The high cost of gasification boilers

[Jersey Devil]

Hello gang,

I'm a newcomer to this forum but I've been burning wood since 1977 and have been the owner of a Tarm multi-fuel MB 50 when I bought it from Craig Issod in 1983 so I've been around the block a little. My question is how are you guys justifying the cost of the current generation gasser systems? I just got Tarm prices from BioHeat and they honestly floored me. I don't recall what I paid for the the Tarm in 1983 but I think it was about $5500. I know prices have gone up and steel has escalated, but geez... My current Tarm has a corrosion problem around the DHW coil plate but otherwise its fine as far as other corrosion. There was some slow leakage there that I just discovered. Any help or arithmetic would be helpful. I purchase my oak firewood for about $120/cord.

Mike in NJ

maybe we need to start the "oldest wood fired boiler thread" to see who beats me .....

 

[stee6043]

$5500 spent 25 years ago and you think prices are high today?? If you don't go with storage you should be well under $10,000 if you install it yourself. I'd say that is some rather acceptable inflation considering material pricing trends in the past two years+...

For me burning natural gas the payback will be 5 years (or a touch less) for my EKO 40 with 1000 gallons of storage. Considering the EKO has a 20 year warranty (limited) I'd say that's not a bad investment....But I don't buy my wood....

 

[hayrack]

Mike,

I just purchased a used ot 50 and it seemes like a nice boiler for the age. I hear you about the corrosion around the coil cover. It seems they could have had a better coil design. I took my cover off and had to build weld where the water leaked around the gasket. I to have a hard time to justify the price of a gasifier. My wood is free so I don't mind using a little more in a conventional boiler. I may sell the ot 50 since I am going to pick up a mb 55 tomorrow.

Eric

 

[Jersey Devil]

$5500 spent 25 years ago and you think prices are high today?? If you don't go with storage you should be well under $10,000 if you install it yourself. I'd say that is some rather acceptable inflation considering material pricing trends in the past two years+...

For me burning natural gas the payback will be 5 years (or a touch less) for my EKO 40 with 1000 gallons of storage. Considering the EKO has a 20 year warranty (limited) I'd say that's not a bad investment....But I don't buy my wood....

Hey...it was a long time ago....I'm really not sure what I paid, maybe that's high. I should ask Craig to look in his files and tell me what I paid..... ;o)

 

[Duetech]

Without storage I paid 5k for the basic EKO40 in 06. the money I would have spent for oil was diverted to the cost of my boiler and accessories. The money I saved on propane for dhw paid for the wood I burned for two years and all of my current burning. Plus I still have some wood to go into March or a little later from the same wood. My oil furnace is getting pretty old. I can't justify a Tarm until I use up my EKO but I'll wait (LOL)

 

[webbie]

Well, according to the US Government, the inflationary value of $5500 from 1983....to today.....is
"$5,500.00 in 1983 had about the same buying power as $11,870.55 in 2008."

So 12 Grand for the same approx. boiler. But the Excel is a fancier boiler.......so when you look at it that way, it is not too bad.

At least you present proof positive that I actually was in the business back in ancient times.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I had a late '70s Royall a few years ago. Built like a tank. I bet the guy I sold it to is still getting lots-o-heat out of that thing.

But since I don't own it anymore, I guess you got me beat, JD. Welcome to the Boiler Room.

 

[Piker]

As a salesman, the justification of the cost of the gassers is something I go through with people on a regular basis. One of the things I tell people is that if they don't want to fork over the dough for an efficient system, they have two options... 1) buy a traditional boiler for a grand or two less, and cut "about" twice as much wood for the next how ever many years their boiler lasts... or... 2) buy a gasser, cut twice as much wood as you need to burn in the gasser and sell half of it for a few years until you recoup the extra cost of the gasser... which should only take a couple of years... at that point, your in the clear as far as the difference between boiler costs... and now you don't need as much wood... which saves time... etc etc.

If you are buying your firewood,... the gassers are the only way to go.

cheers

 

[kuribo]

I can understand the payback, etc., but in my opinion these things are overpriced to begin with. They are not that complicated- some are basically just a steel box with some firebrick. With prices around $10K-$12K, you could buy a new car which has a lot more steel and complexity to it.....ah, the beauty of large scale mass production!

 

[penfrydd]

I used to have a very non-conventional job at an insurance company. (I was in charge of grounds and the company fleet). Insurance companies more or less know how to manage their money (AIG notwithstanding...). It was always generally accepted that a 7 year payback or less was a good investment. Granted, the inflation level of the late 70's was higher than now.

As for "old-time" boilers...I had a Rite-way air-tight stove that kept my house warm for 15+ years. It's still out in the barn. I refuse to part with it.

I briefly utilized a screw on "boiler" which was just a maze of iron through which the hot water loop was piped. It worked great for about 3 hours, until it started leaking...

 

[Reggie Dunlap]

Payback periods on boilers vary depending on climate and other factors. When fuel was expensive this summer it looked like my payback would be 2-3 years, now it's going to be 3-4 years at current prices. Sure there's a high upfront cost, but it's only going to cost more the longer you wait. I think I paid around $6,200 for my Tarm two years ago, and i've got another $5-6,000 in the plumbing and storage.

When looking at price comparisons between conventional boilers and gasifiers you also need to factor in that you'll burn a lot more wood in a conventional boiler.

 

[MrEd]

I would agree with the "7 year payback" logic, that is, anything that will pay for itself in 7 years I would considering owning as an investment. More than 7 years and I am pretty skeptical - one of the reasons I've not jumped on the solar bandwagon yet.

As far as my investment in tarm, mine cost around $10-$11K with storage and a DIY install. Even at $2.50 gallon average for oil, I am looking at a just over 2 year payback - and even that is not apples to apples. The 2000 gallons of oil I used to use every year, got me a house at 66 degrees. Now I have a house that is usually 72. More than the payback period however, I am also quite happy that I never really need to even think about what oil is going to cost me for the winter. Even if it drops to $1.50 this year, what if it goes back to $4.50 next? or the year after? Now I am no longer dependent on extraneous forces to heat my house and am relieved of the stress of trying to guess if I should pre-buy, lock-in, risk it month to month etc. When my woodshed is full, I know no matter what happens my house will be warm for the winter. That and a pantry full of food makes me quite content.

 

[WoodNotOil]

When I got my solo 30 it was about $5400 and the excel 2000 was $9500, I am not sure what they go for now. I would suggest not buying the multifuel and simply putting an on demand unit for hot water and heat as backup/off season. That should cost less than the multifuel. Mine has already paid for itself in what I would have spent on oil and my wood is free. Now with storage I have a practically free heating system for the life of the components.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I can understand the payback, etc., but in my opinion these things are overpriced to begin with. They are not that complicated- some are basically just a steel box with some firebrick. With prices around $10K-$12K, you could buy a new car which has a lot more steel and complexity to it.....ah, the beauty of large scale mass production!

You could make the case with that logic that all wood-fired boilers are overpriced, and I don't know who could argue with that. However, relative to a conventional wood-fired indoor boiler or OWB, I think that gasifiers are not overpriced. They may look simple, but there's a lot of engineering that went into the design, and that's part of what you're paying for. As nofossil likes to point out, there's a lot of technology and design savvy behind the simple appearances. I think he uses a turbine blade as a prime example.

And you're not going to get very far with the car analogy. Auto mfgrs. produce tens of millions of cars annually, offering incredible economies of scale. How many gasifiers do you think are produced annually? Lower volume of any specialty product always means higher prices, especially with industrial equipment, which is basically what these things are.

 

[sdrobertson]

I'm an example of doing it wrong from the start because I didn't know any better. I started with a homebuilt OWB that lasted 4 1/2 years and then rotted out. I replaced this with a CB 6048 and used it for a little over one season. My father got a gasifier in the mean time and I saw the efficiency and that's about the time I found this forum. After posting questions and getting allot of good information, I decided to replace my system for the 3rd time in 6 years. I haven't figured out how much total I have spent on all of my projects and compared this to what I would have used in Natural Gas mainly because this would give the Mrs. allot more things to point out how this heating with wood is saving us allot in the long run. I know that it will pay for itself especially if I would have done it right the first time but live and learn. My only saving grace during my three system changes is that the house has been 76 degrees and like the commercial - priceless.

Do it right and do it with a gasifier.

EDIT: How about the last line being on a official Hearth.Com Boiler Room T-Shirt

 

[Piker]

I can understand the payback, etc., but in my opinion these things are overpriced to begin with. They are not that complicated- some are basically just a steel box with some firebrick. With prices around $10K-$12K, you could buy a new car which has a lot more steel and complexity to it.....ah, the beauty of large scale mass production!

If you understand the payback... then you can understand the price... which is driven by demand for the gasifiers. It's market forces that set the price of everything we buy in this country. (ok, maybe not everything in this new "bailout" culture we live in, but that's another thread on another forum somewhere) For the most part, however, stuff is worth what people will pay for it... and most people investing $12k for an average gasser installation have done their homework and see the long term benefit as justification enough to throw down the cash. It has been my experience, that most of the people who purchase these boilers are actually pretty financially savvy...

I whole heartedly agree that there is more engineering in the design and construction of these boilers than meets the laymen's eye. I have been in the manufacturing industry for over 15 years... I can tell you that quality requires a significant investment of time and rescources. While at 1600 lbs a gasser may not be worth it's weight in gold... I think it is certainly worth the extra 10-20% in cost over a traditional non gasification boiler.

Just the humble opinion of an Econoburn owner/dealer.

cheers

 

[Tree farmer]

I too had thought long and hard about the extra expense of a gassifier vs the avg wood boiler or outdoor wood pig. All the facts of efficiency and better technology brought me back to a gassifier. Though I have short changed myself without storage at this point I am leaps ahead of where I was with just a wood stove this time last year. Payback? I always pre bought my oil, not this year because I have a boiler but some folks did at the price of over $4.00 a gallon and are stuck with that cost, at that point my gasser is almost paid for. Who knows where oil prices will be in the next two years I may find my unit will have payed for itself in under 5 yrs. To me the hardest decision was which gassifier to purchase.

 

[pybyr]

yeah, the cost of getting off of the oil rollercoaster, while not having to cut and handle an excess of wood, and not worry about creosote issues, is pretty valuable. I burned wood with a non-gasification wood furnace for years, and it was a good unit, but it is really hard to build a fire in a conventional unit that will run for a long time without feeding, while at the same not going into an inefficient and creosote-producing smolder

 

[atlarge54]

No doubt gasification is the way of the future, however my payback would be "possibly never". No room for storage in the garage or house. Does anyone include the cost of the extra floor space in their cost analysis? A boiler with 1000gal. storage and putting a mower in my garage would be a challenge. A small gasifier would require steady feeding and wouldn't accommodate a lot of the large odd shaped logs I burn. The wood I moved into the garage yesterday was cut 4 years ago and was still in excellent condition, having been kept off the ground and under a tarp that is really waterproof. I flat out have too much wood and still have some fence row trees still standing that I killed and may not cut for another year. I have a minimum of 3 years firewood on hand. To spend $15,000 to double the life of that woodpile would be stupid. In my case burn time outweighs efficiency. In typical winter weather I gradually build up a fire through the late afternoon to minimize smoke (believe me the smoke's not that bad), once a nice bed of coals is established it's all heat and no smoke. I am amazed at the amount of heat that is created by the coals when compared to the actual "wood burning". I know gasification is the only true religion, but it ain't my religion yet. Show me a mini-Garn that's pressurized and a winning lottery ticket and I'll be in the pew next to you.

 

[Tree farmer]

I know most preach storage but it is possible to run these things without it and still reap many benefits, I know cause I'm doin it. I have aprox 2000 sq ft of space to heat and 4 people using hot water my burn times are from 10 to 14 hrs depending on outside temps and wood spp. I could never get that out of a wood stove especially the hot water factor. I'll never go back and am smiling all way to my morning hot shower.

 

[Piker]

Storage is definitely a plus... but as you say, it's not absolutely necessary. I am currently running an EBW200 without storage to heat about 4000 sq feet (includes about 1000 sq feet of basement). It creosotes up the firebox pretty good on the warmer days... but that's not really an issue. It burns off eventually.

I think one thing to understand when talking about the price point of a gasifier is to realize that different people have different expectations of their heating system. To some, a boiler system that maintains a 72* temp in the entire house for extended periods of time with minimal wood usage is just overkill... to some it's worth every penny. Personally, I love the fact I am using half the wood, but then I generally purchase most of my wood. 11 cord (my pre gasser yearly average) in my region will run between $1300 and $1700. ($120 -$150 per cord) I am on track to use around 5 cord this year... which will save me $700 to $900 annually. It doesn't take long to recoup the additional cost of a gasser with savings like that. 2 years maybe 3 tops over traditional OWB's. The bottom line to gasifier cost effectiveness is that they ARE cost effective over a 3 to 5 year period regardless of who you are... the biggest issue for people is whether they can swing the expense up front.

cheers