Windhager Biowin 260 install with photos

[Paste]

First, we want to thank everyone for the wealth of information on this forum.

Last spring, we decided to install a pellet boiler to move away from propane for heat and DHW. We spent a few months reading reviews and contacting dealers to see which system would best fit our needs. We looked at Okofen, Froling, MEsys, Harman, Kedel, and Windhager. In the end, we chose the Windhager because of its features, ease of use/maintenance, price, and Marc Caluwe's service.

While price wasn't our primary concern, its important to note the Biowin with the bulk feeding system cost us $3-5K less than the competition. Likewise, we found quite a disparity with regard to dealer responsiveness to questions or price quotes. My wife contacted one dealer several times for a price quote and they finally returned her call over 2 months later.

Marc was great to work with before, during, and after installation. Additionally, while the Biowin deserves my recommendation, Marc's tech support and knowledge far exceeds the product, and we appreciate his quick and honest responses to call/emails. Buy with confidence!

We took part in the NH pellet rebate program and I was delightfully surprised how quick we received our rebate. From the day I mailed the application to the state, it took less than a week to be approved and receive the check. I encourage anyone in NH getting a pellet boiler to take part in the program. If you have any questions about the process please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Also, Barbara, the state employee who works with the rebate program, was friendly and quick to answer any questions.

If you have any questions or want me to take a specific photo of the system please let me know. Thanks everyone!




Lowering into the basement


Uncrated and ready for electrical and plumbing






Tied into existing system


Up and running


Bulk pellet delivery from Maine Energy. They're great to work with!!


3+ tons of pellets


Cleaning the boiler is very easy and takes about 15-20 mins. I only took a few photos of this process. Ash bin at 2+ tons burnt


Inside boiler


Burn pot


Inside the burn pot after the cone, air pin, and grate are removed for cleaning. The Biowin includes a handy tool to easily remove the cone and scrape off the residue.


Clean burn chamber


Clean cone, air pin, and grate

 

[Tennman]

Very impressive Paste. I'd love to see a pic of how pellets get from the bag to the hopper. Since there is no storage does it shut the fire down after pellets in the cone are consumed? How does it avoid idling like my wood non-storage boiler. I think Heaterman explained this before but I forget. Also it looks like a small flue that isn't a high temp, double wall. Pretty attractive if for whatever reason I can't process wood in my future. Congrats, impressive.

 

[Paste]

The pellets are transferred from the 3 ton bin to the boiler hopper via suction. The boiler hopper holds around 100+lbs with the turbine installed (or if you remove the turbine it holds 330 lbs if you want to just dump bags of pellets in like DanaB). The suction turbine turns on for 30 seconds about once a day as we consume about 80-90 lbs/day this winter. The boiler has an auger that feeds the burnpot from the boiler hopper and the boiler can modulate from 30-100%. Windhager specifies the flue to be UL-103 rated; flue temps range from 160-220 degrees. We're really happy with the system and we got lucky with the timing; we'll save over $2600 on fuel this year when compared to propane.

Suction probe inside the pellet bin. The lower tube is for return air and the upper tube transports the pellets.


Left hose is return air, right hose is for pellet transfer.


Suction tube entering boiler hopper


Suction turbine on top. I removed the panel on the boiler hopper, so you can see the pellets inside. The boiler auger and ash bin are below.


Boiler auger and ash bin. Copper tube is for the built-in fire suppression system.

 

[Tennman]

I get it. Pretty impressive piece of engineering. Rough numbers that bin gives you a little over 2 months of heat during this exceptionally cold winter. And apparently your paying for fuel to show up much like buying propane (pic of loading thru the window). Burning wood would still be cheaper for me unless I add what my time's worth, then I'll bet the Windhager looks pretty good. Congrats

 

[GENECOP]

Nice setup.....

 

[BoilerMan]

Burning wood would still be cheaper for me unless I add what my time's worth, then I'll bet the Windhager looks pretty good.

I think this is always true. Wood is the cheapest heat, but the most time consuming. Bulk pellet storage and delivery is as close to the ease of oil/gas as one can get.

FWIW: I'd have a Windhager in a heartbeat if I had a rental (which I had to heat) or was unable to burn wood at my home. The pellet machine of choice!

TS

 

[Trout]

First, we want to thank everyone for the wealth of information on this forum.

Last spring, we decided to install a pellet boiler to move away from propane for heat and DHW. We spent a few months reading reviews and contacting dealers to see which system would best fit our needs. We looked at Okofen, Froling, MEsys, Harman, Kedel, and Windhager. In the end, we chose the Windhager because of its features, ease of use/maintenance, price, and Marc Caluwe's service.

While price wasn't our primary concern, its important to note the Biowin with the bulk feeding system cost us $3-5K less than the competition. Likewise, we found quite a disparity with regard to dealer responsiveness to questions or price quotes. My wife contacted one dealer several times for a price quote and they finally returned her call over 2 months later.

Marc was great to work with before, during, and after installation. Additionally, while the Biowin deserves my recommendation, Marc's tech support and knowledge far exceeds the product, and we appreciate his quick and honest responses to call/emails. Buy with confidence!

We took part in the NH pellet rebate program and I was delightfully surprised how quick we received our rebate. From the day I mailed the application to the state, it took less than a week to be approved and receive the check. I encourage anyone in NH getting a pellet boiler to take part in the program. If you have any questions about the process please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Also, Barbara, the state employee who works with the rebate program, was friendly and quick to answer any questions.

If you have any questions or want me to take a specific photo of the system please let me know. Thanks everyone!




Lowering into the basement


Uncrated and ready for electrical and plumbing






Tied into existing system


Up and running


Bulk pellet delivery from Maine Energy. They're great to work with!!


3+ tons of pellets


Cleaning the boiler is very easy and takes about 15-20 mins. I only took a few photos of this process. Ash bin at 2+ tons burnt


Inside boiler


Burn pot


Inside the burn pot after the cone, air pin, and grate are removed for cleaning. The Biowin includes a handy tool to easily remove the cone and scrape off the residue.


Clean burn chamber


Clean cone, air pin, and grate

 

[Trout]

A really nice looking boiler and set-up. I'm looking at getting a BioWin come spring and, like you, using a 3 ton bag. Has this worked well for you? Does the vacum system get most of the pellets out of the bag? I would appreciate your thoughts on your set-up.

 

[hyfire]

Tell us why you did not choose the Froling unit, was it a cost issue?

 

[Paste]

A really nice looking boiler and set-up. I'm looking at getting a BioWin come spring and, like you, using a 3 ton bag. Has this worked well for you? Does the vacum system get most of the pellets out of the bag? I would appreciate your thoughts on your set-up.

Thanks Trout. We've been really happy with the biowin and Marc's service. I get about 95% of the pellets out of the bag, then I use an old dog bowl to scoop the pellets toward the probe from the edge of the bag. I wanted to see how long I could get 3 tons to last and determine how effective the probe was on a flat surface. Moving forward, I'll refill pellets before it gets that low for convenience. The bags are easy to fill with bulk pellets via someone like Maine Energy, or you can use 40lb bags and blow them in yourself with a leaf blower. Blowing in pellets

 

[Paste]

Tell us why you did not choose the Froling unit, was it a cost issue?

We were going to purchase the Okofen or Froling, then by chance I found this site and read about the Biowin. While the Froling is a nice unit, the biowin offered the same features we were looking for (bulk feed, high efficiency, user serviceable, self-cleaning, built-in safety mechanisms, and great customer support) at about half the cost. In fact, the Froling would have cost about $9,500 more than the biowin after install. For our home, that is 5 yrs worth of pellets.

 

[hyfire]

Wow I did not realize the cost difference on the Froling, you made a wise decision, and the efficiency is very comparable with the Biowin.

 

[DZL_Damon]

We were going to purchase the Okofen or Froling, then by chance I found this site and read about the Biowin. While the Froling is a nice unit, the biowin offered the same features we were looking for (bulk feed, high efficiency, user serviceable, self-cleaning, built-in safety mechanisms, and great customer support) at about half the cost. In fact, the Froling would have cost about $9,500 more than the biowin after install. For our home, that is 5 yrs worth of pellets.

I concure. Although I did not stumble across the Windhager yet when I was doing my research last February.... the Froling was my choice but about $10k more than my Kedel. Had I heard of Windhager back then it would have been my closest consideration over the Kedel, they seem like very nice, affordable units with lots of people happy with them.

 

[DBNH22]

Great to see your thread on the install. For some reason that picture of Bruce lowering the boiler down into the bulkhead gives me a sense of deja vu.

My unit has been working great too. The only issue I have had is slight hard ash buildup several times in the burnpot. However Marc and I have been working on this to determine what the issue is and it appears to have nothing to do with the boiler but the fact that I had sealed up my rim joists with spray foam and my basement ceiling with great stuff. The effect of this was basically to throw off the draft and combustion of the unit so that it was not performing optimally. I think the solution to this may be to port in a little outside air. It's important to to understand that whether using the Windhager or any other heating appliance, they are not operating in a vacuum. There is a lot of physics and other variables that affect the system as a whole.

Your bulk feed solution looks great. I've been bag feeding all season long and will continue to do so. I don't mind it at all. This being my first season heating with pellets did cause me to get caught a little flat footed though. I only pre-bought 4 tons thinking I'd be able to get what I needed as time went on but there's been a shortage of the bagged pellets for the past month and I've been having to buy ten bags at a time as the stores are rationing them. What brand of pellets does Maine Energy deliver in bulk? Is it a blend, softwood or hardwood?

Also if you don't mind my asking how large is your home, how many tons have you gone through and what are you paying per ton for bulk delivery? My home, excluding the unfinished basement and an unfinished bonus room, is 2300 sqaure feet and I've gone through 4.9 tons since the middle of last October as of this morning. I'm also using my Biowin for DHW during the heating months but will switch back to oil for DHW during th enon heating months. What do you use for DHW? I'm estimating 5.5 tons for the season. I had been paying $250 a ton delivered for Maine Wood Pellets but having to buy by the bag is costing me a little more now.

I created a spreadsheet of my oil use/costs since 2010 to see how much I would save this year with pellets. Here are a few numbers:

Heating Season (From July 1 to Following June 30) # Gallons Oil Used Total Spent on Oil

2010/2011 976.8 $2755.66

2011/2012 891.5 $3237.84

2012/2013 809.9 $2873.03

Three Year Oil Average = 2955.51


Keep in mind that these numbers take into account not only heating with oil but using it for DHW as well. I will continue to use oil for DHW from roughly April through mid early to mid October but for DHW only the oil will go much, much further. I expect that 150 gallons of oil will last me a couple of years.

I don't have the exact numbers yet for the pellet costs for this heating season but I'm expecting the total cost to be around $1500 and I'm certain I can improve upon that number next year with proper planning and pre-buying. So I'm looking at a rough savings of $1373 with pellets this year over oil last year. Lets say I factor in 50 gallons of oil to use for my DHW in the spring/summer (I probably won't use that much) at 3.59 a gallon which would be on the high end for unit cost during summer which is the only time I will buy oil from now on. That would cost 179. 1373 - 179 = $1194 or 41.56 % savings in total energy costs from last year to this year by switching to pellets from oil as my home's primary source of energy for heat and domestic hot water.

 

[chken]

Thanks for the great writeup of the install! I'm surprised that the Biowin was that much less than the Kedel, I got the sense that the two were about equal in price.

What does the unit exhaust into on the outside of the house?

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

the Froling would have cost about $9,500 more than the biowin after install. For our home, that is 5 yrs worth of pellets.

Paste: was this cost difference apples to apples or did your Froling quote include installation? Just curiosity seems like a large number.

 

[DBNH22]

Are you using external combustion air for the boiler?

 

[DZL_Damon]

Thanks for the great writeup of the install! I'm surprised that the Biowin was that much less than the Kedel, I got the sense that the two were about equal in price.

What does the unit exhaust into on the outside of the house?

The Kedel and Windhager are similarly priced, the Kedel a bit less actually. The comparison was to a Froling P4 unit.

 

[chken]

The Kedel and Windhager are similarly priced, the Kedel a bit less actually. The comparison was to a Froling P4 unit.

We looked at Okofen, Froling, MEsys, Harman, Kedel, and Windhager. In the end, we chose the Windhager because of its features, ease of use/maintenance, price, and Marc Caluwe's service.

While price wasn't our primary concern, its important to note the Biowin with the bulk feeding system cost us $3-5K less than the competition.

Oh, It was a bit confusing because the OP made a pricing comparison twice, the time you mention with the Fröling which was $9500 more, and the first post where he mentions all of the units he compared including the Kedel which presumably cost more. Don't worry, I'll get my own prices, but I thought it was odd, because of all the great info I've already gotten from you and others, I expected the Kedel to be in the same general range as the Windhager.

 

[Paste]

snip...

Hi Dana. Great to hear you're staying warm and saving money with your Biowin! We're getting MWP blend at $249 bulk delivered. Our home is 2900 sq ft not including the unfinished basement. We've burnt 5.7 tons since Oct. and we're expecting to burn 7 tons this year. We're using the Biowin for DHW, too.

 

[Paste]

Thanks for the great writeup of the install! I'm surprised that the Biowin was that much less than the Kedel, I got the sense that the two were about equal in price.

What does the unit exhaust into on the outside of the house?

You're welcome. We're happy to share our experience and answer questions for others looking at pellet boilers. The Biowin with sourced 3 ton storage was $10.3K and the Kedel with 3 ton storage was $13.8K, not including install. I think the base boiler price is $8.5k Biowin and $9.7k Kedel, but I don't recall exactly because I needed bulk storage. Exhaust is thru a class A chimney.

 

[Paste]

Paste: was this cost difference apples to apples or did your Froling quote include installation? Just curiosity seems like a large number.

The 9k+ difference was comparing both units installed.

 

[chken]

You're welcome. We're happy to share our experience and answer questions for others looking at pellet boilers. The Biowin with 3 ton storage was $10.3K and the Kedel with 3 ton storage was $13.8K, not including install. Exhaust is thru a class A chimney.

Of course that's after you already took the NH rebate off, right? Was it $6k?

 

[Paste]

The Kedel and Windhager are similarly priced, the Kedel a bit less actually. The comparison was to a Froling P4 unit.

DZL_Damon is correct, I was comparing the Froling P4. Sorry for not being clear. When I got quotes the Kedel was more than the Windhager for systems with 3 Ton storage, which I needed to qualify for the NH pellet rebate. The Kedel is a good unit and I enjoy reading your posts about it.

 

[Paste]

Of course that's after you already took the NH rebate off, right? Was it $6k?

Edit to clarify. The boiler and my bulk setup was 10.3k and after the NH rebate it was 7.2k.