Varimatik boiler questions

[LoganM]

Hello,

This is my first post on the forum.

I am considering purchasing a Varimatik boiler to use to heat my home and domestic water. We use baseboard heating in our house. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with these boilers and their operation. I like the idea that the coal is fed onto a drum rather than through a auger. Many other locals around our area use augers and they have a tendency to jam up some times.

We live in intirior Alaska the temps this week have been in the -30 range and we have a 2300sf house.

My plan would be to take a 20ft connex and put the boiler along in there. In the back half of the connex I would build a built in bunker.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and I get free coal.

[lsayre]

They certainly look nice, but I doubt that many on this forum know about them. There are both commercial and residential models seen in this video.

[lsayre]

I found their home page. If you open it in Google Chrome or in Chromium it will be translated for you. There are 3,412 BTU's in one KW. So their smallest model, the VM 15, is about 51,000 BTUH. Is someone distributing these boilers in the USA?

http://www.varimatik.cz/

[coaledsweat]

I normally don't like the foreign sources. This one impresses me because of the bituminous factor. Do you have a price?

Keep in mind, you'll have trouble with voltage and wet connection issues unless they build a US version. Repair parts is another problem.

[McGiever]

Is someone distributing these boilers in the USA?

http://www.varimatik.cz/

From Alaska you can skip out of the Aleutian Islands across the Bering Sea into Siberia, from there it should be easy to get ones hands on one of these fine units.

[coaledsweat]

It looks like the small one is about $3000. Not sure what it would cost to get it here, I figure about $1000-1500. Here's a link to their contact page, I would give them a call and see what's up. I'm sure someone there speaks English.

http://www.varimatik.cz/kontakt-a-prodej/

Who knows? Maybe they are looking for a US dealer and a free boiler makes it happen. It looks like a US flag at the top of the page with China and two others. Make a call, nothing to lose with that.

[StokerDon]

Welcome to the forum Logan.

That looks like a pretty good boiler, if you can get one where you live.

I have concerns about the Conex installation though. Number one, if you have a basement, that's where the boiler belongs. In your climate you will loose a ton of heat with a remote install. Number two, the height of the hopper. It looks like it is about 6 foot high, maybe more. That doesn't leave much room to dump buckets of coal in.

-Don

[McGiever]

Are basements common all over Alaska? The few coalers that come here seem to all put them in on ground level outbuildings. Although, this ain't anthracite, we here may not want their coal inside or thru the house either, IDK??? PermaFrost could change building technics.