May 24, 2010

Testimonial for Brian Crawford.

If you are looking for a person with knowledge about wood gasification systems or for someone you can count on to do the best job possible, Brian Crawford is your man. I speak from personal experience. I installed an EKO 40 with 1000 gallons of water storage in the fall of 2009. Initially I couldn’t believe how much wood I was using and how difficult it was to keep a fire going properly-and I had to keep the fire going non stop to get enough heat to keep my house warm.  This was the exact opposite of what I had been led to believe would occur. I had previously met Brian, but didn’t buy my system through his company. After much dissatisfaction with the way my EKO was performing and not being able to get help elsewhere I contacted him, told him of the problems I was having and he immediately agreed to help me. He gave me hours of advice on the telephone, reviewed my system and made two different trips to my home. We eventually made plumbing and control changes, which made all the difference. Now I get great heat, get a great fire and with my 1000 gallons of water storage don’t have to keep a continuous fire in the boiler. I highly recommend Brian and his company to anyone that is considering a wood gasification system. You won’t go wrong.

Mike Springsteen

April 18, 2010

Testimonial for Brian Crawford.

In the fall of 2009 I became interested in gasification wood boilers and by October, 2009 we had purchased and installed such a system from Brian Crawford at Up North Alternative Energy Solutions.

Brian worked with our plumber in engineering and overseeing the proper installation of a complete solution for our 3,000 ft2 home. The system consisted of a Paxo 40 boiler installed in a boiler room on the side of our garage and an open, 1,200 gallon storage tank w/ heat exchanger located in our basement, approx. 80’ from the Paxo boiler. The system was tied together with our existing Burnham propane boiler and worked extremely well during the winter of 2009/2010. It provided heat for our home and domestic hot water for showers. It worked so well in fact that we only used 13 face cords of seasoned firewood.   

As we came into the spring of 2010 we soon discovered that our original idea of keeping the thermal storage close to our existing propane boiler (and in the house) was probably not the best idea (early on in the design phase Brian had discussed and highly recommended a large water storage tank located near the garage but we choose to have it located in the basement).

Last month Brian once again worked with our plumber in engineering and overseeing the proper installation of a 1,000 gallon thermal storage tank (used propane tank) on the back of our garage (this required a major re-work of our entire Paxo system) and the system is now operating very well.

If you are looking for a person with a great amount of knowledge about wood gasification systems (both engineering and installation related details) we would highly recommend Brian Crawford at Up North Alternative Energy Solutions. His knowledge of these systems, positive can-do attitude and truthful spirit made our entire conversion from propane to wood gasification a very pleasant experience. Please feel free to visit our home and look at our Paxo boiler system (Brian has our permission to arrange this for you) if you are in anyway considering a similar alternative energy heating system.

Ray and Amy Dillion