Orlan EKO 18 and Others

[Bartman]

It's interesting to note how few choices we have here in the US for gasifying boilers available to us. In Europe, it seems there is quite a bit more of a selection in wood and biomass boilers for the residential consumer. It's true that fuel prices force the "nonfossil" alternatives into the marketplace, but I'm amazed on how few distributors there are here in the US. If there were more distributors pushing more brands, the prices would certainly drop. For my application I want a smaller boiler for my heating needs, I do not live in a rural area and OWBs are now illegal in my county. Water storage is quite impractical for me so I need the smallest boiler to meets my demands, and the Orlan EKO 18 would be a great fit except it's not available in the US. Before Christmas I was in my local liquor store, the owner is from Poland and is a customer of mine also. In our conversation I mentioned about my wood boiler interests and stated that most are from Europe, and a few are from Poland. In response to my statement he said, "tell me what you want and I can get it for you", interesting. Can one person actually import a single item like a heavy boiler, and would it be worth it to do so? Let's set aside the argument for warranty, and EPA/UL/etc. ratings, as that can be addressed separately.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Why not? I've seen EKOs advertised for sale on European websites, with the pricing in Euros. If you can import cars as an individual, I don't see why not boilers.

There are some nice Cezch gasifiers, too. The Atmos is one. I think Zenon used to sell those. If you're looking for an EKO 18, you might check a Canadian supplier. There's at least one in Ontario, and we have a couple of Canadian EKO owners on this site. Who knows? They might import them to Canada. And there's a guy up in New Hampshire, Windy Ridge Corp. in Tamworth, I believe, who sells a Finnish gasification-type boiler, though it's not the same design as the EKOs, etc.