The perfect heating system for our 1,250 sq ft Central Maine home:
Harmon Hydroflex60 Pellet Boiler w/200 gallons of thermal storage
Englander 17-VL wood stove on first floor
Sounds simple, right? The problem is, the Harmon is $6,000 plus the thermal storage tank and connections for domestic hot water. That brings you to $8,000. I can handle the installation on this one, so no cost there. Then you have the $600 Englander stove and $1,000 for installation including a chimney liner. That brings the grand total to $9,600. Almost 10 grand – far too rich for our blood. So, odds are what will happen is our current boiler will get replaced with another oil dragon but it will be direct vent to free up the chimney for the Englander. $1,500 for a direct vent boiler (with a domestic hot water coil), $1,000 for installation and $1,600 for the Englander with installation. That brings us to a total of only $4,100. Still a lot of cash, but much more manageable. If I am feeling gutsy I may do the oil boiler install myself over the summer, bringing our total down to $3,100.
Maybe when pellet boilers come down in price I can consider replacing the direct vent oil boiler with one.
