EKO 40 or 60 Integrated with Existin System

[JMann]

Hi All, Great site - tons of information.

I am getting ready to pull the trigger on purchasing a wood boiler and have decided upon the EKO line. I have two questions:

1. What size should I go for - I currently have 1,800ft2 and want to add another 500ft2 in a few years. I also want to use this boiler to heat our domestic hot water.

2. Does this system (EKO) have the ability to tie into my existing oil furnace (for a backup) and electric hot water heater (in the summer and for backup as well).

I spoke briefly with the designer a few days back and he had tons of information but talked fast and had a heavy accent. I'm a total greenhorn when it comes to this concept but I'm totally consumed with gathering the information and the overall idea of getting this installed before the Summer ends.

JMann

 

[Eric Johnson]

Welcome to the Boiler Room, JMann. Actually, the guy you talked to is the importer, Zenon Pawlowski of New Horizon Corp. He probably knows as much about the boiler as the designers and manufacturers, who are in Poland.

Yes, you can do all the things you mentioned in the above post, if you put in a heat storage tank for the summer hot water.

I wouldn't go any bigger than an EKO 40 with your heat load, and perhaps as small as the 25. What you should really do is perform a heat loss calculation on your house, and then size your boiler accordingly. You can download a free heat loss calculator from:

http://www.heatinghelp.com

 

[JMann]

Thanks for the quick response. Do you have any idea of the size tank I may need? I haven't done any research on that, as I was thinking of adding that later if needed. I have a tank above my existing oil heater, and I also have the electric hot water heater. Any chance of limping by for a few seasons with that? I'm sure that it's probably best to get it all in at once but since I haven't looked into storage, I've no idea what the cost of obtaining and installing would be (maybe it would fit into the budget especially if I go with the 25 or 40 over the 60). Thanks for the heat loss calculator, I'll be getting into that tonight.

JMann

 

[Eric Johnson]

You don't have to add storage right away. It's one of those really nice luxuries that you'll probably want to add once you've used your new boiler for a season or two. The only thing is that you can't heat domestic hot water in the summer without a storage tank, and accurately sizing your boiler is more important if you're not going to start out with storage. People usually have from 500 gallons to 1,000+ gals for storage. That's a whole nother topic that you can research here.

 

[JMann]

I am looking into financing the boiler through a PA state sponsored loan program. The snag there is that if I go with a product that is not energy star rated, my financing rate could jump almost four percentage points! That made me take another look at the EconoBurn boilers. They are energy star rated and seem to be very similar to the EKO. The issue that I have with that is this site really has very little info on them, and what it does have makes me want to stick with the EKO (which I'm already partial to) because of the laundry list of issues. What are your (or anyones) thoughts on the EconoBurn?

 

[mtnmizer]

What are your (or anyones) thoughts on the EconoBurn?

I ordered a 150 last week. Reviews are sparse and is was difficult to decide. I had a number
of questions and when I call and talked with the salesman, Hank, he refered my to their tech person
Dan Goede who promptly called me and was most helpfull in answering all my questions. As to
the product itself, time will...but so far so good. Made in the usa was a plus for me. The designs between
tarm, eco and econoburn seem very similar.

At this point I'm going to build a non pressurized storage system out of poured concrete lined
with epdm. Heat exchanger will be 200ft copper pipe. My plan is to flow from boiler into
storage tank then into existing boiler and out to demand and back.

This gave me sticker shock but propane at the last fill is at $2.30/gal so because
of our virtually unlimited supply of wood it should be a good move..

Will post more as things progress

MM