# Saw an EvoWorld (EvoTherm) Wood Chip Boiler at the Albany, NY Home Show



## velvetfoot (Feb 11, 2012)

I saw an EvoWorld wood chip boiler at the Albany, NY home show tonight.  I couldn't really get it straight.  It seems a couple of US guys partnered with EvoWorld, which used to be EvoTherm from Austria, and they are making certain mechanical and pressure vessels  at the Troy (NY) Boiler Works (ASME) stamp.  I'm really unclear on the whole arrangement, but they had a wood chip boiler there that had lambda control, variable speed forced and induction fans, variable feed rate, self-cleaning (the turbulator tubes are autumatically moved up and down periodically).  They said the pellet boiler is (will be) similar.  They got some NYSERDA funding.  Not sure about the Austrian tie-in or anything, but it sure looked like a nice unit.  They recommend a buffer tank.

Here is the EvoWorld partners site:
http://www.evo-world.com/partners.html

It looks like EvoTherm was bought out since the website now forwards to Greentech:
http://www.evotherm.at


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## leaddog (Feb 11, 2012)

I just talked about this in another thread. I really believe there is a huge market for residential housing. I tried to get one called a Refo but they weren't interested in the US market. The advantages are many. Modulation from 10 to 100% therefor no need for storage, will burn up to 45%wood chips, wood chips can be found in every back yard with a small chipper. Price of chips aren't dependant on transpotation cost, can easily be put in the basement of most homes with less mess and smoke of cord wood. They will need to be surviced by a dealer I think because of the extra controlls but that probably hold true for most boilers with most people any way.
leaddog


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## SolarAndWood (Feb 11, 2012)

What is the model with these?  Bring home 50 yards of mulch in the spring, store it in some kind of rack and toss it in the boiler that winter?


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## velvetfoot (Feb 12, 2012)

Yeah, you'd have to dry it out.  I've heard electric line clearance crews have a hard time disposing of chips.


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## flyingcow (Feb 12, 2012)

If a residential unit would work, I have a hard time figuring on how to store and dry the chips. Does it burn clean wood ships? Or whole tree chips? Big difference in product. I haul both in large quantities in an open top chip trailer. None of which is "dry". Never heard of anyone drying this product. 

I burn about 7 cord of seasoned hardwood a year. Approx 35,000lbs of wood. i usually haul about 70,000lbs of clean wood chips per load. Thats a 48ft possum belly  box. So, rough figure, I would need a half a trailer? We have to spray the walls/floor down with diesel or anti-freeze to keep the load from freezing in. This is only for a 3 hours ride. I have had to shovel these loads out because freezing in. Not an easy job. How do you store this amount, without it being a large block of frozen chips? Heat your storage? Now you need a commercial size boiler. Heat and drying would take some energy. 

Whole tree chips or even mulch? That stuff is freezes in large blocks in a heart beat. 

Large commercial boilers have big equipment doing the feeding. i'm talking about biomass energy units. Even the school size units need some serious sized buildings to store and handle the chips.

Sorry i sound so pessimistic. In time, maybe, you could set up a system like the wood pellet industry has. But thats not proving to be as economical as they hoped. 

Wish them well.


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## ewdudley (Feb 12, 2012)

flyingcow said:
			
		

> Sorry i sound so pessimistic. In time, maybe, you could set up a system like the wood pellet industry has. But thats not proving to be as economical as they hoped.



They don't need a viable dry wood chip infrastructure, so the time frame to set one up is irrelevant.  All they need is more NYSERDA funding.


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## leaddog (Feb 12, 2012)

for a residential unit the home owner only has to have 35% chips. They can get this by chiping brush and tree tops that have been down for while. I burnt some chips from the firewood brush that I cut. If a person got green chips they would have to get them in the spring and turn them or make a drying rack but seeing as you could get them FREE it has posibity.
leaddog


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## flyingcow (Feb 12, 2012)

Obviously i'm narrow minded, but i still can't see how i could easily handle and store 1/2 a trailer of biomass chips or bark. Also figure in what the line crews chip up will be lower btu type of product.

 IMO, it might work with clean wood chips. This is where a mill or processor de-barks the trees, then chips up the log. But it is worth mentioning that when we haul clean wood chips in the late spring, we can haul more yardage of chips, because the trees have been piled down for a few months and dried in tree length. So those chips are drier than green ones. but not a large amount of difference. 

Also keep in mind, my experience is with mills that process *2400 cord a day *of hardwood a day. Somewhat of a different animal that residential. So let's see how this works out.


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## SolarAndWood (Feb 12, 2012)

Seems like you'd have to run it through a kiln and then store it in something like apple boxes or grain bags.  Figure it would just compost in something like a corn crib if it wasn't dry when it went it.


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## mikefrommaine (Feb 12, 2012)

leaddog said:
			
		

> for a residential unit the home owner only has to have 35% chips. They can get this by chiping brush and tree tops that have been down for while. I burnt some chips from the firewood brush that I cut. If a person got green chips they would have to get them in the spring and turn them or make a drying rack but seeing as you could get them FREE it has posibity.
> leaddog



I had a  6" chipper on a three point high on my tractor. Thought I'd save some money on mulch and avoid a few dump runs when cleaning up the yard. Kept it for a year and sold it to the next guy... Just wasn't worth the time to make my own woodchips. I can't imagine processing enough to heat my house.

I do have about ten yards of hardwood chips in my yard from a tree guy, but they are frozen solid. Might try to throw a couple five gallon pails worth into the boiler when they thaw out just to see how they do.


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## Como (Feb 12, 2012)

I looked at wood chip, there are many many available, outside the US. I do not remember coming across this one, maybe none of the documentation was then in English.

The ones I saw still need storage, just not so much.

For me the big issue was the chips, the equipment to chip on this scale is not cheap and not something I could hire locally. For me batch processing once a year is not possible, I would need to do it weekly ish, or I would just end up with a solid frozen lump. Not auger friendly.

If you are in an area where the temperature does not drop often below freezing, not such a problem. The ones I saw in the UK were in such situation, they chipped once a year usually.


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## flyingcow (Feb 12, 2012)

*I canâ€™t imagine processing enough to heat my house.*

Thats my thoughts. Also, how do you handle it? Shovel? 


But in my region, i could probably buy a trailer load of clean chips. Might even be a reasonable price.Looking at about $800 to $1000 for just the trucking.


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## hobbyheater (Feb 12, 2012)

Growing up around sawmills, I have seen where a large waste pile of sawdust was ignited by spontaneous combustion. Damp hay will do the same. The chips will have to be dry if stored in large volumes. 
It is a interesting idea with some  bugs to work out!


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## velvetfoot (Feb 12, 2012)

They're apparently using them in Europe.  I was more interested in the pellet boiler with lambda and self cleaning turbulator tubes, which the chip boiler also has.

It's kind of intriguing that it might be made in the US too, with Euro technology.
Anyway, not something you can go down to the store and buy.

While I haven't looked close, Maine Energy Systems' euro pellet boiler, OkoFEN, seems similarly advanced.  More so than the Harman Hydroflex60 I've been looking at.
I wonder how much, how good, etc, they are?


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## gorbull (Feb 12, 2012)

Pulling this from another post....call me a spammer if you wish!

Donâ€™t know if anyone has paid attention to this biomass burner out of Kentucky but it looks to be a game changer due to itâ€™s smaller size and reasonable cost.  They make 100,000 and 500,000 btu models and soon will put out a 250,000 btu boiler.  http://www.bioburner.com/

Recently visited the factory and theyâ€™re actually using the Bio-Burner 100 to heat their 6,000 sq. insulated industrial building in Madisonville Kentucky so the output may be a little deceiving when compared to a wood burner.  Itâ€™s producing a true 100,000 btuâ€™s per hour, every hour or less if you chose, unlike a wood boiler the output and burn process is quite precise and controllable.  By controlling the fuel feed rate and air input the combustion process can be monitored and adjusted using the input from the combustion, stack and water out temps. very cool.  As a bonus it has a propane or NG igniter and backup burner built right in.

So this machine is already available in the land of America.  If fuel drying is an issue they've already designed an add-on flash drier which borrows 10% of the boiler output to pre-dry it's own fuel.


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## velvetfoot (Feb 12, 2012)

Very interesting, even though 100,000 btu is too big for me.
Fuel flexibility would be great.
They don't mention any efficiency rating.  Maybe they could've for some standard pellet fuel. 
It seems to say the smaller boiler can handle a 1" chip.  That's not so very large, is it?
Great that it's made here.  Just gotta hope they're still around in 20 years when you need parts.


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## SolarAndWood (Feb 12, 2012)

gorbull said:
			
		

> Pulling this from another post....call me a spammer if you wish!
> 
> Donâ€™t know if anyone has paid attention to this biomass burner out of Kentucky but it looks to be a game changer due to itâ€™s smaller size and reasonable cost.  They make 100,000 and 500,000 btu models and soon will put out a 250,000 btu boiler.  http://www.bioburner.com/



Thanks for posting, I can see that working.  If you time the pickup at the mulch pile right, the material is probably close to 25% already.  Run it through a chipper to make sure it is all chopped to size and output into your storage bin.  Could make a lot of sense in an urban environment too depending on what the municipality does with its wood waste.  Our setup is ideal.  I can be out and back with 5 yards in an hour.


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