the circulator. At these locations any turbulence in the pipes caused by the mixing valve which would impact temperature sensor readings should be nonexistent.

Successful Burn and Mother Nature Cooperated
The weather forecast was cold, with forecasted night temps to get down to -15F. As noted below, Mother Nature held more than true. As with last weeks’ Garn test burn, Deep Portage was in low occupancy status, so occupancy/system demand conditions were as close as possible to identical of the prior week

The Garn had been allowed to burn out and its firebox to cool down before the start of the WG test burn period. I left the Garn and Garn HX circulators “on,†however, so that the Garn 3200 gallon tank could operate to provide some buffering storage capacity for the WG supply, in the event the WG supply exceeded system demand, which otherwise would cause the WG to go into idle cycles. This strategy proved to be of benefit during the test period, as Garn tank temperature moved up and down within a 5F range during the WG burn periods, so the Garn tank definitely was buffering excess WG output to the system. This buffering capacity is not available when the Garn is being fired simultaneous with the WG, and the WG has idled when both boilers have been fired. Dedicated pressurized storage for the WG would be of benefit to Deep Portage to allow the WG to operate most efficiently independently of the Garn.

The results:

A. Burn Rate. As for the prior week, BTUh input during the WG test burn is estimated at 600,500 (100 lbs/hour, 6,050 BTU/lb, 20% MC, 400F flue temp), same as for the Garn. I loaded the WG at the rate of 100 lbs on the hour, with one exception, that being one load of 125 lbs to see if the WG could burn at a rate higher than 100 lbs/hr. It cannot, as at the end of that hour there still was a good quantity of unburned wood in the firebox. With 100 lb loads, at the end of each hour the fire would be down to low burn (some mostly burned logs plus coals).

B. WG Temperature. The WG analog temperature gauge on the front started at 174F at 3:00 pm (outside temp of 4F), rose to 183F by 6:00 pm (outside temp of -2F), and then stayed mostly between 178-181F, up and down, until 5:00 am (outside temp of -18F) Saturday morning when the test burn ended. I ended at this time because system temperatures had fallen to a point not sufficient to maintain interior temperatures at the desired level. The “desired†minimum system supply temperature is 140F.

The WG temperature gauge reads about 5F higher than the sensor measuring WG supply, just as with the Garn. During the entire burn WG temperature gauge supply temperature ranged between 172-183F, up and down; WG sensor supply temperature ranged between 167-176F, up and down, and WG return temperature stayed at a virtual constant Correction: 151F.I attribute a significant part of the variation in supply temperature to coals blocking the slots to the gasification ceramics and impeding gasification burn in the WG. Several times I had to rake the coals away from the slots to make sure that they were open, and after doing this supply temperature would rise. This procedure is recommended in the WG manual.

C. BTU Input. Beginning at 3:00 pm on February 25 and ending with at 5:00 am on February 26, the WG burned 1,433 lbs of wood, which at 6,050 BTU/lb amounts to 8,669,650 BTU input.

D. BTU Output. I had Dallas 1-wire DS18b20 sensors located as mentioned above. This data showing delta-T WG supply/return along with calculated flow rate shows BTU output. The chart which follows shows WG measured supply and return temperatures. From the data underlying this chart, I averaged delta-T, which was 23.74F degrees. Flow rate is calculated at 50 gpm. BTUh = 23.74 x 500 x 50 = 593,500. Total hours = 14. For the 14 hour period, BTU output was 8,309,000.

E. Efficiency. Based on BTU input of 8,669,650 and BTU output of 8,309,000, efficiency can be calculated by BTU Output / BTU Input, which is 95.8%, vs 86% for the Garn.


Not only did the efficiency come out at 95.8%, it was putting out more BTUs than company claims for it. Am I not following this correctly? Maybe Jebatty can chime in here about the wood gun's Efficiency, and it's BTU claimed and actual.

I am not trying to convince anyone to not by an H.S. Tarm or another good boiler. Just think that these should be considered more. Even with all the fancy controls, Lambda this and that, do they get the efficiency the wood gun gets. Yes or no. And all the extra controls is just more stuff that can have problems down the road.

Fred61. I hear you about the problems you had with yours. But how old was the one you were running? What year did it come out? Was it still running when you scraped it? I have read about some of the problems with the Wood Guns over the years. I also know that the Wood Gun is being continuously updated to fix those problems. Only time will tell with the newer ones. Have a good one guys.

Fred61 said:

I ran my Wood Gun for 9.5 years then sent it to the scrap yard. Stick with Mark. You can't go wrong.

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Not knocking the Wood Gun, but my friend has had one for 3 years now and told me it's a bear to reload. It has "NO" by pass damper like other gassifiers, so upon reloading all the smoke wants to shoot right out the door , including the flames. He told me he actually bought a fire suit to make it easier to load. He even has the draft hood that Wood Gun sells. I agree, stick with Mark. He has the draft inducers all set up for reloading , etc. I had that on my Paxo and it worked great. Mark thinks outside the book. Tell him supply line sizes your running and how long your runs are and he can tell you off the top of his head, flow rates, pump sizes, etc. Like I said, he's there when you need him. He even traveled 70 or so miles and brought an elderly couple wood he knew was properly dried, because they couldn't get their Paxo gasser to burn right. He saw their wood was too wet . Next day they drove all the way to Mark's place to thank him and couldn't believe the difference in the stove. Not many dealers would do that for you. Marks the kind of guy that makes you feel good, just being around him, very up beat and fun as hell to learn from. He's even built his own planes as an avid aviator. Also has a great family, nicest people you'll meet. I'd buy again from Mark. Sorry for the long email, I guess with the economy, it's nice to know were's a good place to spend your hard earned money ;-)

Chris/Bioheat & Brian/Effecta also have superb customer service & boilers. Lots of choices here, Randy

He told me he actually bought a fire suit to make it easier to load. :lol: A fire suit! That is friggen hilarious!I have had no troubles reloading mine. I am in my shorts and a t-shirt. A fire suit. :lol: I left my smoke guard in and do not reload until the wood in the firebox is almost gone and the green light is on. Prop smoke guard to about 50Deg. angle with a small piece of wood and load away. If you try to reload when there is a huge fire going in the thing, I could see some problems. But you do not need to reload! That is great. I am still laughing. Thanks man.

Gasifier said:

He told me he actually bought a fire suit to make it easier to load. :lol: A fire suit! That is friggen hilarious!I have had no troubles reloading mine. I am in my shorts and a t-shirt. A fire suit. :lol: I left my smoke guard in and do not reload until the wood in the firebox is almost gone and the green light is on. Prop smoke guard to about 50Deg. angle with a small piece of wood and load away. If you try to reload when there is a huge fire going in the thing, I could see some problems. But you do not need to reload! That is great. I am still laughing. Thanks man.

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Never actually looked at his loading door area, so I can't tell ya what's up, but just going by what he has told me. I believe he does reload when down to a small coal bed, that would only make sense. But yup, he did say he bought a fire suit after being hair singed one too many times. I'm wondering if he just has the hood part of the fire suit. He also has a pretty long chimney run, that could be fighting hin as well. Maybe he has no smoke guard, if that's some thing the company added on later models. I'd hate to have to deal with that every time.

That is a good point. My Wood Gun is a 2010 model. Maybe the improvements they have made are having more of a difference over the years. Do you know what year his was made? I have seen discussions about the door seal problems. But the one I bought seems to have the new high temp rope or whatever you would call it. Seems to work nice. So far so good here. I am really happy. It will be interesting to see how things go when things really get cold. I am psyched though. Very glad I went to a Wood Gassification system with storage. I would highly recommend storage to anyone with wood boiler of any kind. Very nice.

Gasifier said:

He told me he actually bought a fire suit to make it easier to load. :lol: A fire suit! That is friggen hilarious!I have had no troubles reloading mine. I am in my shorts and a t-shirt. A fire suit. :lol: I left my smoke guard in and do not reload until the wood in the firebox is almost gone and the green light is on. Prop smoke guard to about 50Deg. angle with a small piece of wood and load away. If you try to reload when there is a huge fire going in the thing, I could see some problems. But you do not need to reload! That is great. I am still laughing. Thanks man.

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I'll have to ask if he has the smoke guard and tell him how you prop it up. He's an instrumentation guy on steam boilers, you'd think he'd figure out a better way. Does alot of OT so maybe no time. Always on call.

Gasifier said:

That is a good point. My Wood Gun is a 2010 model. Maybe the improvements they have made are having more of a difference over the years. Do you know what year his was made? I have seen discussions about the door seal problems. But the one I bought seems to have the new high temp rope or whatever you would call it. Seems to work nice. So far so good here. I am really happy. It will be interesting to see how things go when things really get cold. I am psyched though. Very glad I went to a Wood Gassification system with storage. I would highly recommend storage to anyone with wood boiler of any kind. Very nice.

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My firend has no storage, he said Wood Gun said he didn't need it. He saw my Paxo 60 set up with 1600 gallons of storage and still never added any.

My firend has no storage, he said Wood Gun said he didn’t need it. He saw my Paxo 60 set up with 1600 gallons of storage and still never added any.

Yes, they do say that and you do not need it. But boy it seems to add so much ability to the system. I am surprised they do not sell a 400 or 500 gallon tank as an option with it. (The E100 anyway.) And a larger option tank(s) with the larger ones. With the boiler being able to run wide open almost all the time there is a fire in it, I am hoping it keeps it much cleaner. And, with 400 gallons of storage and temperatures not to cold, I burn just enough wood to bring boiler and tank up to 175 degrees or so then let the fire go out. Turn boiler right off. The next morning house is still warm (not much of a heat demand from zones yet), hot showers for all, and tank is still 150 degrees after the showers. (Now that I got my tank insulated.)I leave it until I get home from work in the afternoon. Tank is still 130 Degrees. Get a fire going and bring it up to 175 again. Repeat.

Gasifier said:

My firend has no storage, he said Wood Gun said he didn’t need it. He saw my Paxo 60 set up with 1600 gallons of storage and still never added any.

Yes, they do say that and you do not need it. But boy it seems to add so much ability to the system. I am surprised they do not sell a 400 or 500 gallon tank as an option with it. (The E100 anyway.) And a larger option tank(s) with the larger ones. With the boiler being able to run wide open almost all the time there is a fire in it, I am hoping it keeps it much cleaner. And, with 400 gallons of storage and temperatures not to cold, I burn just enough wood to bring boiler and tank up to 175 degrees or so then let the fire go out. Turn boiler right off. The next morning house is still warm (not much of a heat demand from zones yet), hot showers for all, and tank is still 150 degrees after the showers. (Now that I got my tank insulated.)I leave it until I get home from work in the afternoon. Tank is still 130 Degrees. Get a fire going and bring it up to 175 again. Repeat.

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You know I use to let my 1600 gallons of water storage get down to like 130 or so , because I had radiant heat, but then I came to realize I used a heck of alot of wood, first getting all the mass of the boiler refractory back up to temp, and then heating the water back to 180. I found I used less wood after listening to Mark at AHONA heating, telling me to just run a 5-10 degree differential on my storage. This way the stove didn't sit idle, and when it did run, it was already up to temp and wood went into the gasification mode right away.Letting all the refractory in the stove go cold seemed to be a big waste of firewood, getting that back up to temp, and now thinking back, it probably doesn't do the stove any good, cycling it from cold to hot day in and day out. So I think Mark was onto to something there. Just something to think about .

You know I use to let my 1600 gallons of water storage get down to like 130 or so , because I had radiant heat, but then I came to realize I used a heck of alot of wood, first getting all the mass of the boiler refractory back up to temp, and then heating the water back to 180. I found I used less wood after listening to Mark at AHONA heating, telling me to just run a 5-10 degree differential on my storage. This way the stove didn’t sit idle, and when it did run, it was already up to temp and wood went into the gasification mode right away.Letting all the refractory in the stove go cold seemed to be a big waste of firewood, getting that back up to temp, and now thinking back, it probably doesn’t do the stove any good, cycling it from cold to hot day in and day out. So I think Mark was onto to something there. Just something to think about .

That is good advice. And I will follow that when it gets a little colder. My system is a little different than yours. You have four times as much storage as I have. That is a lot. When I come home in the afternoon after shutting down the boiler the night before, the boiler is not that cold. If I remember right, yesterday when I got home it was 130 Deg. You see my circulation pump runs until the aquastat gets down to 140 or whatever I have it set at. The tank and boiler seem to keep each other warmer longer. Especially with the tank insulated fairly well. So I only have to raise it all back up about 40-45 degrees. I do see your point though. I am hoping that the stainless model I have will do well. I hope. Later.

Quite an interesting thread right here.

Not unexpectadly you're seeing a bit of "buy this boiler, I have one, it is the best". When I was researching boilers several years back I tended to avoid these kinds of posts and recommendations and focus more on the "who is running what, and what are they talking about" kinds of threads.

I dare say any of the EU gasifiers are going to be very, very close in performance with exactly matched setups and runs. And yet you will never find two boiler installations that will run the same. There are entirely too many variables with wood burner installations to really ever have apples to apples comparisons at the user level.

I'd bet my salary that a Wodd Gun sitting next to my EKO 40 with the same load of wood, same heat loads, same plumbing, same smoke stack, same everything will never outperform my EKO by 10-15%. As stated above there really isn't 10-15% to be had on many of these setups without condensing.

You've already made the right choice for wood burning - buying a gasser. The more you read, the better off you're going to be. Don't buy a boiler based on one thread, 50 responses. If you care what I think I would buy a Garn if I had room. I'd buy a Froiling (sp) if I had a money tree in my yard. And if I needed installation flexibility, reasonable cost, good warranty, local dealer support and a large user base I'd buy my EKO all over again (but I'd get a 60 this time!).

stee6043 said:

You've already made the right choice for wood burning - buying a gasser. The more you read, the better off you're going to be. Don't buy a boiler based on one thread, 50 responses. If you care what I think I would buy a [del]Garn[/del]Switzer if I had room. I'd buy a Froiling (sp) if I had a money tree in my yard. And if I needed installation flexibility, reasonable cost, good warranty, local dealer support and a large user base I'd buy my EKO all over again (but I'd get a 60 this time!).

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That about sums it up, folks!

I’d bet my salary that a Wodd Gun sitting next to my EKO 40 with the same load of wood, same heat loads, same plumbing, same smoke stack, same everything will never outperform my EKO by 10-15%. As stated above there really isn’t 10-15% to be had on many of these setups without condensing.

Do you think it would it outperform your EKO though? Just curious.

You’ve already made the right choice for wood burning - buying a gasser. The more you read, the better off you’re going to be. Don’t buy a boiler based on one thread, 50 responses. If you care what I think I would buy a Garn if I had room. I’d buy a Froiling (sp) if I had a money tree in my yard. And if I needed installation flexibility, reasonable cost, good warranty, local dealer support and a large user base I’d buy my EKO all over again (but I’d get a 60 this time!).

Well this has been interesting. Apparently I have been proven wrong. Certainly isn't the first time, and won't be the last. :cheese:
I am curious though. If in Jim's situation with the Wood Gun and the Garn, using the calculations at 50 GPM, the Wood Gun came out at 95% and the Garn came out at 86%. I understand that the flow rate was not 50GPM. So the Wood Gun was not that efficient. Okay. Jim's numbers are interesting though. You have to admit. If you believe or know the Wood Gun was let's say more like 85-87% efficient, where would that put the Garn then?

And yes, I am excited about my new boiler. :coolsmile: Have fun burning guys. And good luck with your new wood burner!

Gasifier said:

I’d bet my salary that a Wodd Gun sitting next to my EKO 40 with the same load of wood, same heat loads, same plumbing, same smoke stack, same everything will never outperform my EKO by 10-15%. As stated above there really isn’t 10-15% to be had on many of these setups without condensing.

Do you think it would it outperform your EKO though? Just curious.

You’ve already made the right choice for wood burning - buying a gasser. The more you read, the better off you’re going to be. Don’t buy a boiler based on one thread, 50 responses. If you care what I think I would buy a Garn if I had room. I’d buy a Froiling (sp) if I had a money tree in my yard. And if I needed installation flexibility, reasonable cost, good warranty, local dealer support and a large user base I’d buy my EKO all over again (but I’d get a 60 this time!).

Well this has been interesting. Apparently I have been proven wrong. Certainly isn't the first time, and won't be the last. :cheese:
I am curious though. If in Jim's situation with the Wood Gun and the Garn, using the calculations at 50 GPM, the Wood Gun came out at 95% and the Garn came out at 86%. I understand that the flow rate was not 50GPM. So the Wood Gun was not that efficient. Okay. Jim's numbers are interesting though. You have to admit. If you believe or know the Wood Gun was let's say more like 85-87% efficient, where would that put the Garn then?

And yes, I am excited about my new boiler. :coolsmile: Have fun burning guys. And good luck with your new wood burner!

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I'm not sure I saw your previous posts, Gasifer. I certainly wasn't trying to prove anyone wrong. I'm not an authority on gassers, this is for sure. But I have spent a whole lotta hours running mine and a whole lotta hours reading about other peoples installs. I've also done a fair amount of math regarding exactly how much water I can heat, how quickly I can heat it and how I can prolong my "peak output" burn stage.

Based on what I've read and what I know about my system I don't believe you could measure the difference in performance between a Wood Gun and my EKO side-by-side. I'd say the same for a Tarm, Econoburn, etc. Is it possible that a Wood Gun is a better performer than an EKO? Absolutely. But what does it all mean? A boiler that takes half the time to start will be significantly "more efficient" than the same boiler design that takes twice as long to start. How many boiler manufacturers make a statement as to how efficient a gasser is while you're heating up the water jacket and refractories during that first 30+/- minutes of burning? And what about towards the end of the burn when you're just finishing off the coal bed? Two similarly sized gassers firing a perfect blue flame with a perfect coal bed, perfect air settings and similar HX ratings (output ratings?) should be exceedingly close in performance during peak burn. If my boiler is rated to achieve 91-95% efficiency is it feasible for any other boiler to be more than a few percent more efficient (this is a rhetorical question, hah).

Here is a statement directly from my EKO 40 manual:

This boiler is designed to operate in the 91% to 95% overall system efficiency range when properly
installed and operated and burning sufficiently dry wood fuel.

You couldn't use a more lame term than "system efficiency" in this context. An outside wood burner with a pile of trash and three tires in it might offer up 95% "system efficiency" during certain points of the burn cycle. I think most of the well known gassers on the market today will perform within a few percent of each other during peak burn. Where they start to differ is in how they manage idling, startup, loading, cool down etc. Heretoforewith, my opinion that my EKO can hold it's own (as can a Wood Gun, Garn, Tarm, etc) is based on having storage and experiencing zero idling 99% of the time. Throw a boiler like a Froiling in the mix with it's wicked advanced active controls and all bets are off.

My lust for the Garn is based on it's simplicity.

My envy for the Froiling is based on it being the iPhone of wood burners.

My contentment with my EKO 40 is based on it's overall functionality and it being within the budget I had setup when I started my project. The Tarm and EKO were my top two picks back when I started my project. I bet I'd be just as happy today if I had ended up with a Tarm.

As xclimber has said Mark is the guru of wood boilers.I have been working the fryeburg fair with him all week.What i have learned in a few days from him would take a year at a class.Last night we drove an hour to check on a customers install and check a problem and got home at 11pm that is full customer service.Also all the vigas he sells are lamda control.

The Vigas Boiler's have a partial Lambda but do not mix the ratio of the primary and secondary shutters for full efficiencies. The New Effecta's Boiler's have 140 tiny stainless steel orifices that gasify through the ceramic and SS burner. Vigas has only one shutter with a variable speed push inducer that creates the overall efficiencies. Also they push the draft inducer venting rather than pull. A true LAMBDA control always mixes your ratio with 2-shutters a Primary and Secondary for optimum efficiencies. Over all you get what you pay for. Not a bad boiler but still does not mix for optimum efficiencies. Check out the Effect'a Boiler's from SWEDEN...