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[chadley]

I was curious when you buy a OWB and have it installed; what comes with it?  Which OWB companies include the pump, fitting, pipe, etc in their prices?  Are there any or do most add that to the cost of the unit or install?  The reason I ask is I was looking at one particular OWB and the price for the unit and the price of the install were separate were not including about 2500 in parts to hook it up.  Is this normally how all OWB companies work?

[Trint]

In my case with a portage and main it came with a filter, 3 ft section on chimmney, bottle of treatment, cleaning tool, and an ash pan.  Pump and tubing were on my own had about $600 in the pipe, $80 for a pump, and about $50 in pipe fittings.

[BIGDIESEL20S]

I dont know about other brands but I bought a Hardy H2. With hardy you can buy differant models that come with differant things, how much or little you need. Like 1 or 2 pumps, 1 or 2 dhw coils, all the valves are on the stove, its just pretty much plug and play. You have to buy the heat exchanger, pipes, and the fittings you will need to hook it all up.

[lugnut]

With my Shaver Pro Series 250, it comes with whatever you order on it.  Mine came in at $5800 and came with the standard thickness firebox of 3/8"; one free firebox poker; one pump Astro 50 cfm pump/with additional port at no extra cost; upgrade blower motor from 50 cfm to 75 cfm with auto damper; I did NOT opt for the built in water coil; cold water package included; and I added the spark arrester; also ordered the Rust Blocker.  I purchased on my own the 200' of 3-wrap pex line, air-to-water heat exchanger; 20 brazed plate exchanger and hook up to both in house furnace and DHW.

You can look at this two ways, which it seems you already have done.  IF you are handy and have the time, y ou can install it yourself, but if you are limited in what you can do, have them install.  Price will vary greatly, especially if you have someone else do the install.   I had a shop that installs/sells CB come to my house and I told him I didn't want to mess with any of the install, so give me a price for such and such unit "completely" installed...and his price for everything came in at about $16k!  Well heck, I'd have to live here for 50 years to even think about recouping any of my money.  I went with Shaver because of the cost of the unit and knowing that although there would be some tweaking to be done, my time in recouping  monies spent would be about 5-6 years.  This is NOT telling you who to go with....just my opinion in choices of install...you or the brand furnace compay h=you choose.

Hope this helps and hey, welcome to the site.  You found THE site to gather all your information!   

Lugnut

[chadley]

Well, here's the background on my question.  I have a dealer that is telling me it will cost an additionnal 2-2500k for parts to install on top of the 1500 for complete install.  This is not counting the unit price.  I was curious if this is a reasonable estimate for istall parts.  What have you guys experienced with the price of parts to install your units not counting labor?

[6pacmac]

I bought my "big" install stuff, [20"x20" heat exchanger, 100' of 5 wrap one inch pex, 20 plate hot water heat exchanger and anti scald valve from a site on EBAY.  That stuff cost around a $1150 or so. The plumbing fittings and stuff was bought at Lowes and Home Depot.  And that  was around $300 .     Wire and electrical was around $100.   I dug my own ditch, that just cost a few bucks in diesel.   

[merrellroofing]

The price for extra parts you need will vary mostly on the underground pipe you use.  I read too many bad stories about cheap pipe.  165 ft. Of thermopex cost me almost 2g.  If you are in a milder climate you may be able to get away with the cheaper pipe, but in mid-Michigan, I didn't want to take any chances.

[Scott7m]

The thermopex is good, but please don't buy not that its so much better than everything else.  I've installed triple wrap on the surface due to frozen ground and it didnt melt the snow.  There is also some great 5 wrap that I'd choose over thermopex.  A quality 3 or 5 wrap will lose less than 1 degree in 75'

[lugnut]

The thermopex is good, but please don't buy not that its so much better than everything else.  I've installed triple wrap on the surface due to frozen ground and it didnt melt the snow.  There is also some great 5 wrap that I'd choose over thermopex.  A quality 3 or 5 wrap will lose less than 1 degree in 75'

chadley,

I back up Scott here.  I was going to buy the Thermopex at first, but then I got to reading and figuring out also what it would cost me and I was not prepared to pay close to $2k for piping.  I went with a nice three wrap and the ONLY time I have snow melt is when it is warm outside.  We've had below freezing temps here as of late...well two weeks ago and I had NO snow melt and my lines are at the max...2' down....and from my OWF to my house is a 115' run.

Now this is not to say others have paid too much...that was their choice and their situation s may be different than mine or Scott, but I know that if you read up on the more expensive pex line versus a nice three or five wrap, you will see a HUGE savings in just the line alone.

Jerry

[donahuej]

Bottom line - you will pay close to the cost of the unit for your install maybe more if you let someone else do the work.  Depending on what you do once you settle on the line set coming from the boiler, there is a fair amount of expense for, water to air and or water to water for DHW & if your are already hot water base board.  If you add any goodies like a garage heat, pool or a hot tub, figure more of the same; pipe, pump & exchanger.  I shopped for over a year before I found a American Royal dealer going out of business, he was a builder and had these as an option.  Well we all know how crappy the hosing market has been and I got mine at a good price, 4k including four PL36 pumps with flange kits, couple extra blower motors and 6 gallons of additive.  I did all my own work, ditch, concrete pad, pluming and duct work.  I have 60 feet of buried thermopex, 150 feet of 1" copper for a total run of 420'. two water to air exchangers (two heating zones), 50 plate water to water DHW exchanger and a stainless water to water for the pool.  The fittings add up, you need full port ball valves everywhere and think about bypassing each exchanger for services and or warmer months.  It's a ton of work and a big chunk of money to lay out but I could not deal with another 7k propane bill, yes 7000 dollars to heat my house....my return is pretty quick and well worth it. Never run out of hot water, whole house is nice and warm and a heated pool in the spring stretches our season.

Good luck - it is worth the time and money - it's hard to get started but worth it .

Jamie

[Roger2561]

With my e-classic 1400 came; a hoe for scraping the firebox of creosote and for other chores, a poker to move the firewood around, and a wonder bar to loosen from the walls any creosote build up, 1 gallon of corrosion inhibitor and pre-installed pump. 

Purchases; 70 feet of thermopex pipe, various connectors, nipples, ball valves and 35 feet of pex tubing from thermopex to finally installation site. 

Homemade;  a device to scrape the heat exchanger of dust build up (it is a piece of aluminum 1/4"x1"x4" connected to a 6ft piece of threaded rod),  a screwdriver bent at 90 degrees to clear air holes of creosote and ash (once a week cleaning).  Considering the of use a torch to burn the creosote buildup from the air holes...Gotta think about this a bit more before I do it.

Items found on the farm; a shovel to clean the reaction chamber of ash and dust, a rake to smooth out the hot coals prior to loading firewood.

[chadley]

A lot of you mentioned the piping.  This guy has the pipe and 3 layers of insulation around it then the pipe and isulation is inside corregated pipe.  He sells it for about 6.75 a ft.  I'm not sure what the brand name is.  He claims the same thing scott does; that he has had to lay it on top of the ground b/c of frozen ground and has had no snow melt.  he also said 1 degree heat loss per 100 feet.  What he is telling me seems to match what I'm hearing from your posts.  would you agree?

[donahuej]

I don't know why you would skimp on the underground loop...not worth the 4 bucks a foot difference in price in my mind...take a look a picture number one and then look at number two...you decide...


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[johnybcold]

I bought a CB and in my case I got what a bought, if you buy the boiler that is all you get just a boiler all the parts to install it are extra, it would be hard for them to include everything becuase there are alot of different ways to install it.

[martyinmi]

I'm not a huge fan of all CB products, BUT, their insulated pex is probably the best out there. Over on the hearth or the Arborist site(not sure which one) some of the guys did a boatload of testing on it and other brands a year or two ago, and of the two or three others brands tested, none came came close to CB's. Their testing showed between .002*-.004*/ft of heat loss with the thermopex.. That is an average of .3* per 100'. Don't quote me on this, but it seems like the next closest 5 wrap came in at .005*-.008*/ ft of heat loss. They took it even further and did a wood consumption study and found that based on 8 cords/year wood consumption, the CB brand would net a 1 - 1 1/2 cord/ year savings. I believe hard maple was the wood of choice in the study. If my feeble old mind serves me correctly, they also deducted a 4*-5*/100' heat loss could potentially double wood usage. Do your homework.