Michael Kramer wanted to become independent of volatile fuel prices to heat his home, so he designed an automated biomass boiler than burns chopped hay from his fields. It takes about 16 large square bales per year to heat his home and provide hot water.
Michael Kramer scoured the Mailbox Markets ads in Lancaster Farming to find several of the components for his automated biomass boiler system, including this beater assembly from a forage wagon. The beaters feed chopped hay into an auger that carries the material to the boiler.
During the early stages of development of his automated biomass boiler, Michael Kramer spent many late nights getting the system calibrated with all the components. Now, the boiler essentially feeds the chopped hay fuel source itself, and Kramer can sleep at night.
Michael Kramer wanted to become independent of volatile fuel prices to heat his home, so he designed an automated biomass boiler than burns chopped hay from his fields. It takes about 16 large square bales per year to heat his home and provide hot water.
In 2008, Michael Kramer came up with a plan to build his own biomass boiler, so he turned to the Mailbox Markets in Lancaster Farming to piece it all together.
Kramer, a mechanical engineer, wanted to build an automated system that would feed chopped hay into the boiler to heat his house and provide hot water year round. Located in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, Kramer hired a neighboring farmer to bale the hay from his fields, and the large square bales are stacked under roof to be converted into a home heating source.
“The availability of grass hay was a big thing to me. I wanted to be self-sufficient and not beholden to the whims of oil prices, and that’s where grass turned out to be a real advantage,” he said. “I use my own hay, so aside from the cost of baling, it’s essentially free.”
With the fuel source accounted for, Kramer needed the components to make his design become a reality. He needed items to chop the hay and then transport it to the boiler, and then feed it when heat was needed. He knew these weren’t items that could be found at the local hardware store, so he began searching the Mailbox Markets ads in Lancaster Farming.
He found everything he needed to complete the system, beginning with a New Holland 717 chopper that he retrofitted to chop the hay into half-inch pieces. Kramer manually feeds the bales into the chopper with a pitchfork, and that’s the extent of the labor required for the automated system.
During the early stages of development of his automated biomass boiler, Michael Kramer spent many late nights getting the system calibrated with all the components. Now, the boiler essentially feeds the chopped hay fuel source itself, and Kramer can sleep at night.
The chopper blows the grass into a bin that is fitted with a walking floor from a trailer — another item that Kramer found in Mailbox Markets. The bin holds four bales — roughly 3 to 4 tons of chopped hay — and the walking floor moves the pile to a set of beaters from a silage wagon.
“I put a wanted ad in Mailbox Markets for forage wagons, and received 30 calls across eastern Pennsylvania,” Kramer said. “I bought two wagons and repurposed the beater assemblies.”
The beaters remove chopped hay from the pile (similar to a silage defacer) and feed it into a 10-inch grain auger — another Mailbox Markets purchase.
Kramer cut the auger casing into a U-shaped trough so it can collect the chopped hay being dropped by the beaters. The auger carries the hay to the boiler, which is fitted with a control to maintain temperature, and an oxygen sensor that tells it how much fuel is in the chamber and when more is needed.
The other parts of the system are operated by a programmable logic controller, which Kramer monitors through an app on his phone. The PLC control operates an electric motor that runs the beater assemblies and auger, and Kramer said it took the better part of the winter to get the speeds synchronized.
“It all runs the same speed, and when it needs more heat the system just runs longer,” he said. “In a cold period the whole system ran most of the day, but I’ve completely eliminated a fossil fuel heating bill. My only expense is to have the grass baled.”
During the coldest stretch of the winter, Kramer chopped four bales once a month, and the system burned one bale a week. For the entire year he needs 16 large square bales to completely heat his house and produce hot water, which is stored in two 450-gallon tanks. During the warmer months, Kramer anticipates firing the boiler up once a week just to fill the hot water tanks.
As far as type of hay and the maturity of the grass, Kramer has noticed some differences when it comes to using it as a heating source.
Michael Kramer scoured the Mailbox Markets ads in Lancaster Farming to find several of the components for his automated biomass boiler system, including this beater assembly from a forage wagon. The beaters feed chopped hay into an auger that carries the material to the boiler.
Chopped grass has a lighter density, he said, and it had a tendency to bridge up in the auger before he began c hopping it into shorter, half-inch pieces. He initially planted 5 acres of switchgrass and other warm season grasses as a fuel source, but the small fields were difficult to access with a large square baler.
Now, Kramer just uses ordinary grass hay that grows on larger fields on his property, and he said the BTU output is the same between cool and warm season grasses.
A dozen grass bales produce about three to four wheelbarrows of ash, according to Kramer, and the timing of when the hay is baled impacts ash content.
“Older hay is slightly better. As it gets older, the leaves degrade and that’s where the minerals/ash are,” he said. “But it will all burn regardless of maturity. The boiler will even burn any type of biomass, including cherry pits, rice hulls, peanut shells and anything else.”
After years of searching the Mailbox Markets ads, and plenty of welding and fabricating followed by late nights trying to get the system running just right, Kramer said everything is working as it should. He’d like to enclose the area where the chopper is so he doesn’t have to stand out in the weather feeding bales into the machine, but other than that there really isn’t anything to change.
“By the end of the winter I got it to where it should be and I could finally sleep through the night,” Kramer said. “It’s very satisfying knowing I’m keeping my family warm with heat produced from a product that comes from my own land. If really feels good to be at this point considering where it all started years ago.”
A Pennsylvania architect is working with Mid-Atlantic homeowners who want to build their homes using straw bales.
The Penn Soil Resource Conservation and Development Council has a plan to create a new revenue stream for switchgrass growers.
Tom Venesky is a staff reporter for Lancaster Farming. He can be reached at tvenesky@lancasterfarming.com
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