Biasi boiler??

[Normande]

I resently ran acrossed these cast iron boilers, they can burn wood or soft coal, they also have some of the most efficient oil boilers I have found. Very cost effective units.
Here the web site
www.qhtinc.com

 

[webbie]

They've been discussed here for a couple years - the original model looks like it is most coal - or dirty with wood - but I like the looks of that new pirowood model.

 

[flameretardant]

I have a 3-wood6. I use sub-bituminous coal. I heat 3400 sq. feet, off-grid with ~16 watts continuous power requirement and 5-6 tonnes of coal per year. The coal costs $40/tonne so fuel is $200-240 per year. I clean it about every 3 weeks. Only downside is the ash pan is small and when burning coal I have to empty it twice a day. I stoke it twice a day in cold (-40- -15C) weather, once a day in cool (-15 - 0C) weather and every 2 days in mild (above freezing) weather. If I stoke at least once a day, I can light the fresh coal off the glowing coals so there's no re-kindling. House is T-shirt toasty. We hit -38C this past winter with the baby running naked around the kitchen.