Froling FHG-L 50 Install

Excuse me if I drool a little, but you may too when you take a look at this install. The Froling will be heating a 6000 sq ft educational interpretive center at Deep Portage (DP) in north central Minnesota, an older building with poor to fair insulation, windows and doors. It will replace two LP hot air gas furnaces, which remain as backup units. It also will provide DHW.

The Froling was installed in its own boiler shed adjacent to the building, which also houses a 1600 gallon hot water storage tank. Domestic hot water is provided from a standard hot water heater which is now equipped with an integrated double wall heat exchanger and mixing valve. The tank can be heated to as high a temperature as the Froling will provide, and the hot water is mixed down to 120F for domestic service. With the 1600 gallon boiler hot water storage tank, there will be plenty of hot water, and DP also expects to be firing the Froling during the summer, perhaps once per week, to provide DHW.

This winter I should be able to do some temperature measuring and data logging and provide a performance report. And I am excitedly awaiting the opportunity to put the Froling through its paces. The installation finished yesterday. The Froling is operating, the system has being brought up to full temperature, and all components are in operation.

There's been a grievious error, this was installed at the wrong location, Milwaukee was the proper site. The Froling is nice & it looks like a very well thought out install, Randy

Jim,

Is that the extent of the insulation on that tank? It is going to be warm in that room to say the least. Nice set up. What does DP do again?

This looks like a very nice installation.

I look forward to seeing some perfromance graphs of the Froling.

Was there any problem (with local officials) installing this as a pressurized system even though the boiler is not ASME rated?

Thanks,

Brian

Remembering that I am a newbie at these systems. What is that thing-a-ma-jig on the wall there in the last picture? And how does it work?

Looks like a DHW flat plate heat exchanger. Maybe has integrated pump with variable speed to adjust flow from storage to meet demand, can't really tell. Integrated output mixing valve for anti-scalding.

http://www.heliodyne.com/products_systems/heating/shw_module.html

ew has the link on the module. I didn't do this install and have not yet had a chance to explore the Froling, but very excited to do so.

Yes, more insulation will be needed, or otherwise this can be the staff sauna.

DP is an environmental learning center, serving children, families and adults; seminars, day camps, multi-day camps, etc., focusing on a wide range of environmental learning opportunities. Deep Portage

I completed my second morning of operating the Froling. Although I have a penchant for hard data on everything, this report will be more experiential than data based. In short, this boiler is really "hot." It will take me more time to learn how to maximize the Froling, but that might not be necessary, as it appears to think quite smartly on its own.

Before my operations, staff at DP was experiencing some "slumber" (idle) operation, which the manual indicates should be avoided. The Froling is to be fired only when storage has capacity to absorb the entire wood load, assuming no system demand. My thought is that the slumber came from over-loading when storage would max out before the wood load burned out. Also, system demand was pretty low during these staff burns.

My initial loads both mornings were about 1/3 of the firebox, and adding some wood during mid-burns. The firebox is big compared to my Tarm. I had the boiler set at 80C maximum the first morning. The Froling does an excellent job of varying output based on boiler temp, which means that as boiler temp approached 80C the induced draft fan would slow down to lower the output, then speed up as temp dropped. Perhaps it "thinks" and puts together a demand scenario and modulates accordingly, but I don't know that. Operation was excellent, no slumber. I set 85C as boiler maximum this morning, and operation remained excellent, no slumber.

Clearly my initial loads could have been more than 1/3 full. System demand was higher these last two mornings than staff experienced days ago, with early morniong outdoor temps during my burns in the mid to high 20'sF.

Fire starts are effortless. The Garn has been the easiest boiler to start in my past experience (although I never would say that the Tarm is not easy), and the Froling has to be as easy as the Garn. Mid-burn reloads are effortless and smoke roll-out free. Open the outer door, the induced draft fan goes on "high," open the firebox door, add wood, close, fan slows down, and done.

I don't think it will take very long to learn how much wood to load based on remaining storage capacity, which the Froling tells you on its display panel. And I will add a variety of sensors when I have time and then I can a data based report, although it might be early winter before that will happen.

The DP goal is to eliminate use of its propane hot air furnaces by use of the Froling, as well as greatly reduce electric use for DHW. The ability to achieve this goal will be demonstrated as the heating season progresses. Propane remains available for backup or supplement, if needed.