EKO 40

[bigbear]

Can you guys give me the good, bad and ugly about this unit? I think I've wore the search button out on here and on google researching boilers. For the money this looks like a well made boiler that should serve me adequately. I have a 2400 sq. ft. ranch house (1200 each floor) and want to replace my harman tl300 with a boiler to get even heat throughout the house. My biggest concern, that hopefully those with experience with the EKO 40 can comment on, will it burn through the night on a load of wood? Or during the day while at work?

I found 1 that was used only a builders show for demo purposes that comes with a Taco 007 circ. pump and a small expansion tank for $5000. Is that a good price?

Would the 40 be overkill and the 25 would suffice in my situation?

 

[hartkem]

I have this boiler in an outbuilding. Overall im happy with the build quality and performance of it for what I paid. I don't like how much it smokes during loading but some of that is my fault. Others on here load only when down to coals to reduce this problem. I would still think a smoke hood would be in order if it was in the house. I can tell you that if the boiler is running all out without idling it will only burn about 4 hrs. This 4 hr burn time will heat my house all night since I have 500 gallons of storage. If you don't have storage the burn time will be longer because it will idle a lot more but then the efficiency goes down. I think I paid 5000 for my mine new. If your house is 1200 main floor and 1200 basement then I bet the 25 would be adequate but if you get storage then the 40 could give you long times between burns with 1000 gallons of storage. Really need a heat load calc though.

 

[Nofossil]

I only have an Eko 25, but I'll echo the comment on storage. These things really are happier if they can run flat out and charge storage rather than idling all night. The 'big logs / smolder all night' model is not what gasifiers are designed for.

That being said, I ran my first year without storage. I never made it through the night, but we didn't freeze either. I tried to do lots of small fires and small reloads so that the fire more or less matched the heat load.

If storage is out of the question for the first year I wouldn't give up, but I'd definitely plan for storage and plumb with connections so that you can add storage later.

 

[timberr]

I have an EKO 25 with 500 gal. of storage and am very happy with it. There are gasserers out there that are sexier, and have more bell's and whistles but the EKO is a great workhorse, gets the job done. My suggestions, use storage and really try to get it in when you install the boiler. That is what I did because I knew if I didn't something would come up the next year and prevent it from happening.

I am heating 1800 sq. ft., DHW and a out door hot tub. Because of storage I replace the first floor base board to take advantage of lower temp water.

The $5,000 price good price if they are delivering it.

Good Luck

 

[stee6043]

I have the EKO 40 and have been exceedlingly happy with it.

There are a lot of folks on this site that run both with and without thermal storage. If you are able to acheive an overnight burn with an EKO 40 it means the unit is dramatically oversized for your heat load and that you're wasting a lot of wood. But it certainly sounds acheivable depending on the kind of wood you plan to run and your actual heat load requirements.

An EKO 25 is probably better for you if you never plan to install storage but do care about the efficiency of the system. But it also means more, smaller fires. If you do intend on letting the boiler idle overnight then the 40 is probably a better bet because you can stuff more wood in there. A heat load calc is a good place to start no matter what.

 

[Bob Rohr]

I have had my EKO 40 since 2006, aside from door gasket leaks, which I consider a consumable, it has been a troublefree product.

Wood boilers are a bit like children. Their behavior and performance has a lot to do with the parenting.

Feed, maintain, and teach them well, learn their idiosyncrasies and plan for some stumbles and disagreements.

Wood burning is a fun and fulfilling hobby, embrace the experience. Read up and learn from the experiences here, visit often.