Help getting a general idea for prices and what i need

[FQPVR6]

Hello all,
I am a newbie to the forum and live in the greater Boston area. I am familiar with wood burning furnaces as growing up in Europe i got to see more than one. For instance my uncle has a Kob(see picture below) ECO 65 (Austrian made) with lambda oxygen sensor control and separate 1100 gal of storage tanks to heat up his large house and indoor pool. The think works like a champ.

Anyhow i was looking at the BIOHEATusa website and looked at the different systems that are available. My home (~2800sq ft and forced hot water system) is currently heated with an older oil burner but when i replace it in the near future i would like to either switch to pallets or wood. I would like to get a rough idea of the cost estimate if I were to go with pellets or go with wood. However, if you provide an estimate with respect to wood I would want to have a storage tank system (which i do not think is necessary with pallets) to maximize efficiency and minimize smoke. I am not too sure what kind of permits and strict regulations MA may have with respect to burning wood. Anyhow, i would use the cost estimate you provide to determine cost amortization schedules and draw my decision from there.
I was also reading a posting where someone provided a link to the Froling webpage and i took a look at their system. They looked really nice. WHat is the cost of that system for a medium size home both wood or pallet?

Thank you all for your suggestions and advice in advance.
Regards.

 

[Como]

KOB is part of Viesmann, it will be a few years before you see their residential products in the US.

I have no idea what size of boiler you would need, not enough info, but with a wood boiler you can usually double the cost to allow for installation, pellet boilers cost more but have more variables, hopper size etc.

 

[muncybob]

Seems to me you would want to factor availability of fuel in part of the decision making process? I looked at pellets for the convenience...but I have a lot of wood available at very little cost so I'll trade the extra work to process lumber vs. the higher cost(for me) of pellets.
Is wood readily available and reasonable in cost vs. your cost of pellets? If so, are you willing to put some extra labor in burning wood...there is work involved even if you get it cut/split & delivered. Not saying pellets are labor free, but it's probably easier to store bags of pellets than to stack splits of wood?

Good luck!! It took me over a year to make my purchase...about to find out if I made the right decision this winter!

 

[pybyr]

Seems to me you would want to factor availability of fuel in part of the decision making process? I looked at pellets for the convenience...but I have a lot of wood available at very little cost so I'll trade the extra work to process lumber vs. the higher cost(for me) of pellets.
Is wood readily available and reasonable in cost vs. your cost of pellets? If so, are you willing to put some extra labor in burning wood...there is work involved even if you get it cut/split & delivered. Not saying pellets are labor free, but it's probably easier to store bags of pellets than to stack splits of wood?

Good luck!! It took me over a year to make my purchase...about to find out if I made the right decision this winter!

I'll echo all of that. I've burned wood in varying devices, and to various degrees, for years, with oil as the fallback, although with some of the technologies I'd been using for wood, the "fallback" of oil was a much bigger proportion than I'd ever wanted.

I looked at pellet appliances, but it still would have meant locking into an outside-supplied item that seemed subject to going up in price when oil did. A new and higher efficiency wood unit with storage offered, for me, the best way to step off the cycles/ impacts of oil. I cut my own wood, but even if I ended up buying it, the $$ stays more local than anything else I can think of.

 

[Como]

My economics ae pretty muc h the same for wood and pellets ($150 a cord, $132 a ton plus delivery).

Prices vary a lot and pellets ae certainly less controllable.

 

[flyingcow]

Call around to get costs on fuel,my guess is wood down in boston would be $250 C/S/D, if lucky. Pellets have to be at least $250 a ton. Just a guess. Pellets up here are $250/260 a ton. Wood C/S/D vary from 155 to 180. At least for good quality stuff. A far as costs of units...call bioheat for pricing and contractors. Need to have a visit from a installer to get a ballpark.

 

[FQPVR6]

Thank you all for the replies.

Well... I don't own any wooded land and as of now i haven't found any cheap suppliers. I performed a search on craigslist and it seems like the cheapest i found unsplit and green was $175 a cord. I am a pretty hands on type of guy and really like outside labor especially if it has to do with chain saws and trailers, but i live in an rather urban area where that kind of work can not be easily achieved. I grew up in the Italian Alps in a region called Sud Tyrol which used to be Austrian before WWI, in fact when ever i go back I jump in the tractor and go cut down a few trees and bring a few loads home.

However, the situation here is a little different, and for this reason i was tending more towards pellets. I was checking out prices in the forum and it seems as pellets at home depot are going for 229 a ton when buying 5 tons or more. I called bioHeat today and asked for information and brocheoures ==> not sure it's spelled right, but I was told Pellet furnaces are > expensive than wood ones. I also have a lingering question hanging around my mind...I always wonder what happens to the wood and trees the town cuts down when there is a storm or something. Where are they taken to and is there a chance you could buy them for cheap from them?

Anyhow, I appreciate comments and info. BTW, how much does a cord of apple tree wood or leaf wood weigh on average when green?. The attached picture is the picture i wanted to attach yesterday in my first post and didn't work right.

Best Regards.

 

[Gooserider]

Thank you all for the replies.

Well... I don't own any wooded land and as of now i haven't found any cheap suppliers. I performed a search on craigslist and it seems like the cheapest i found unsplit and green was $175 a cord. I am a pretty hands on type of guy and really like outside labor especially if it has to do with chain saws and trailers, but i live in an rather urban area where that kind of work can not be easily achieved. I grew up in the Italian Alps in a region called Sud Tyrol which used to be Austrian before WWI, in fact when ever i go back I jump in the tractor and go cut down a few trees and bring a few loads home.

However, the situation here is a little different, and for this reason i was tending more towards pellets. I was checking out prices in the forum and it seems as pellets at home depot are going for 229 a ton when buying 5 tons or more. I called bioHeat today and asked for information and brocheoures ==> not sure it's spelled right, but I was told Pellet furnaces are > expensive than wood ones. I also have a lingering question hanging around my mind...I always wonder what happens to the wood and trees the town cuts down when there is a storm or something. Where are they taken to and is there a chance you could buy them for cheap from them?

Anyhow, I appreciate comments and info. BTW, how much does a cord of apple tree wood or leaf wood weigh on average when green?. The attached picture is the picture i wanted to attach yesterday in my first post and didn't work right.

Best Regards.

First off, Mass has some nasty regs on boiler certification - if you want to do a pressurized system, your boiler and all pressure vessels must have an ASME certification, the (tougher) European standards aren't accepted at this time, and it looks like they aren't going to be any time soon. There are ways around this for some homes, by running an "open" system, but that has it's own hassles. If you do want to go with a closed system, you must get an ASME certified boiler, which at present are only available from two companies - EconoBurn and Wood Gun - and which will cost around $1,000 extra (for no real added benefit, but it makes for better job security for the gov't regulators that work in ASME shops)

Depending on just how urban your area is you might or might not be able to process your own wood - We have about an acre and do OK with it, but if you are on a smaller lot it can get more difficult. Every town is slightly different when it comes to what happens to their tree debris, but in practice it seems to boil down to who has the "connections" to get a hold of the stuff - somehow it often seems to end up in the yards of the town employees... Taxpayers just get to pay for cutting it, and mostly shouldn't expect to get their hands on any of it. Sometimes if you call all the various local tree and landscape services, you can get them to drop off stuff they have cut down in your yard for relatively short money, but this is not consistent.

Gooserider