How's your pellet boiler performing?

[Trout]

With meteorological spring, I thought it would be a good time to see how the pellet boilers have been performing.

House: 3,000 sq/ft - not well insulated house with 1 zone with 10 cast iron rads, containing 140 gallons of water. No buffer tank. House temp set to 68 day, 67 night.
Boiler: Pellergy Alpha (Windhager 260).
Hours run: 1534
Starts: 872
Average starts per day: 6
Pellets burned: 6.17 tons
Weather: record setting February

Bottom line, we have been very comfortable and Alpha has performed flawlessly.

 

[velvetfoot]

House: 2,000 ft2 colonial, built 2003, 120 gal buffer tank, boiler heats mostly upstairs and dhw with wood insert running, base of 66 but turned up in evening to 69
Boiler: Windhager 150
Hours run this season: 566
Starts this season: 231
Hours per start this season: 2.45
Pellets burned this season: 1.93 tons
Wood burned this season: 2.2 cords

Been running great.
Emptied ash container at 1.8 tons and container was packed.
Note: Pellets burned estimated actual, counting bags and level on fill box, can't trust the control panel for some reason.
First year, Demo unit, started with 73 hrs/35 starts-must add to above for totals

 

[iceguy4]

PB 105 third season Pellet consumption down (shrink plastic widows) I had my first problem I couldn't fix ( I should have fixed myself) ESP probe. All around, I'm happy with it. generally burn around 10 to 12 tons a season heating 2 buildings. Bulk hopper is a must. I also run on manual(no start and stop) and use my basement zone as a dump zone....currently 7 zones and will be expanded to 10 zones when completed.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Another PB105 in its third season. We've burned just about 6 tons of pellets. The dealer installed the redesigned "bulletproof" burnpot over the summer after the first two warped. Third appears to be the charm -- no bubble or cracks in this pot.

I have no way to monitor hours of use, but the combustion fan is running pretty consistently whenever I check on it. If I were to guess, I'd say the fan has been running for 2000-2500 hours so far this season.

There is a stretch just after 10 p.m. when the temperature setback gives the boiler a rest -- that's the time I usually reserve for maintenance like scraping the burnpot (every other day), cleaning the combustion fan (every 2-3 weeks) and running a brush up the vertical run of the vent (maybe every 6 weeks or so). I burn the cheapest pellets I can find, so ash is abundant. I probably empty the pan once a month in December through February.

Edit: Forgot to mention we're in a 2-story, 2300-sq.-ft. farmhouse, 2/3 brick built in 1899, 1/3 frame built in 1995.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

Pellergy PB1525 connected to a Buderus Logano 215 4 section boiler with 500 gallons of storage. I'm heating a 2200 sq. ft. colonial, with attached 864 sq. ft. garage and 864 sq. ft. apartment and DHW for both living spaces.

The house has 6 zones using programmable T-Stats set to 70 when we're home and 60 when we're gone.

The apartment has one zone set to 70 when people are home and 65 when they're away.

I keep the garage at 40 unless I'm out there working.

I've burned 8.8 tons since August 1st.

 

[Luvmesomesamples]

First season with my pellergy PB1525 connected to a Biasi 4 section boiler. Heating 3700 square feet using one zone of cast rads. I keep the tstat on 67 when we are home and 65 when we are not with a 2 degree diff. Working amazing so far, with only kicking over to my oil back up a couple occasions when the drop hose from my bulk bin clogged (really glad I kept the oil boiler inline as a back up supplement).

1400 hours since October including Dhw on 1200 starts.

Burned 8.5 tons of vermont softies so far.

 

[heaterman]

Just broke into the 8th ton this heating season. (Since second week of October)
The house ate nearly 2.5 Tons in February I suppose that not bad considering most mornings were below 0* and probably had 7-8 of them in the -20 to -30* range. Absolutely crazy heat demand.
The BioWin performed flawlessly and the house heated at the 21KW (71,000btu) setting all except for a couple mornings where the OD temp was -30* or even less. Got down to about 66* inside a couple times with boiler running between 90-100% output.
I've done nothing to the boiler other than routine cleaning every 7-800 hours since installation in 2013.

 

[bdud]

~2170 sqft colonial, pretty well insulated, 6 zones incl water, baseboard, 120 gallon buffer tank, 68F day & night, 70F evening.

Boiler: Windhager 260 set to 210 this season so these results are from Nov 1st 2014 till 2/22/15
Hours ran this season: 1106
Starts this season: 462
Average starts per day this season: 4
Hours run per start this season: 2.4hrs
Pellets burned this season: 2.57 tons
Total pellets: ~6.57 tons
Weather, cold
Working very nice.

I have a 1200sqft garage that is heated with a propane heater to 50F when I am not working out there, expensive to run.
Considering putting in a 80,000 btu hydronic heater if I can work out how to to get pex out there.
I am sure I will have to put it back to 260.

 

[katman]

Tird full season with the PB105, which is located in my uninsulated barn approximately 100 feet from 3000 sq ft house. Burned 8 tons and just got another. House usually is at 70 but on a few windy days we dropped down to 66.

 

[CaptainK]

House: ~1600sq/ft - well insulated house with 2 zones with radiant floor. No buffer tank. House temp set to M-T 70 day, 68 night. F-S 72 Day 68 Night.
Boiler: MeSys Autopellet (Okofen)
Average starts per day: 6
Pellets burned: ~3 tons
Weather: record setting February (I'm in southern Maine too.)

Bottom line, very happy with our new system. This is the first winter with it. When the weather is very cold (<0°F) it runs non-stop on its lowest mod. to keep the temp if its trying to warm the place up it runs at about 50%. (Up to 100% when there is a demand for DHW)

Ecobee thermostat has helped with the highs and lows. It does a great job of keeping the set temp.

After burning 3 tons we had to empty the ash bin for the first time, that was in January.

 

[velvetfoot]

Pellets burned estimated actual, counting bags and level on fill box, can't trust the control panel for some reason.

Just to correct this, I think this was because the boiler was set at 10 kw (vs. 15 kw) part of the time. I just compared an estimate of what was burned more recently at the 15 kw level with the panel, and it was quite close.

 

[SmokeEater]

Ordered 12 ton in the fall from my supplier, a hardware that delivers, and just received the last 4 ton load of Curran's. I had a ton to start the season and now have 5 ton remaining. My PB105 ran on auto all winter and I don't think it ever shut down due to satisfied temps in the house. Keep the thermostat at 71 day and night and the only time it dropped below that was when the temps OD dropped to -30 with a 20 to 30 mph wind. The boiler had no trouble keeping the buffer at 180, but I don't yet have enough radiation to handle the heat loss upstairs. Have a 100 gallon buffer and an oil backup. Burned 8 tons to date.