Town of Franklin
(Please note: any mention of brand names is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as an endorsement of a particular product.)
The Town of Franklin, New York highway garage is the host to both an indoor pellet stove and outdoor pellet hydronic heater. 
Outdoor Unit: The outdoor unit is a Central Boiler Maxim 250 (www.centralboiler.com), a 250,000 BTU furnace that is accompanied by a 60 bushel auxiliary bin that will hold 1 ton of pellets. The system automatically feeds pellets into the bin on the furnace as needed. The furnace has automatic propane gas ignition and is outfitted with a 30 lb propane tank. The unit requires manual ash removal and manual heat exchanger cleaning.
This unit has been tied into an existing oil fired boiler with a brass multi-plate heat exchanger (see photo). The system heats the highway garage bays with forced hot air via ceiling mounted convectors (see photo). The set points of the oil furnace can be adjusted to allow the pellet heater to carry more or less of the load.
This system was operational in late January 2009. Until January 1, 2010, it has been allowed to carry the majority of the heating load, which it is able to do during more mild temperatures (down to mid 30º F). The pellet furnace has carried the heating load in temperatures colder than this, but it is undersized for the building at this point and runs too hard for too long, resulting in more clinkering of the grass pellet ash, which impedes function of the
aeration paddle in the burn chamber. This has led to premature wear and replacement of the paddle (which is relatively inexpensive and easy to replace). We have since modified the oil boiler settings to carry more of the heating load in cold weather.
From October 2009 through February 2010, the Franklin site burned approximately one-half ton of grass pellets per week to heat the whole garage (more during the colder weather). In total for this whole period of time the highway garage only burned 275 gallons of fuel oil. Using fuel oil alone, they typically have burned between 125-200 gallons per week.
Indoor Unit: This site is host to a Harman P43 (www.harmanstoves.com) indoor biomass pellet stove to be installed in February 2010. This stove is rated up to 43,000 BTU and features automatic ignition as well as room temperature or stove temperature operating modes. It has a bottom feed pellet delivery system designed to work with a range of biomass qualities. The stove was installed in a small meeting room at the Town of Franklin highway building. The meeting room has several small offices that open off from it. The stove should be more than adequate to provide supplemental heat.
Stay turned for pictures and updates on the use of the stove. We expect no issues as the P43 is the same design as the Harman P68 biomass pellet stove, which has worked well in Hunter and Ashokan demonstration sites.