What features would you like to see in an outdoor boiler?

[voodoochylde]

MODS - Please let me know if this sort of post isn't allowed. I'm not advertising or selling. I'm only looking for feedback.

Howdy,

I've recently been working for a welding and fabrication company. We're pretty small and looking to diversify, thanks to the serious degradation of coal here in West Virginia.

My boss has expressed interest in developing an outdoor wood burner. I can see a couple of ways to get there but I would like to have some community input.

If you would like to help, let me know what sort of features you would like to see on an outside burner. Any and all feedback is welcome.

One I've got is an semi-automatic ash removal system. Something that utilizes an auger to move ash into a metal container placed remotely (possibly a drum stored on a trailer).

 

[stee6043]

Around these parts there are too many fab shops building outdoor boilers to count. I'm not sure how any of them make money competing with each other for what I assume is a pretty small market.

Have your boss check in on where the EPA is heading with OWB regulations before you sink a lot of money into this venture. In the not so distant future I thinks it's a safe bet that only the manufacturers with deep pockets for engineering and testing will survive.

Best of luck!

 

[voodoochylde]

Hi stee6043,

I absolutely agree that new regs are a-comin'. I've gotten him curious about gasification and have discussed EPA phase 2 compliance.

You're also very likely correct about the semi-saturated market. That's exactly why I'm looking for feedback from experienced boiler operators. I'm trying to differentiate us from the other eleventy billion shops trying to hock barrel-in-a-barrel smoke dragons.

Thank you so much for your insight and clear thinking. I will start research on possible new rules for these appliances.

Oh, as far as profit goes, some quick and very dirty calculations indicated that we could build a traditional 180kbtu/hr smoke box for less than 2500. If it sells for even 4000, that's a pretty huge margin compared to bidding coal seperators and catwalks.

My intent is to design and build the best stove my pea brain can, at a fairer price than anyone local. I also aim to educate the consumer (assuming this makes it past planning) on sizing and PROPER usage of a wood-fired boiler (as in moisture content requirements, scheduling, adjusting fuel load to demand, clean out schedule, and the possible benefits of heavily insulated storage).

My resources are limited and I have no marketing or sales experience. I do have a BS in mechanical engineering, though I have never designed or built a boiler.

Take care and again, thanks!

 

[Roundgunner]

I like mine but wish it had a way to read boiler temp from my bed so I would know if I have to get up.

 

[voodoochylde]

Roundgunner, thanks for the feedback. Remote system monitoring is something I would like for my heating appliances as well.

Somewhat off-topic but is your boiler close enough to your house to use something like a wireless bbq thermometer? If you have wifi and your boiler is in range, you can also convert old, unused smart phones into web-cameras. Post one to show the indicators on your heater and login from another phone or any PC. You can even monitor at work.

 

[duramaxman05]

Keep it simple. I have a portage and main bl2840. It is very simple unit. A digital aquastat is the only electronic thing on it. As far as keeping an eye on boiler temps, I put a temp/pressure combo gauge in the supply line coming into the house in the basement. I just put a t in and put the gauge in the t. I should have the boiler up and running this weekend if everything goes well.

 

[bags]

Anything that you could do to reduce wood consumption would be great. Simple units are better in my opinion but with that there is less likelihood for reduced wood use. Put the damper handle out of the way somehow. I have a Wood Master 5500 and usually pull the damper out when loading to reduce eating smoke. It pulls out right above the door and is irritating or in the way somewhat. I can not tell you how many times I have hit my head on it loading the pig. Ticks me off.

Better insulation to keep the water hot longer. Many out there seem to lack somewhat. Maybe a mount for the coal rake to clip into. I lean mine right up on the front and it falls from time to time plus it scratches up the finish. Not that I'm that concerned but some others might be. Mine does have an auger the pulls ash out into a metal ash bucket. That is fairly nice. Didn't have it at first and shoveled the ash out which was not bad but another thing to do.

My ultimate dream would be to have one that cuts, splits, stacks, and loads the wood for ya with an out the door price of $500. LOL! Good Luck with your venture. There is always room for improvement. Get creative.

 

[maple1]

I can't see anyone being successful breaking into the OWB making business in this day & age, especially if they are coming in completely new to it. Do you make stuff that holds water now?

Before you even start to get into trying to design something, you should first see what you would have to face just to get an EPA sticker on it. That is a straw that will break the backs of some of those already in the business.

If you want something to think about that would really differentiate you from the rest - think about building a prewired insulated outbuilding type thing (big shed) that comes with a current indoor gassifying boiler in it and some water storage and will hold a winters worth of wood, that you can slide off a tilt bed and hook up to existing underground piping.

 

[stee6043]

Oh, as far as profit goes, some quick and very dirty calculations indicated that we could build a traditional 180kbtu/hr smoke box for less than 2500. If it sells for even 4000, that's a pretty huge margin compared to bidding coal seperators and catwalks.

It's entirely possible your gross margins could be as stated. But let's assume you have to invest $250,000 in getting a boiler tested and certified to meet the new regulations before you start selling it. Then let's assume you sell 250 boilers a year. That's going to add another $1,000 in overhead to each boiler you send out the door for the first year.

Perhaps you're also going to need a rather specialized engineer to manage the EPA requirements/designs in your shop. Let's assume, at the very low end, this is going to cost your company $100,000 a year all-up. That's another $400 per boiler in cost.

And just for kicks let's consider warranty. Let's assume an EPA compliant boiler will have a few more moving parts than a barrel in a barrel design. Nobody is perfect so let's say your failure rate in the first year will be something along the lines of 3%. That's 8 boilers. Let's assume those failures are considered DOA, it would cost more to repair than replace, so you simply send out a new boiler (freight pre paid) to the customer. To replace 8 boilers per year, including freight, is another $25,000 in cost. That's another $100 per boiler in cost.

So here we are at $2500+$1,000+$400+$100 = $4,000 cost.

Of course if you're accountant properly spreads overhead over all products you will likely take a hit on total operating margin but won't really see the cost hit the boilers. In setting up a business plan for the boilers you should really do some worst case estimating of what it should cost to produce each boiler, total cost (not just direct labor and material).

As one poster said above...based on what we see around here I wouldn't think the outdoor wood boiler market would be highly desirable to enter into at the moment. The big guys with teams of engineers may well be the only that can survive after the EPA gets done with this.

 

[woodsmaster]

I like maples idea. Someting all ready to go in a box with storage and insulation. Drop it in the yard, plug and play.

 

[shawntitan]

If you want something to think about that would really differentiate you from the rest - think about building a prewired insulated outbuilding type thing (big shed) that comes with a current indoor gassifying boiler in it and some water storage and will hold a winters worth of wood, that you can slide off a tilt bed and hook up to existing underground piping.

I'm surprised someone hadn't done this with an EKO-type boiler... Maybe put the whole thing in a seavan? I know the Garn is similar, in the "plug and play" aspect, but it would sure have been an easier sell for me to order a gasification stove, piped up, turnkey, with properly sized storage. I felt like I needed to be an engineer to set that system up myself, LOL.

 

[woodsmaster]

One feature I wish mine had is to automatically shut down everytime when it's out of fuel. Also a built in stack temp sensor which could also be used to shut it down...

 

[maple1]

I'm surprised someone hadn't done this with an EKO-type boiler... Maybe put the whole thing in a seavan? I know the Garn is similar, in the "plug and play" aspect, but it would sure have been an easier sell for me to order a gasification stove, piped up, turnkey, with properly sized storage. I felt like I needed to be an engineer to set that system up myself, LOL.

I think someone could make a go of it, without a lot of upfront capital investment. Lots of used storage containers out there, and used propane tanks. Can get containers here for $2k, tanks for another $1k. Not sure how big containers are, but you could use the front 10' for storage, boiler & expansion, then still have room for 10 full cords of wood in a 35' container. Paint the container to customer selection, add a man door up front for boiler access, put in the boiler of customer choice, hook it all up, and away you go.

Easy to say at least...

 

[maple1]

One feature I wish mine had is to automatically shut down everytime when it's out of fuel. Also a built in stack temp sensor which could also be used to shut it down...

You can add one pretty easy. Mine came with a stack stat, not much to it really.

 

[Chris Hoskin]

I'm surprised someone hadn't done this with an EKO-type boiler... Maybe put the whole thing in a seavan? I know the Garn is similar, in the "plug and play" aspect, but it would sure have been an easier sell for me to order a gasification stove, piped up, turnkey, with properly sized storage. I felt like I needed to be an engineer to set that system up myself, LOL.

We have dealers doing this for commercial pellet boiler jobs - fab up everything in the shop and then just drop a complete boiler room on a concrete pad at the site. Very slick and a good solution where there is not enough room in the existing boiler room. Not so sure about residential applications though.... how many would be willing/able to pay for that solution? Guessing $30k+? One thing to do it on your own, but quite another to offer it to the general public as a finished product. Thoughts?

 

[Paso]

I think someone could make a go of it, without a lot of upfront capital investment. Lots of used storage containers out there, and used propane tanks. Can get containers here for $2k, tanks for another $1k. Not sure how big containers are, but you could use the front 10' for storage, boiler & expansion, then still have room for 10 full cords of wood in a 35' container. Paint the container to customer selection, add a man door up front for boiler access, put in the boiler of customer choice, hook it all up, and away you go.

Easy to say at least...

I did that except with a 48 ft semi trailer van, I have since moved it from one location to another, everything taken into consideration it was a smart move. Disconnect the lines, hook a truck to it move it to another location. Now going to use it to heat a 8000 sq ft shop.

 

[flyingcow]

A few yrs ago I was looking into selling gasses as a side job. And i was pricing out an all in one unit like Maple1 was suggesting. But i was concerned about getting sued if the building i supplied burnt or caused some type of liability cost. Or even if being in court and spending money on a jack azz that was looking for someone else to blame, other than himself. I had a few insurance companies scratching their heads but none were interested in writing me a policy.

basically the best idea for me was to have a contractor to recommend to build a boiler barn. And then just sell the boiler components. But the reality of my area is low population and the OWB sales had saturated the market.

 

[leon]

The olny way you will manage this is build a
wood boiler that has a water scrubber to strip the
flue gasses from the exhaust.

The problem is the use of crap wood, wet wood
and garbage burners that use water stoves.

If you built one that would pass the tests blindfolded
you need the following:

1. Large unpressurised water capacity of 1,000 gallons minimum
a. water filters-paired with shut off valves to allow the changing
of one filter while the system is still pumping.


2. small fire brick lined firebox completely lined with firebrick to
hold heat and shed heat slowly back into the firebox to maintain
high combustion temperatures in the firebox.

a. the firebrick lined firebox is small and burns hot and even
hotter with less wood.

Firebrick is also placed at point where flue gasses exit.



(dont yell-I will tell you why)

no controls/pumps/filters in boiler housing

1. low speed pump in home basement with filters and controls
(low speed pump delivers hot water at a slower rate and keep
the hot water in the boiler longer).


3. induced draft fan placed at the chimney elbow above cleanout box
away from hot flue gasses and pushes the exhaust flue gasses
through the water scrubber tank and out the stack with no smoke
and only water vapor.
.

4. water scrubber tank with an inlet tank and an outlet tank using AR PLATE
with a separate water filling system from boiler water with a float ball that would
strip the crud from the flue gasses and produce steam vapors only and it will not upset the neighbors as only steam is produced.

a. The water scrubber tanks have to have drains with good ball valves to drain
carbon waste from scrubber water.

b. the exhaust stack rises from the rop of the second scrubber tank with the steam exhaust.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Saying all the above you would be money ahead building a heavily insulated
unpressurised coal stoker boiler that would have 100 gallons in capacity that
used the K2 Keystoker coal stoker(smallest stoker size)with a
firebrick lined firebox using a keystoker coal stoker for anthracite rice coal
with zero exhaust smoke as anthracite burn cleanly with no smoke.

 

[huffdawg]

One of the biggest pet peeves with my EKO is that the doors can only be orientated on one side and for my boiler room they are orientated on the wrong side.

 

[scooby074]

I know at least one of the Euro boiler manufacturers is doing the modular ISO container system. One module for the boiler, another optional one for pellet storage (silo).

I remember watching the video on it..

 

[Chris Hoskin]

I know at least one of the Euro boiler manufacturers is doing the modular ISO container system. One module for the boiler, another optional one for pellet storage (silo).

I remember watching the video on it..

one of our dealer's jobs in Littleton, NH

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[scooby074]

one of our dealer's jobs in Littleton, NH

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That wasnt the video I was thinking of, but thanks.

Maybe it was a Froling vid out of europe I watched??

 

[Mike Fromme]

How about a pressurized garn style boiler?

 

[heaterman]

A built in moisture meter with a door interlock which will not allow loading unless wood is 25% or less moisture content.

Only partially tongue in cheek............

 

[ewdudley]

How about a pressurized garn style boiler?

I'm not sure but the Garn may be a non-pressurized Switzer-style boiler.

Looks like Gary's finally got a web page:

http://switzerswoodburning.weebly.com/