Price Question on Central Boiler

[trumpeterb]

I am interested in purchasing a new outdoor wood furnace for my home, and there is a central boiler dealer close to where I live. He came to my house today and quoted me a price on a complete install of a model 5036 with about 112 feet of thermopex, in-floor heat for a house with a footprint of about 1400 sq. feet, a side-arm heat exchanger for my water heater, and a plate exchanger that will heat both my swimming pool and a hot tub. The total for this install was going $18,000. He doesn't do partial installs...he does it all or I do it all. It seemed a bit high to me, but I wanted other opinions and suggestions on this before I pull the trigger.

 

[maplewood]

I've been reading advice from this web site for over 2 years. It gave me the confidence to buy my new gasification boiler, and do/oversee the design and installation myself. I've got a certified plumber, advice from 2 local heat specialists and all my friends here on hearth.com with their wealth of experience. I'm adding infloor piping to 1376 sf, the boiler and re-doing all my existing mixing for about $11K US.
Good luck.
Happy burning.

 

[Gooserider]

It might also be worth looking at doing other alternatives to CB - If you do some searching, you will see some serious reports of problems with the CB gasification units that IMHO suggest significant design problems. You will also find plenty of issues with the pollution problems, excess wood consumption, etc. of the traditional OWB design units...

I'd consider doing a shed or barn w/ a gasification unit in it, along w/ an appropriate storage setup, which can also be sized to give you covered wood storage, or otherwise useful space... The up front costs might be a little more, but you will save a lot in the time / money needed to get the wood to feed it, along with the other benefits of a gasification system.

Gooserider

 

[stee6043]

I agree with the above but I will also add that $18,000 does not seem excessive considering all that you are having installed. I assume you could trim $5,000 out of the number (+/-) by doing the install yourself...