Varmebaronen owners?

[bailey farm]

Anyone out there have a
Varmebaronen boiler? They look awful nice. What kind of price tag? How efficient and what kind/size wood do they like? Just in the market and wondering.

 

[Coal Reaper]

Ahhah!

 

[bailey farm]

Coal reaper, checked out your thread. Looks nice! Still no complaints I'm guessing? What kind of temps do you get out there in the winter and are you still at just two fires a day? Very interested in your setup but wondering is it a requirement to stand your tanks upright for some reason or was it just a space saver?

 

[Coal Reaper]

thanks. very happy. the only thing i would ask for is a larger loading door and slightly taller firebox. but not a big deal at all.
i would guess 50% of my heating season is two fires a day. when its less than 10* or 15* with a wind i need to reload before bed. shoulder season is every other or every third day. summer i heat DHW about once a week. tho it takes 2-3 loads of wood to fully charge at that point because everything has had time to cool off to ambiant temperature. one load will pump out almost half million BTUs if you have a wood on the dense side that is dry enough. MC25% i notice less heat going to the tanks. 30% it will smoke. half my wood is oak and the other half a mix of black locust and black birch with some occasional maple or ash. i really like the black birch, seasons fast and almost as much heat output as oak. stove burners dont care for it because it doesnt hold coals, but with a boiler batch burning to storage that is not an issue.
vertical tanks not only save space, but allow for better stratification and thermosiphoning. look it up and then come back if further questions.
prices are on deans website. idk if anybody on hearth has one of the new lambda varms ($$$), but there are several vedolux users as well as some natural draft guys. maple1 is garrunteed to chime in!
these boilers are very easy to clean.

 

[maple1]

Yes.

 

[bailey farm]

Saw the prices on smokeless' web page. About the same for the package as the garn would be. I notice both of you run a pressurized system, what makes adding pressure so important? Is it just so you don't need to constantly test your water? Or does it hold heat longer? Talked to a spray foam guy today, he said around $400 to foam a 500 gal
Propane tank. Think that's the route I would want to go for storage instead of the company's pricey tanks.

 

[Coal Reaper]

The brand new tanks are some major coin.
Pressurized system is void of air once its all removed from the eliminator. No corrosion then on the water side. Unpressurized is open to environment and therefore allows air in. Need chemicals to keep the right ph levels and other stuff that i dont know much about. Nothing to do with holding heat longer unless you have a rubber lined contained that you cannot charge to high temp.
My big issue with the garn is that if you let the water temp fall far like if you are away for a few days, now you have to heat up that whole big thing in order to get usable hot water. Not a problem if you are using low temp emmiters. Aboiler thats seperate from storage allows hot water to bypass storage and go directly to where you need it. Vedolux is also lightweight so you will have it up to operating temp and pumping hot water within fifteen minutes of lighting.

 

[bailey farm]

Ok, I get stratification and why it's important. Unfortunately I won't be able to stand the tanks up vertically unless I put the bases in a 6' pit. Not gonna happen... so my thoughts were that if you set one 500 gallon tank on top of another would you still get the desired stratification and if so, how large of a water transfer area would it take? Would it need big 10 inch pipe cut and welded in between the two tanks in multiple areas or would 1.5 inch connecting pipe do it? Or would it be unnecessary? Seems to me that it would require the ability to circulate large quantities of water this, large openings between the tanks. Or am I trying to re-invent the wheel here and over thinking this?

 

[Coal Reaper]

Overthinking. Plenty of folks with stacked tanks. Search for their build threads. Clarkbug even has several smaller tanks standing next to eachother.

 

[maple1]

My stacked tanks are connected by a 1-1/4 line. Kind of pointless going bigger than the boiler ports.

 

[Rob186]

I took two 500 gal tanks and cut the bottom out of one and the top out of the other and welded them together with some boiler plate steel and they work great Also put a 4" coupling in one end and got a screw in heat exchanger for my domestic hot water

 

[jrod770]

I took two 500 gal tanks and cut the bottom out of one and the top out of the other and welded them together with some boiler plate steel and they work great Also put a 4" coupling in one end and got a screw in heat exchanger for my domestic hot water

Where did you source the screw in heat exchanger?

 

[maple1]

I know Ahona has them. Or at least did when I was doing my install a couple years ago. Price then was right around $400.

 

[Rob186]

Boiler supplies its an online store they have 3 sizes get the biggest one you can I can run my tanks down to 135 in the summer and still get a warm shower I have 5 people in my family and we can go 6 days on one 2 loads of wood
They come from a HB smith century 3 boiler and you can get a 8 gallon a min coil for 500 bucks the GPM is high so the water has time to absorb more heat
If you do get one do yourself a favor and get some lampwick for those joints I would not trust teflon tape not to leak on a 4" joint

 

[arngnick]

I just want to add that I am extreamly happy with my varm. Very easy to clean! Batch burning and storage is the only way to go. My burn schedule is about the same as coal reaper's. I have started burning year round and things are working very well. I have seen the natural draft, induced draft, and even the lambda models burn. Very impressive in my eyes. Of Course there is also some other very nice boilers out there too!

 

[Clarkbug]

Anyone out there have a
Varmebaronen boiler? They look awful nice. What kind of price tag? How efficient and what kind/size wood do they like? Just in the market and wondering.

Got one here too.

Sounds like you already found the prices. Efficiency will vary on a lot of factors, but I would say its on par with other non-lambda gassers. They like DRY wood, and cut so that three pieces will fit in it next to each other. I would say probably slightly larger than a playing card size. I know that sounds small if you are coming from an OWB or woodstove, but the surface area gets it gassing quick, and that puts out the heat.

Keep reading, lots to learn here on all of the different makes of boilers.