Thinking about getting a boiler

I currently have a Englander 25 pvc stove and would like to upgrade to a boiler eventually. I would still like to be able to use my oil furnace as well for back up.

I have baseboard heating so would need to be able to heat my water with it as well. My house is roughly 2000sq foot but has no heat ran into the 2nd floor. and i am also working on a room in the basement. So i would need it capable of running different zones.

Thoughts on what kind of boiler and what prices tend to run?

So many questions..... Gasifier? Conventional? Circulator based? Zone valve based? Supply / Return? Primary / Secondary?

I went through this back in 2005 (I think) and wrote up a summary of the choices that we faced and why we made each decision the way we did:

http://www.nofossil.org/index.php?choice=choices

There are lots of answers and no one 'right' answer. Take time to read and ponder - there's not enough pondering done these days.

let me clarify i am talking about a pellet boiler not wood

That narrows the choices considerably. Still plenty of options. In general, the ability to handle multiple zones is a function of the plumbing rather than the boiler itself. There are two stickies at the top of this forum that discuss different approaches to plumbing in a wood boiler alongside a fossil backup heat source - those would be a good place to start.

I can't help with pellet boiler recommendations since I don't have one or know anyone who has one. I know that lack of first-hand knowledge doesn't exclude one from expressing opinions on forums, but I made a New Year's resolution to be good.

I've installed a Harmen PB105 for a family member, was impressed with the unit. But it does need cleaning like a pellet stove. There are more expensive units which are self cleaning, if that important to you.

TS

We installed the first Windhager BioWin Exclusive in North America the first part of December and the feedback from the customer has been nothing short of outstanding. He is heating an 80x80 workshop of which 3200 sq ft has a 16 foot ceiling. He keeps it at 65* night and day and his average daily pellet consumption has been roughly 2-1/2 bags of 40 pounds each. Some days less, some days more but on average he only has to fill the hopper every third day. The building is well insulated.
I was thoroughly surprised by the performance of the burner/heat exchanger. I've never seen any kind of wood or pellet boiler perform the way this thing does. Measured efficiency will go just over 90% in most cases and I have never seen it lower than 87% when I tested the flue gas. I looked at it again last week just to see how the owner was doing with it and after almost 8 weeks of steady use the inside of the flue pipe is still shiny and bright.
He pulled the ash container (automatic cleaning via an auger into the wheeled container) which he had not checked since New Years day. If there were maybe 5-6 cups of ashes in it that would be a stretch. It burns far cleaner than any other pellet boiler I have been around and a typical pellet stove is not even in the same league. Flue gas temperatures run under 240* at all times. You can lay your hand on the single wall pipe going to the chimney while it's firing at 100% output.
The burner is fully modulating in that it fires up to near the water temp setpoint and then drops the firing rate back to match the actual load. This greatly reduces the number of on/off cycles. I have seen it run all the way down to only 30% output and it still burns clean with not even a trace of smoke on my smoke tester. Other than a little dust and ash in the burner box I have to say the thing acts more like a finely tuned gas burner than something that is using bio-mass for fuel.
You would do yourself well to check one of them out.
If I recall correctly, the guy importing them is currently installing on up your way that includes a bulk feed vacuum system from a large remote hopper.

What's the ballpark retail on one of those puppies? Sounds like a great unit - if I didn't have the access to wood that I have I'd be checking out pellet units.

About $7-$9K depending on output.

two i have been looking at are
Harman PB105 Pellet Boiler

http://mainestoves.com/site/index.p...em&id=98:harman-pb105-pellet-boiler&Itemid=84

and
MESys AutoPellet Boiler

http://www.maineenergysystems.com/OkoFEN_AutoPellet_Boilers.htm

Thoughts on these? I believe the MESYS is alot more money but less user maintenance needs to be done