Got a little project going this week........

[TCaldwell]

So what they spent on heat was probably peanuts in the scheme of things

 

[heaterman]

So what they spent on heat was probably peanuts in the scheme of things

I could put it this way...........There are 20 tractors in his inventory that cost 2-1/2 times what our heating work did. Then there's the 15 trucks, assorted tillage equipment, 4 Klass Jaguar 970 harvesters, 3 tractors that have tracks instead of tires and 500+hp. etc etc etc.

That being said, when he contacted us last spring about his project he wanted to see numbers for total cost (purchase and operation) for wood, which was what they were using for the existing building at that time, LP gas, Biomass/chips, and pellets.
The major factors considered were cost of fuel, labor input required, long term costs and reliability. When we stacked all 4 of those factors up for each fuel choice it was pretty easy to see which fuel had the most potential for savings.

At current LP prices his annual savings will be about $6,000 which to me would be a toss up given higher installed cost for the Windhagers. As anyone who burned LP gas last winter learned though, that $6,000 could turn into $12-$15 K given the weather and market conditions.
Given the turmoil in the crude oil markets right now, who the heck knows what will be happening with prices next year.........
Pellets being a locally produced fuel was a factor also.

 

[JP11]

I bet since he will be a VERY steady buyer of bulk pellets.. He should get a pretty good price. Just a pic of your setup would be great advertising for EVERYONE in the supply chain of pellet boilers for going with local companies, and LOCAL fuel.

JP

 

[sloeffle]

Impressive work heaterman.

I could put it this way...........There are 20 tractors in his inventory that cost 2-1/2 times what our heating work did. Then there's the 15 trucks, assorted tillage equipment, 4 Klass Jaguar 970 harvesters, 3 tractors that have tracks instead of tires and 500+hp

I don't think I would be able to sleep at night thinking about the payments on all of that machinery. But as my dad says, if you jump off of the cliff, you might as well jump off of the big one.

 

[heaterman]

Impressive work heaterman.



I don't think I would be able to sleep at night thinking about the payments on all of that machinery. But as my dad says, if you jump off of the cliff, you might as well jump off of the big one.

Thank You kindly. When my boys and I walked into that nice white room we all felt like we were looking at a blank canvas.

 

[heaterman]

Some facts and figures.

From start up, December 31 through January 31 at 7PM, the system used 7.61 Tons of pellets.
Cost per Ton delivered was $172 so total fuel cost to heat 23,000 sq ft $1,308.00
Using DOE data of 16.5MMbtu per ton x boiler efficiency of 85% nets out to a bit under 107 MMbtu for the period of 32 days or roughly 3,330,000 btu / day......138,980 / hour.

Equivalent cost at local LP Gas price of $1.85/gallon
107MMbtu / 86,500 btu per gallon (net) = 1,237 gallon at a cost of $2,288
So just a hair under $1,000 less for pellets during the month of January.

When I figured the installed cost of and LP vs pellet system for him the difference was a wee bit over $28,000 additional.
I advised the owner that all other things being equal it would take him 5-6 years to pay back the difference.
The huge assumption there is LP prices remaining stable at <$2.00 per gallon. He was acutely aware of what happened during the brutal cold of last winter when LP prices went to $3.50+ because that's what his house runs on. He saw his YoY cost for gas nearly double from 2013 to 2014 and did not like to contemplate that happening in his work shop.

Last year heating about 8,000 sq ft he used a little over 2 semi loads of cord wood + the big CB would not produce enough heat to keep the shop at 60* buring wide open. Using wood to heat the whole building he'd would be looking at 5-6 loads at a cost of $4,000 - $4,500 to heat the whole 23,000 sq ft. Using his present time logs as a guide, the owner figured that would equal an average of 17 man hours per week labor for one of his guys at $15/hour. That adds about $13,000 annually to the cost of burning wood + maintenance on saws, fuel, chains, etc etc. Call it close to $14,000 using cord wood as the heat source.
In addition to that, he would have had to purchase at least one more OWB or a decent sized gasifier of some kind to crank out the required btu's.
That being said, If he would have gone to a gasification system with storage the fuel quantity would have been maybe 3-4 instead of 5-6 so labor costs would have been lower too.
In the end the labor costs with wood were the deciding factor for him.

In short for his particular case, pellets made the most sense.

 

[maple1]

I can't believe how cheap you guys can get pellets there - which would also make me cautious of a price increase on that side too.

Very nice setup & work!

 

[Karl_northwind]

Some facts and figures.

From start up, December 31 through January 31 at 7PM, the system used 7.61 Tons of pellets.
Cost per Ton delivered was $172 so total fuel cost to heat 23,000 sq ft $1,308.00
Using DOE data of 16.5MMbtu per ton x boiler efficiency of 85% nets out to a bit under 107 MMbtu for the period of 32 days or roughly 3,330,000 btu / day......138,980 / hour.

Equivalent cost at local LP Gas price of $1.85/gallon
107MMbtu / 86,500 btu per gallon (net) = 1,237 gallon at a cost of $2,288
So just a hair under $1,000 less for pellets during the month of January.

When I figured the installed cost of and LP vs pellet system for him the difference was a wee bit over $28,000 additional.
I advised the owner that all other things being equal it would take him 5-6 years to pay back the difference.
The huge assumption there is LP prices remaining stable at <$2.00 per gallon. He was acutely aware of what happened during the brutal cold of last winter when LP prices went to $3.50+ because that's what his house runs on. He saw his YoY cost for gas nearly double from 2013 to 2014 and did not like to contemplate that happening in his work shop.

Last year heating about 8,000 sq ft he used a little over 2 semi loads of cord wood + the big CB would not produce enough heat to keep the shop at 60* buring wide open. Using wood to heat the whole building he'd would be looking at 5-6 loads at a cost of $4,000 - $4,500 to heat the whole 23,000 sq ft. Using his present time logs as a guide, the owner figured that would equal an average of 17 man hours per week labor for one of his guys at $15/hour. That adds about $13,000 annually to the cost of burning wood + maintenance on saws, fuel, chains, etc etc. Call it close to $14,000 using cord wood as the heat source.
In addition to that, he would have had to purchase at least one more OWB or a decent sized gasifier of some kind to crank out the required btu's.
That being said, If he would have gone to a gasification system with storage the fuel quantity would have been maybe 3-4 instead of 5-6 so labor costs would have been lower too.
In the end the labor costs with wood were the deciding factor for him.

In short for his particular case, pellets made the most sense.

I like to discuss the danger and liability aspect of having employees doing that sort of work with commercial potential clients. we had a client heating a large greenhouse area with a big 'ol CB or similar. An employee had a pile of logs shift and broke his leg in a bunch of places. That shifts the ROI a whole lot in the negative direction. Lose an employee for 6 months, and the bills on top of it, I am steering clients much more towards automatically fueled appliances. or at least trying to have them buy finished wood, not process by their employees.

karl

 

[JP11]

I bet insurance on an employee running a chainsaw is super high. That is, if the insurance company knows about it. Back when I was young.. the construction company I worked for always made sure as FEW people as possible did any 'demolition' work. The workers comp rates were something like 4X what our pay rate was.

JP

 

[sloeffle]

@heaterman

Did you put any numbers together for a geothermal system ? Or would the install cost be to prohibitive for system to heat a barn that size.

 

[brenndatomu]

I bet insurance on an employee running a chainsaw is super high. That is, if the insurance company knows about it. Back when I was young.. the construction company I worked for always made sure as FEW people as possible did any 'demolition' work. The workers comp rates were something like 4X what our pay rate was.

JP

Runnin a chain saw is not much different then farm work in general...safety wise. Just another day...

 

[heaterman]

We are lucky to be where we are when it comes to pellets. There are 3 mills within 70 miles and a 4th if you go out to 100. Makes for good competition.
I should clarify what I mean by delivered.......The pellets come in large agricultural type bags weighing between 1500 to 2500 pounds.
The guys in his shop rigged up a hopper to dump the bags in and used a commercial sized leaf blower to move them into the bin.
It's not like the local fuel oil/pellet dealer pulls up in his $300,000 pellet delivery truck and blows them in for you, there's some labor involved.

Basically took 4 hours to blow 10 tons into the bin with the set up they made

@heaterman

Did you put any numbers together for a geothermal system ? Or would the install cost be to prohibitive for system to heat a barn that size.

Yes we looked at that but the installed cost was far far past any realistic pay back. The other factor was at design temps the system demands 160* water and a geo can't do that. In fact.........here's a dirty little secret about water to water geo driving radiant floor systems....Once the system gets to the point where temperature requirements exceed 100* The COP starts to degrade rapidly. There are units on the market or being introduced that will supposedly generate 140* output but if you dig into the performance specs the COP is well below 3 and even 2 in some cases. When efficiencies get that low the installed cost of a GSHP system get pushed way down the road.
So for a number of reasons it wasn't a viable option on this job.

 

[Karl_northwind]

My general response: Nothing makes heat like burnin' stuff.

 

[heaterman]

Update on this system:

As of today the total pellet use is 21.56 Tons as measured by the boiler controls on each boiler. This appears to be a little on the pessimistic side as actual use determined by tons actually put in the bin is closer to 20T even. The amount on each boiler is a calculated measurement, not an actual weighed amount.
So using the 21.56 T on the display, the system consumed 368 # per day since startup. Pellet cost averaged $175/Ton over the course of the winter so the heating cost for the facility (20,000+ sq. ft. with 18' ceilings) was approximately $31.50 / day.
The owner is pleased. I'm pleased. Especially given the brutal weather we had through February when daily temps for the entire month averaged 14* below long term average. At no time during that stretch were the boilers not able to keep up with demand.
In fact even during the period when we had night after night of -20* or less, we rarely found all 3 boilers running at more than a steady 60-70% output.
Given the calculated load of the building, that leads me to believe these are rated pretty conservatively.
Rated output is 205k btu per boiler and the heating load at those outdoor temps figured out to almost 700,000 btu with normal activity going on in the shop.

We staged the boilers using a Tekmar 274 boiler control and the run times are within 50 hours of each other on each boiler.
Measured efficiency ran in the 84-87% range without fail and CO in the flue gas was consistently in the 80-100PPM range whenever we hooked up the flue gas analyzer throughout the winter. We have not seen any decrease in efficiency as the boilers approach cleaning time.

Boiler 1 has 908 hours, Boiler 2 has 886 and Boiler 3 has 936. The control flips the first one on every 50 hours. They all averaged 1 start per every 1.3 hours which is not bad as far as run time goes.
We have not had to clean the boilers in any way yet but the on board display says they are all getting close.....under 100 hours to cleaning on each of them. Given that startup was in December, we can plan on cleaning them once during a full heating season.

I think it's pretty impressive to heat a building this size and used in the way this one is on about $3,500 worth of fuel. Especially since the heating system requires virtually no user interaction other than filling the 13 Ton bin a couple times a year.
Equivalent heat using LP, even as cheap as it is here right now would have been in the range of $7-8,000.

Did I say I was impressed?.......