Froling T4

[jimmyriddle]

Has anyone a Froling t4 or a t4e boiler that they can review for me... I am just in the process of getting quotes to heat a house year round including just the hot water in the summer, I want to run it on woodchip... can anyone tell me how good the automatic ignition is on it ?
Thanks

 

[rollestonpark]

What sort of chip are you going to use?
What KW are you looking at?

 

[jimmyriddle]

What sort of chip are you going to use?
What KW are you looking at?

I am looking at the 20kw t4e model using our own wood chip. I would say is grade G50... currently putting it through some ksm boilers also 20odd kw and never had any problems but they don’t have auto ignition on them.

 

[rollestonpark]

I think G30 maybe better for the T4e, but I could be wrong and people's definition of G30 G50 seems to vary.
I have auto ignite on my TM froling and works perfect.
On the T4e it'll be a smaller igniter and will be fine as long as the chip is properly dry.
Chris

 

[rollestonpark]

I will just add that with these smaller boilers top quality chip will be needed, they won't like spears etc or wet fuel
But Frolings are generally very good.
If your going to burn waste wood or anything like that, then it'll be a problem.
Also fit a buffer tank, as large as you can to reduce the number of ignitions it has to do.

 

[jimmyriddle]

How do the auto igniters work ? The chip is dry... leave it in store for a year before I use it at the moment. Could always put some extra pedestal dryers in if needed but I have never had a problem with damp or wet chip yet.

 

[rollestonpark]

It basically like a heat gun you use for stripping paint etc.
If the chip is around 20% or less, then you won't have an issue.
As the buffer gets up to full temperature the boiler will modulate back.
This will burn off the contents of the combustion chamber in preparation for a shutdown.
Then it will go out.
Then when buffer is cold, fuel is augered in and igniter runs to fire it backup.

But houses tend to have very erratic heat requirements (ours does anyway), so using a buffer will help reduce the number of times the igniter is needed.
Also the boiler will last longer, because it won't stop and start as frequently with a large buffer attached, the going hot cold hot cold hot cold etc of the boiler tends to be when condensation occurs in the heat exchanger and the corrosion starts.

 

[jimmyriddle]

That’s interesting, I was planning on a 1000ltr buffer feeding the house from the outbuilding but may be wise to put another smaller tank inside the house this would speed up hot water to taps.
I will check the moisture content of my chip as I have never bothered in the past as my current burners have never had any issues.
Thank you for your input

 

[rollestonpark]

If you manage to successfully store the chip without it heating up for 1 year, I would almost bet it'll be 20% or less.
There is a calculator online or somewhere which tells you how many litres of water is needed to hold a certain number of kwh of heat.

What I'd want to avoid is in summer, someone has a shower and the boiler has to fire up and down constantly when the hot tap is switched on.
You want probably 2000 litres of hot water or something to allow it to start up once every other day or something like that...
In winter it'll be less of an issue cause it'll be busy heating the house.

 

[wilber]

Sorry to necro the thread. Did you go with the froling in the end? Were looking at a T4E currently and was wondering how you got on with it? We're looking to burn chip from farm hedgerows/woodland.