Pellergy pellet boiler

[Luvmesomesamples]

It's work great! I haven't burned a drop of oil since October 8th and the house hasn't ever been warmer. I sold my pellet insert that I used last year that was significantly undersized and now use the pellet boiler exclusively. I have been playing around with the right differential to have my programable thermostat on and have landed on 68 degrees with a 3 degree diff. On the coldest days it has been running 13 hours at 13 pounds per hour but on average I think it will be about 2 tons per month or less.

My bulk delivery of vermont softies have been amazing. Loving not having to worry about bags anymore. I did my 2 ton cleaning and was a bit surprised on how much ash there was, but heck I used to have to clean my harman almost every day. I did adjust so that the system will chit down every 120 min and clean out with compressed air so the burn pot stays cleaner. I think that will help.

The timer is a square d and not sure where the electrician picked it up. There is another 10 min timer that is tied to the circulators. The nice thing about this one is that it is right there for me to adjust in case I I want to disable the pellet boiler and kick in the oil, like on the days I get my bulk deliveries or when I am cleaning the pb.

I have attached the pics of the timer below. Hopefully you can get onto bulk soon!

Ben (broken image removed)(broken image removed)

 

[velvetfoot]

Thanks! Sounds like it's working out really well!

 

[ThisOldPelletHouse]

A year and a half in, how's this system doing? We're looking at doing something similar - curious about how often you clean it, and how time consuming/labor intensive that process is.

Thanks!

 

[Luvmesomesamples]

I couldn't be happier on how it has performed! Last year I burned 13.5 ton but only 5.5 this year including my hot water maker! Obviously a much warmer winter but with a few insulation projects this past summer I should shake out around 10 on average. The company i purchased through (Vermont renewable fuels) bought their own pellet mill and I find their bulk pellets even better than Vermont softies! They are less expensive and I get priority service which I appreciate.

As for cleaning I do it every 225-250 hours of fun time. This can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks depending on the weather. My most recent cleaning went from 2/20 to 3/22! Very easy to do and takes about 45 min to shovel out the bottom of boilers, wire brush passages, fins, vertical stove pipe, and scrape burn pot. The compressor takes care of clean out in between cleanings and the system will automatically shut down if the ash build up gets to large.

I feel like I have paid back at least 4K of my investment back over the past 2 years even with oil prices being so low. Extremely happy to be nice and warm without feeling guilty while supporting a local business! Let me know if you have any other question old house!

Ben

 

[Former Farmer]

As for cleaning I do it every 225-250 hours of fun time.

FUN TIME - LOL!

Gotta love our pellet boilers. I didn't run mine this past winter with LP being cheaper. Kind of missed not running it though, even with the extra work involved loading, cleaning, etc.

 

[Luvmesomesamples]

Couldn't agree more. Oil was $1.86 here which is very close to my break even...maybe saving a little with pellets because of the efficiency difference between by two boilers. Doesn't matter though, love pellet heat!

 

[ThisOldPelletHouse]

Thanks so much for the reply, Luvmesome! We'll probably do it, just trying to figure out storage now. Short basement so we'd have to build something. Glad to hear your experience has been so positive!

 

[Wilbur Feral]

If anyone has experience using a boiler to heat a snow melting loop, I would really like to hear about it. Our steep driveway is the biggest hindrance to staying in our current house as we age, but putting in a snow melting loop could largely address that. No natural gas here, and not a great location for propane tanks, but I could easily put in a pellet boiler. We burn up to six tons in our regular stoves each year, and I figure that if the boiler were only on when snow melting was needed, it shouldn't take more than another ton or two. There appear to be some companies that can install the tubing by cutting into the asphalt (then paving over them), and I would run a glycol mix, so I think I can make this work. But hearing from someone that actually does it would be great.