Comments on good or bad indoor pellet boilers

[Slappy1]

I am thinking of purchasing an indoor pellet boiler and am looking for any recommendations on indoor wood pellet water boilers. I have baseboard hot water radiators currently.

Thanks
Slap

 

[Sting]

What questions do you have?

Have you done a heat loss calculation on the load you intend to heat so YOU know what energy production capability you need? One comment would be don't buy one too big and that takes some work on your part.

 

[sinnian]

I am very happy with mine (see links on signature), and I know Sting has the same model as well. While there are some fancier models and brands starting to come to the US from Europe, the Traeger/Pinncicle is made right here in North America and has a proven track record. My best advice though would be to buy a pellet boiler from a PELLET BOILER dealer, not a pellet stove dealer. They are very different and require specialized knowledge, different from pellet stoves.

Btw, I have 2 zones, about 2500 square feet cape cod style house and used about 800 gallons of oil per year. I bought 6 tons and have 2.7 tons left so far, and burn between 2 - 3 bags per day, sometimes a bit more depending on how cold it is.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I like my Harmon PB105. I have 4 heat zones currently being used and two more waiting to be used in the future. I'm have a 2000 sq. ft ranch and I'm burning a little over 700 pounds per week. I bought 8 tons and I project I'll make it to late March before I'll have to get some more.

 

[bruceM]

I am new to the pellet boiler scene , but I purchased a Harman PB 105 , been operating for a month with heat problems , I have found my dealer to know nothing about them , and Harman Tech Support forget, they are useless . My problem has been producing heat .Boiler would heat slowly with no water moving but when circ came on forget it . I found out last night by removing the so called aquastat /thermister I had the best heat since its been in ,it was promising this thing could work . From what i have read after problems are worked out people do like the Harman.

Bruce in vermont

 

[paul2e]

Happy with my tarm 2.5.
I like the size of the hopper. I estimate it holds 10 bags. As with any wood burning, it does require cleaning. I check the fire box daily, move the ashes to the built in pan every other day, empty it weekly and seriously clean it about every three weeks - turbulators, everything.
This unit is a bit oversized for my application: btu/sq ft/degree day. This means it idles a bit more then I would like.
I installed it myself and I will be changing things around next summer. Mine is in series with the oil burner so it could be alot more efficient. Then again I remind myself I have not burned any oil since Halloween...
Be sure to review the safety settings to avoid any possibility of a 'burn back' event
The quality of the pellets can be an issue.

 

[Freefromoil]

I have had Janfire Bosch boiler 3 years/ It is quality system but Janfire burner has constant issues with ashscrape error. (This 20,000 system is supposed to be low maintenance, but I have to wake up once or twice a week to fix clean the surface of the burnpot.) This is simply poor design and noone has been able to find a solution including engineers from bosch. I'm hoping eventually for an update or newer pellet gun to fix this. I may recommend checking out the Okofen that MES now has as seems to be quality system, but not cheap. Otherwise I've been happy with pellets/ bin holds 3-4 tons lasts about 2 months/ and is cheaper than oil and delivery just as convenient/

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Where I work, they used to run a CB Maxim pellet boiler. The welder would pass the plumber as one was leving a repair and the other was arriving for a repair. Finally one morning as I drove into the parking lot, I noticed smoke rolling out of the shed the boiler is in. Upon inspection, flames were shooting up out of the top of the boiler. I think they have actually come out with a fire suppression system that uses water from the boiler to put out the fire.

Can't say I'm any expert on these, but they seem like junk from what I've seen.

 

[harttj]

Where I work, they used to run a CB Maxim pellet boiler. The welder would pass the plumber as one was leving a repair and the other was arriving for a repair. Finally one morning as I drove into the parking lot, I noticed smoke rolling out of the shed the boiler is in. Upon inspection, flames were shooting up out of the top of the boiler. I think they have actually come out with a fire suppression system that uses water from the boiler to put out the fire.

Can't say I'm any expert on these, but they seem like junk from what I've seen.

The maxims have had Hopper fires with pellets mainly when power was lost. They do come with fire suppression from water now that does not require power to operate.

I do like mine and have not had issues.

 

[Fsappo]

We sell the Pinnacle PB150 here just north of Syracuse. For the most part they are very trouble free. The reason I sell them is they are very easy to work on. Everything is right there and easy to get too. Kinda like the old days when you could open the hood of your car and see the sparkplugs. When installed and maintained properly they make for very happy customers.

 

[rowerwet]

Where I work, they used to run a CB Maxim pellet boiler. The welder would pass the plumber as one was leving a repair and the other was arriving for a repair. Finally one morning as I drove into the parking lot, I noticed smoke rolling out of the shed the boiler is in. Upon inspection, flames were shooting up out of the top of the boiler. I think they have actually come out with a fire suppression system that uses water from the boiler to put out the fire.

Can't say I'm any expert on these, but they seem like junk from what I've seen.

The maxims have had Hopper fires with pellets mainly when power was lost. They do come with fire suppression from water now that does not require power to operate.

I do like mine and have not had issues.

burn back can happen if you loose power and the drop from the upper auger to the lower auger is full of pellets, I found directions on another thread to slow down the feed rate on the upper auger (it came set rather to fast) so it keeps the drop open. This does lower the ultimate upper BTU rating on my boiler as if it is burning at 100% the upper auger won't feed the pellets to the lower auger fast enough, this is not a problem for me. the "paddle" in the burn pot burns away and warps but my dealer gives me "paddles" for free, they were rolling out a stainless paddle but I didn't get one yet. Other than that I have not had issues.

 

[Westchoper]

We're on the third season with our Tarm 2.5 and it has been a good learning experience. When there is a demand for heat, the boiler does very well. We're getting measured output of 84-85% efficiency and clean, low stack temps so I feel we can extract the BTU's from the fuel as designed. In the shoulder seasons or when there is no demand for heat, it has taken us a while to get the idling, heat dump zones and delays programmed to consistently work and not have burn backs. There are many variables that we have had to refine to get the system to work as planned. We have reduced our annual oil consumption form 1300 gal to about 100 by just using the oil boiler in the fall before it makes sense to fire the Tarm for full time heat production.
I would start with a good analysis of how many daily BTU's you need for heat and DHW and then decide if you want a boiler that needs to run 24/7 or one that has a robust system to auto extinguish and reignite so it will act more like an typical cold start on demand boiler. In our area of Maine, the 2010 annual heating degree days (HDD days) were 20% less than what data was used by the system designer in 2008. Good data and knowledge of your particular household construction and demand will help you decide if a pellet boiler would be a better choice over a stand alone pellet stove with a good size hopper.

 

[harttj]

Where I work, they used to run a CB Maxim pellet boiler. The welder would pass the plumber as one was leving a repair and the other was arriving for a repair. Finally one morning as I drove into the parking lot, I noticed smoke rolling out of the shed the boiler is in. Upon inspection, flames were shooting up out of the top of the boiler. I think they have actually come out with a fire suppression system that uses water from the boiler to put out the fire.

Can't say I'm any expert on these, but they seem like junk from what I've seen.

The maxims have had Hopper fires with pellets mainly when power was lost. They do come with fire suppression from water now that does not require power to operate.

I do like mine and have not had issues.

How
burn back can happen if you loose power and the drop from the upper auger to the lower auger is full of pellets, I found directions on another thread to slow down the feed rate on the upper auger (it came set rather to fast) so it keeps the drop open. This does lower the ultimate upper BTU rating on my boiler as if it is burning at 100% the upper auger won't feed the pellets to the lower auger fast enough, this is not a problem for me. the "paddle" in the burn pot burns away and warps but my dealer gives me "paddles" for free, they were rolling out a stainless paddle but I didn't get one yet. Other than that I have not had issues.

How many paddles. I'm on my second and it still looks new.

Tim

 

[rowerwet]

from what my dealer told me I had my air settings to high, however after I matched them to my feed settings the paddle still burned away right near the end where the fire is, I removed the paddle during end of season cleaning and found it was full of cracks, after burning for a month or so this year it cracked through, from what my dealer told me, pellet burners use a new stirator ever season or so, no one around here is burning corn that I know of.

 

[harttj]

When I burned pellets this year my air was below my feed. On hi the air was min.

 

[rowerwet]

when I had the air set below the feed rate I got bad creosote in the fire box

 

[EcoHeat]

Here are a few things to look for in wood pellet boilers:

1. Automatic ignition vs. light and leave it. You'll get better system efficiency and cleaner running when there's automatic ignition. You can also use automatic ignition boilers year-round.

2. ASME-certified vs. non-ASME. Some states require, and some don't.

3. Automatic-cleaning vs. manual cleaning. Because wood pellets are solid biomass, pellet boilers MUST be cleaned, ideally weekly, to maintain efficiency. There's a big price difference between the two types of units.

4. Installer location. Installers will charge less and will be able to provide better after-sale service if they're close by. Only use an experienced central heating installer.

5. Pellet storage. Some have integral storage, and some have a separate hopper. Those with integral storage usually need to be refilled every day or two.

If you're burning about 800 gallons of oil, you'll average 2.0 bags of pellets per day in January. With 400 lb capacity storage, you'll need to refill every 5 days. With 1000 lb capacity storage you'll need to refill every 13 days on average (in January).

To displace 1000 gallons of heating oil, it's 2.5 BPDiJ(bags per day in January), 4 and 10 days refilling intervals.
1200 gallons heating oil, 3.0 BPDiJ, 3 and 8 days refilling intervals
1000 gallons propane, 1.6 BPDiJ, 6 and 15 days refilling intervals
1200 gallons propane, 2.0 BPDiJ, 5 and 13 day refilling intervals
1400 gallons propane, 2.3 BPDiJ, 4 and 11 day refilling intervals

If people are interested, I'll put this information in a document where it's easier to read.

 

[EffectaBoilerUser (USA)]

I have an effecta lambda 35 wood boiler which is also available with an option to "side mount" an effecta Supra pellet burner to the same wood boiler. Thus, you would be using the same high quality, very efficient and well built boiler (with heat exchanger tubes and all!) to efficienctly heat your home with pellets but if you ever wanted to heat with wood you'd be all set (obviously, if you used wood you would need to add water storage). You can check out the complete line of effecta products at www.effecta.us.

I have been running my effecta lambda boiler now for 4 months (and just went through a 2 week period in northern MIchigan where the temperatures didn't get above 15F and dropped to -17F at night) and it performed FLAWLESLY!

I would highley recommend the effecta products to ALL!

EBU

 

[Freefromoil]

Update on the janfire: Apparently they released a software update that had caused my boiler to constantly shortcycle. This was causing my system to have constant problems with its automatic ashscrape. The software has now been corrected and have had much better results.