Wood/pellet combo

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chewy

Member
Hearth Supporter
Nov 7, 2009
188
Indiana
I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with a gasification boiler/ pellet burner combo? Like the effecta, varm, ect? Any info, and feed back would be greatly appreciated.

Ty
Erin
 
no experience with the pellet side, but that was a consideration when i got my vedolux. first of all, i can say that the wood side is great! although its something like $2500 for the pellet head, it does attach easily to the front of unit and feeds from hopper. its nice to know that IF i can no longer process wood that the pellet heat is easy to fitup. i cant imagine it is as good as a boiler that was designed solely to burn pellets, but hopefully it would work enough. also, i dont think the lambda varms are capable of accepting pellet burners.
 
no experience with the pellet side, but that was a consideration when i got my vedolux. first of all, i can say that the wood side is great! although its something like $2500 for the pellet head, it does attach easily to the front of unit and feeds from hopper. its nice to know that IF i can no longer process wood that the pellet heat is easy to fitup. i cant imagine it is as good as a boiler that was designed solely to burn pellets, but hopefully it would work enough. also, i dont think the lambda varms are capable of accepting pellet burners.
Can you use both cord wood and pellets without changing over?
 
I personally would steer away from a combo unit cord wood / wood pellets for the simple reason that one batch of cord with a too high moisture content will creosote up your heat exchanger and this will cause the heat exchanger cleaning system not to perform at best any longer, hence a significant drop in efficiency.

There are also only around 26 combo models out in Europe (Germany/Austria), versus over 360 models of pellet boilers.
Check this link on page 1: (broken link removed to http://mediathek.fnr.de/media/downloadable/files/samples/m/u/mu_pellet2013_web.pdf)
Sorry it's in German, but it is fairly technical, so you will understand.
 
Have to say I agree with Marc on this.
 
Hey there,
Sorry I haven't been here sooner, it has been a crazy last 6 months.

I have the Effecta 60kw with the optional aero pellet gun that is 20-30 kw.

I have been running the system since about march, I have burned wood in it initially about 6 total times just to check it out. And have ran pellets since, I had a few issues with the install along the way but the US rep and Effecta company based in Sweden where great in helping get things figured out.
I have to say that Effecta was more than supportive, the extreme time change and such, Hannes came to work early to call me on the phone more than once to help me. Great folks!!

I did 98% of the work myself , with a little help from an electrician buddy.
Our primary vision was to burn pellets most of the time with back up of wood then oil if need be.
We just had a 3 day cold snap and saw 42 below zero at one point, I simply increased pellet consumption and the 30kw gun kept up awesomely..

I am extremely happy with the operation, eff of 89-91 with pellets, measured with Testo combustion analyzer. Stack temps reach 253 at the highest which I Have seen.
Pan to run some wood over the holiday, wondering how long my 1250 gallons will strep
Tech with -20 at night.

I will be more active in discussion and such in the future as things have settled down here.
Best regards
 
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