Automated wood chip feeding system for Garn

[Happy]

Garnification,

I am interested in buying Garn-2000 boiler.Now I know you made your garn from scratch. As far as Garn knowledge concerns you must the most knowledgable person to ask about modification to garn.Here is my question :

Is it possible to add some kind of augur system to garn loading chamber where by the Garn will get continuous supply of woodchip at certain amount by controling the speed of augur motor? is it possible to put some kind of hole in the garn for this purpose without losing too much of Garn's efficiency?

or

Is it possible to add blower system to garn whereby it can blow certain load of wood chip at certain time interval and close the hole when it is not blowing chips into boiler ?

I am asking this because woodchip supply for me will be lot cheaper option for me than hardwood as there some sawmills around here I am talking to and they are ready to supply woodchip at $30-40 a ton delivered.Hardwood is about $225 per cord.I can also have option of using corn cob and sawdust.Hardwood should remain primary fuel and augur system should add some alternative like wood chip or sawdust to hardwood fuel.My average oil consumption for last 3 years has been between 5000 and 6000 gallons for heating and dHW for approximately 8000 sf commercial building.

When I was looking around for biomass boiler I found goliath-110 ( http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/goliath.html ) on the web.it looks like nice system but I like Garn as a boiler better because it has built in tank,more btu's and it is less complex sytem than other boilers.also it is approved in my town.may be I can use goliath's fuel supply system with Garn.best of both worlds !

Anyone who has feedback will be appreciated.

 

[brad068]

Garn,

I am interested in buying Garn-2000 boiler.Now I know you made your garn from scratch. As far as Garn knowledge concerns you must the most knowledgable person to ask about modification to garn.Here is my question :

Is it possible to add some kind of augur system to garn loading chamber where by the Garn will get continuous supply of woodchip at certain amount by controling the speed of augur motor? is it possible to put some kind of hole in the garn for this purpose without losing too much of Garn's efficiency?

or

Is it possible to add blower system to garn whereby it can blow certain load of wood chip at certain time interval and close the hole when it is not blowing chips into boiler ?

I am asking this because woodchip supply for me will be lot cheaper option for me than hardwood as there some sawmills around here I am talking to and they are ready to supply woodchip at $30-40 a ton delivered.Hardwood is about $225 per cord.I can also have option of using corn cob and sawdust.Hardwood should remain primary fuel and augur system should add some alternative like wood chip or sawdust to hardwood fuel.My average oil consumption for last 3 years has been between 5000 and 6000 gallons for heating and dHW for approximately 8000 sf commercial building.

When I was looking around for biomass boiler I found goliath-110 ( http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/goliath.html ) on the web.it looks like nice system but I like Garn as a boiler better because it has built in tank,more btu's and it is less complex sytem than other boilers.also it is approved in my town.may be I can use goliath's fuel supply system with Garn.best of both worlds !

Anyone who has feedback will be appreciated.

Yup, its called a scoop shovel. Little humor! I don't know how wood chips would work in a garn. I know that if you use a fuel source that has alot of surface area or combust fast it can be a, exciting to say the least! I think this set up is just perfect to burn chunk wood.
You would probably have to regulate the air intake and maybe construct a baffle to capture sparks/ small wood particles. I was thinking of using a big catalytic converter with the honeycomb guts.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I've got an 8" add-on cat that I used for two seasons, but seems to be in pretty good shape, that I could sell you, garnification. PM me if you're interested.

 

[leaddog]

I think that it should work with a garn because of the induced primary air set up. Here is a set up with a tarm that was sent to me. I haven't been able to get much more info yet but he used a induced draft set up to suck the gas into the gasification chamber. I'm playing around in my mind on coming up with a chip system for my eko. The biggest problem is a back burn into the chip system and putting the chips into the chamber with out getting smoke blowing back. A primary blower connected to the delivery system is one way and an induced draft is an other. Lots of problems but fun to think about.
I was thinking about making a grate out of stainless to have the chips fall on but his screen is an idea also. I do think you need something that will let air get to the chips to get a better burn.
Also you need to be careful about wet chips and spontaneous combustion. I chip my limbs after they have dried so they are easy to store. But that makes it harder to feed them as they will back burn easyier.
Good luck if you go that way and keep us informed.
leaddog.

Sorry but the file is to big to post but if you pm me I will email it to you

 

[brad068]

I've got an 8" add-on cat that I used for two seasons, but seems to be in pretty good shape, that I could sell you, garnification. PM me if you're interested.

I don't think I've seen one of them. I was thinking of a converter off of a big diesel truck with the platinum inside. Or are the guts of a wood stove cat the same thing?
I was thinking of putting it in the front part of the secondary chamber.

 

[brad068]

I think that it should work with a garn because of the induced primary air set up. Here is a set up with a tarm that was sent to me. I haven't been able to get much more info yet but he used a induced draft set up to suck the gas into the gasification chamber. I'm playing around in my mind on coming up with a chip system for my eko. The biggest problem is a back burn into the chip system and putting the chips into the chamber with out getting smoke blowing back. A primary blower connected to the delivery system is one way and an induced draft is an other. Lots of problems but fun to think about.
I was thinking about making a grate out of stainless to have the chips fall on but his screen is an idea also. I do think you need something that will let air get to the chips to get a better burn.
Also you need to be careful about wet chips and spontaneous combustion. I chip my limbs after they have dried so they are easy to store. But that makes it harder to feed them as they will back burn easyier.
Good luck if you go that way and keep us informed.
leaddog.

Sorry but the file is to big to post but if you pm me I will email it to you

Like I said, I think you would have to restrict the air intake. The induced fan motor is a 3/4 hp 3450 motor with a 9", 8 blade fan wheel. These things move alot of air.
You want the gases not the unburned fuel particles, because it will suck them right through and push them out the chimney. I seen High E throw a spray can cap into his dormant boiler and it sucked it right through and crapped it out on the ground a little tore up. The old saying " could suck start a Harley!" I think so.

 

[heaterman]

After a little thought, I doubt that it would work in the standard Garn firebox at all. The Garn is designed to burn a lot of BTU's worth of wood in a relatively short time. As such the box is way too big to be fed just a bit of combustible material at a time. Control of the fire and emissions would be problematic due to excess air. A smaller fire would also dictate a reduction in heat exchanger capacity or else you'd wind up with some very messy condensation problems. The Garns are made to combust and transfer 300K+ per hour so when you burn substantially less than that you're in trouble.

If you want a continuous feed type boiler that handles pelletized or briquetted fuel I'll wager that within 2-3 years, we'll see some WAY cool stuff coming over from Europe. That is if the US $$ is worth anything by that time. Why this country is so far behind the curve on alternative fuel equipment is beyond me. Not much demand I guess or else some lucky manufacturer would be supplying gobs of these things.


Check these out and then call your US congressman to complain that our liability laws are keeping excellent products like this out of our country.

(broken link removed to http://www.froeling.com/en/products/pellet/p2_pellet_burner.html)

 

[Happy]

Heaterman,

What if instead of using continuous augur feed system using some kind of mechanism to dump some chip load at every 30 to 40 minutes interval and burn it at full capacity of garn ? I cheked some case studies in U.K. Where they use frolling boilers but they are lot expensive ($50,000 approx for 110 KW).Goliath is about $18,500 for 110 KW boiler.I have no doubt Frolling will have superior quality but it is still close to 3 times more expensive than goliath.Also goliath is available in USA now.I do not know anyone selling Frolling in USA.

If you were in my situation and you have to choose between Goliath-110 and Garn-2000 what would you buy?

I thank everybody who are giving their input here. here are some links :

(broken link removed)

(broken link removed)

http://www.wood-fuel.co.uk/Downloads/KWB_chips_technical.pdf