Tarm Solo Plus 60 MK II Wood Gasifier Boiler Opinions

[landrand]

I'm looking to purchase a never used 2004 Tarm Solo Plus 60 MK II wood gasification boiler (198,000 BTU/Hr) from a local party for $5,000 and use it to heat a house/garage/workshop I will be building next year. The boiler was purchased around 2005 but was never installed and has been sitting on a pallet in a garage ever since. Although this Tarm boiler model has been discontinued, according to the manufacturer, most spare parts are available. Looking for opinions on this boiler and whether or not $5k is a reasonable price. Thanks and I look forward to hearing your comments.

 

[Bad LP]

It's a fair price but a tad on the higher side IMHO.
What are your plans for storage?

 

[landrand]

It's a fair price but a tad on the higher side IMHO.
What are your plans for storage?

In my current house I've been heating with a Hearthstone wood stove. Unfortunately, I'm new to wood boilers so I'm starting to do the research and learning to come up with an ideal setup. I live in Northern Michigan so the winters are severe. My high level plan is the wood boiler coupled with a secondary propane boiler and water heat storage. The specifics details still need to be ironed out.

My understanding is a new boiler would be somewhere in the $8K range. The Tarm Solo Plus 60 boiler for sale is only a few miles away from me so buying this new old stock Tarm would enable me to save on shipping costs and sales tax.

 

[peakbagger]

I woudl suggest calling the folks at https://www.woodboilers.com/. They probably imported it and participate on this site.

 

[sardo_67]

i would say go for it, those boilers have the build in scrapers you can use with the door closed, can be in the high 80s for efficiency, digital control so just throw wood in and set it then walk away. HS Tarm is still in business in NH and i just ordered parts from them for my 1979 made MB55 solo so support is still available for them.

does the boiler come with any extra parts? the plumbing side can get expensive FAST so if the guy i selling any controls or piping that can help, i just spent $1700 with tarm last week for some control parts.


check out my post here, the attached PDF file has a LOT of good info, i talked with Tcaldwell here who has given me some really good info along with chris at HS Tarm
https://hearth.com/talk/threads/diy-heat-storage.164486/page-2#post-2280128

 

[landrand]

There are several boxes of items with the stove. They appear to be an Ex 2200 draft fan (item no. 21.0506) and a control panel with two analog readouts/adjustable know. Doesn't include anything else as far as I can tell.

I'm a Electrical Engineer by trade, so it would be fun to research and find all the other necessary items, preferably at discount prices, and eventually come up with a complete design and system. I do have a used propane boiler in my garage as well as several newer water pumps that I picked up several years ago. I anticipate putting together my own water/heat storage system. This summer I came across a very large stainless steel (3/16" thick) water storage tank and I could've had it for $200. Thought I'd use it for something, unfortunately I didn't buy it.

 

[Bad LP]

The guys at Tarm are great. They sell ASME rated tanks and while not cheap I don't have to worry about any insurance company issues if I had a problem. I was going to have a couple of LP tanks reworked but the hassle and weight just had me say screw it.

Pipe, fittings, pumps, valves, controls and misc items add up. You are going to need some serious volume for storage.

 

[BoiledOver]

If you are interested in using propane tanks for thermal storage and are close to Wellston, Fischer LP Gas might be a source for you. They have a tank recertification facility there that includes a powder coating line. They had an abundance of rejects and I got one from them to add to another already sourced 500 gallon tank.

 

[landrand]

Pipe, fittings, pumps, valves, controls and misc items add up. You are going to need some serious volume for storage.

This is probably a dumb question since there are so many variables yet to be determined....but how many gallons of volume storage would i be looking at with a 198,00 btu boiler?

 

[sardo_67]

This is probably a dumb question since there are so many variables yet to be determined....but how many gallons of volume storage would i be looking at with a 198,00 btu boiler?

as much as you can get to be honest but 1,000 gallons would be ideal. a lot more goes into it like heat load and what you are expecting to get from it like filling it once a day or once every other day. if you do radiant floor heat that will work at 120* where radiator need to be 160* or more ideally.

what methods do you plan on heating your house, garage and shop with?

 

[Bad LP]

This is probably a dumb question since there are so many variables yet to be determined....but how many gallons of volume storage would i be looking at with a 198,00 btu boiler?

I'm using 2, 300 gallon tanks. As mentioned below you're going to be in the 1000 gallon range. There is a formula to determine proper storage but I forget what it was. I found it in the Tarm data.

 

[landrand]

what methods do you plan on heating your house, garage and shop with?

House main floor will be approximately 2000 sq feet and will be well insulated. Will probably utilize radiant in floor heat, but haven't fully made up my mind yet.

Basement will be cement floor with radiant floor heat.

Garage will be approx 40 x 60 with radiant floor heat.

Shop will be 20x24. Will have to use some kind of radiator as the structure is already built and has a plywood floor. Would only need to keep this area around 50 deg F in the winter.

Wood Sauna bldg will be 12x16. Thought it might be nice to have radiant floor heat to ensure bldg is always above freezing.

 

[sardo_67]

oh god damn, you have a compound in the making hahah

if you do radiant floor heat i think you can build the most efficient system, fill the boiler with wood, let it rip and heat the water and storage to 190*. then you can run off the storage till it gets to 120* or so before you really need to fire it again, or you may just need to do a half load once a day depending on heating needs and storage capacity. the floor heat will use a mixing valve so you will set it to say 120* along with using variable speed circ pumps therefor your storage won't get drained as fast.
i would call or email chris ([email protected]) at Tarm and talk to him, he can fill you in on the best way to go about it, after 25 or 30 min of talking to him all this started making a lot more sense to me. this forum is really good but in a way its too much info as every time i answered one question i had 2 more, once you decide on the boiler find one design guy and one plumber then go with their plan, early on i was trying to listen to too many people.

the way Tarm does it is you get a big main mixing valve and computer controller that controls all of the hot water as well as switching from wood to oil/gas/back up boiler as needed. when my parts come in i will update my other thread and be posting a lot more pics as i go.

 

[maple1]

I have 660 gallons, 40kw boiler. Sizing storage is more related to your heatload & how long you want to go between burns (aside from depleted storage being able to hold at least a full burns worth of heat). We are in a 20 year old 2 storey house on an open hilltop with baseboard. I would love to have more storage. As it is I burn once a day and have to use some tricks to get my storage to keep the house from cooling off before it's burn time again. I would consider 1000 a minimum with what it sounds like you will have going on. And low temp radiation as much as possible (in-floor or panel rads or cast iron).

Also consider where you will want to be making fires at. All winter long. Mine is in my basement - I like it being that close, and all heat loss is to the house. If you don't want the fire & wood in your basement or house, I would put it in an outbuilding where standby heat loss can be used. Boiler and entire winters wood. That might require making your shop bigger. (I would say garage but typical garages generally aren't a good place for a wood burner). You could also put storage there too, or put that in the basement. Boiler & storage work better together if right next to each other, for overheat protection & all that, but now you're getting into making choices of a 6 of one half dozen the other nature...

 

[Bad LP]

If you're already doing RFH in the other areas I can't think of a single reason not to continue with RFH in the house and you should take a serious look at putting the pex in Gypcrete. You will not be bothered with needing hotter water for the baseboard areas unless you go with Rutal BB ($$$$) or panel radiators. It's the mistake I made.
One of these days I will remove the BB and replace with panels.

 

[landrand]

Yesterday, I found a stainless steel tank (approx 3' diameter x 8' long). It has been inside an old building for 70 years or so and I believe was used to store hot water for showers in a miners dry (Iron ore mine). I don't know the thickness of the tank but I'm going to go take another look at it today. A quick calculation shows the tank holds at least 423 gallons as I didn't include the dome shaped ends. Heck, it may even be a 500 gal tank as I measured the dimensions with my size 13 boot.

I'll probably be able to get the tank for scrap metal prices. Anything I need to look closely at when inspecting for use as heat storage for this Tarm wood boiler?

 

[Bad LP]

I looked for stainless tanks but by the time i bought it (not so cheap) and shipped it it was too much of a hassle. Your experience may be different.

 

[maple1]

Has to be able to stand the pressure.

 

[sardo_67]

Yesterday, I found a stainless steel tank (approx 3' diameter x 8' long). It has been inside an old building for 70 years or so and I believe was used to store hot water for showers in a miners dry (Iron ore mine). I don't know the thickness of the tank but I'm going to go take another look at it today. A quick calculation shows the tank holds at least 423 gallons as I didn't include the dome shaped ends. Heck, it may even be a 500 gal tank as I measured the dimensions with my size 13 boot.

I'll probably be able to get the tank for scrap metal prices. Anything I need to look closely at when inspecting for use as heat storage for this Tarm wood boiler?

it's probably 400 gallons, a 500 gallon propane tank is 37" across and 10ft long with the dome ends included, if you can get it then go for it.

there is a guy on CL in south western NY selling dual 500 gallon propane tanks that were professional converted into hot water storage tanks, he wan'ts 2500 for the set up though.

 

[landrand]

I found a supplier of used 500 gal propane tanks who will sell them to me for $600 each. Is $600 a fair price? My next question is should I plan on using 2 or 3 of these 500 gal tanks for heat storage. Again, the Tarm boiler I bought is 198,000 BTU/Hr. If I don't use them for storage, I could use a tank or two for propane.