So you think you might get a wood boiler?

[porker]

Might be of interest http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison.

Interesting thanks. I have oil (no mains gas where I am) and last year was cheaper than mains gas. I also supplement the heating with a log burner to keep heating oil costs down. I get free wood and have't bought any for 3 years since I moved here. I think with wood you need to enjoy the process as there's no getting away from it, it requires work and if you buy it in it tends to be expensive unless you are willing to process it yourself.

Looked into all the alternatives a couple of years ago - pellet, GSHP, ASHP etc. It seemed very difficult to get impartial advice and people who have it, love or loathe it. I think it all depends on being realistic about the benefits and how well insulated etc. your house is. Mine is a 130 yr old un-insulated place that would be extremely costly and difficult to improve so the GSHP and ASHP aren't really an option and as above the pellet boilers have high up front costs.

 

[bugbear]

Might be of interest http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison.

And a bit o' science;

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... ing-worse/

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

....

Plus from an engineering/physics perspective, heating something and then using that to heat something else just seems plain daft to me. No matter how good the insulation, there is wasted heat loss.

I had a look at these too but decided not, for all the reasons you state. Except the heat loss thing - the whole point is fan assisted batch burning which is highly efficient compared to other ways. The only problem being that it doesn't work well on demand so you have to store the heat. In spite of which it is still supposed to be highly efficient.
Went instead for a Dowling Sumo which is pure space heating and burns any old rubbish. But very dry hardwood is definitely the best.
Back up with gas CH.
Electricity is becoming the green energy of choice , with solar, wind, tide generation.

 

[ColeyS1]

Put on an extra layer when it's chilly and have a few extra whiskeys.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[Beau]

Regardless as to whether or not one has access to 'free' or low-cost logs, the fact still remains that you're beholden to The Beast to keep feeding its voracious appetite. Day in. Day out. Night in. Oh, it's out.

How often do you have to feed it?

 

[Beau]

Might be of interest http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison.

And a bit o' science;

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... ing-worse/

BugBear

Yes it's a tricky one. In the medium term it's close to to Co2 neutral but in the short term it's not as trees take 20-100 years to grow. Mind you someone pointed out to me oil and coal are Co2 neutral if you play the long game

 

[RogerS]

Regardless as to whether or not one has access to 'free' or low-cost logs, the fact still remains that you're beholden to The Beast to keep feeding its voracious appetite. Day in. Day out. Night in. Oh, it's out.

How often do you have to feed it?

Four times a day. A wheelbarrow full+ each time.

 

[Jacob]

...l but in the short term it's not as trees take 20-100 years to grow. ...

Beside the point. To be carbon neutral you only need to have weight of trees growing at the same rate as they are being consumed, whether or not they are year old saplings ( a lot of them) or 200 year old oak trees (just a few). But wood can't supply current demand by a long chalk - there isn't the space. Growing wood for burning is a means of absorbing solar energy to be released later as heat, but photo voltaic panels are far more efficient as far as I know - I wonder what the figures are?

 

[Beau]

Ouch! can see why that's a bind.

Surprised you have to have than many burns. Most of the systems I see need feeding once or twice a day. Is it undersized hence all the fuelling or part of the design?

 

[Farmer Giles]

Wood pellet boilers don't cost anywhere near 30k even inc fitting. As they modulate relatively quickly compared to a pile of logs then you don't need a huge heat store. My all singing dancing auto log and pellet boiler including heat store, expansion tank and fitting is much less than 30k. With RHI it would have paid for itself over 7 years but now its been reduced so RHI just about pays for installation over 7 year.


The house is ancient and has rubble filled stone walls so I have lined all exterior walls with kingspan backed plasterboard, 50mm or more.

I would agree that a conventional wood boiler is a faff for full house heating though, but some people don't mind the hassle.

 

[RogerS]

Ouch! can see why that's a bind.

Surprised you have to have than many burns. Most of the systems I see need feeding once or twice a day. Is it undersized hence all the fuelling or part of the design?

Undersized. But even if it was right sized, it might need less fuellings but each one would take longer!

 

[Beau]

...l but in the short term it's not as trees take 20-100 years to grow. ...

Beside the point. To be carbon neutral you only need to have weight of trees growing at the same rate as they are being consumed, whether or not they are year old saplings ( a lot of them) or 200 year old oak trees (just a few)

But they absorb more as they get older. So 100 acres of saplings don's absorb as much as 100 acres of mature forest. Pretty sure there is a lot of complaints from forester's that there is little or no effort being put into planting at the moment and it's all hands to the pump for harvesting (UK)

 

[Terry - Somerset]

As a personal decision it seems to depend on whether you (a) are motivated to put in the extra work, and (b) have a ready supply of cheap or no cost timber.

From a national perspective biomass can make but a small contribution to our energy needs, but the implication that it could replace conventional generation is a nonsense - some UK power stations currently import biomass from N America because there is not enough available in the UK. Demands for increasing % of biofuels has also driven up food costs as land is switched to corn/fuel production, not food.

 

[Jacob]

Regardless as to whether or not one has access to 'free' or low-cost logs, the fact still remains that you're beholden to The Beast to keep feeding its voracious appetite. Day in. Day out. Night in. Oh, it's out.

How often do you have to feed it?

Four times a day. A wheelbarrow full+ each time.

For space heating alone (big space - converted chapel 3000ft^2) out Dowling Sumo wouldn't take that much. Having a boiler and heat storage set up which is too small completely defeats the object. Dismantle it and sell on ebay, get a proper old fashioned fire going (middle of floor - hole in roof!)

 

[graduate_owner]

People who already process and burn their own logs will already know this, but for those readers thinking of installing any kind of log burner, be aware that it can be a LOT of work.
About 5 years ago a neighbouring farmer was taking down old trees in some of his hedges and offered me whatever I wanted. Brilliant, being so close. So, trailer behind compact tractor, chainsaw and protective gear in trailer and off to go.
I was lucky in that I could get the tractor and trailer right next to the trees.
1. Cut felled trees into manageable size and load into trailer.
2. Drive trailer load back home and unload.
Repeat for dozens, if not scores, of trailer loads, while the ground is dry enough for the tractor and the trees are available.
3. Cut tree sections into logs
4. Split logs and put into store.
5 .after a year of drying, put split logs from store into sacks and take to house.
6. transfer logs from sacks to log basket and use as needed.

We fed our lounge woodburner for a 2 whole winters, just using oil for early morning and just before bed heating, plus hot water. It saved us literally hundreds of pounds, quite a few hundreds, when oil was 60+ pence per litre, so well worth doing. Also I was retired so had time in the day to do it. Not everyone will need to do every stage but still, a LOT of handling. If you have to travel any appreciable to get the logs, or if you have limited access to tools (as in needing to put logs in boot of car, no chain saw, have to barrow logs from tree to car because no tractor to get onto field etc) then things could be much more time consuming.
Not trying to put people off what could be a good source of cheap fuel, but be aware before you buy a woodburner.

K

 

[Farmer Giles]

Totally agree with the need for proper tools. I do have a large hydraulic splitter but my tractor to drive is in bits so I use my neighbours tractor for now. It's ok for the odd tree but you wouldn't want to do much more with it too slow. Here's the start of this years logs that I started collecting last year. Using IBC cages means I can stack them with the pallet forks on the bobcat. The bobcat can just lift a full cage of unseasoned wood but is small enough to sneak down the alley at the side of the house.

Here's the boiler, not my installation I hasten to add, but identical to mine including heat stores

Here's the boiler house being built, there want any room in the house so built it around the back of the house after excavating about 200 tonnes of mainly shale and sandstone.

And nearly finished.

 

[graduate_owner]

Nice log store. So often we see bare concrete block structures, functional but so ugly.

K

 

[RogerS]

Looks very tidy, FG.

And then there's The Beast





Also get diddly-squat support from the distributor.

 

[Farmer Giles]

That is a bit a beast Roger. With the reduction of RHI and the slowing of oil prices increases, a lot of renewable heat companies have gone to the wall. So you can get bargain equipment but naff all support.

The guy I bought mine from used to have 20 employees, now he is virtually a one man band.

 

[Jacob]

Just an afterthought: looking at the cost effectiveness of alternative installations; spend money on insulation first.
Value for money in order of precedence; roof, walls, floors, partitions between rooms, draught proofing, curtains/shutters, windows. NB windows last - it works out as less cost effective than the others, which surprises many, though of course it's very variable according to the building details
Came to this conclusion after a lot of back of envelope calculations. We were look at batch burners, heat stores etc but instead went for insulation in a big way, with conventional gas CH and a stand alone wood burning room heater. If all else fails we can use the woodburner, but if you have a hi tec fan assisited boiler, with pumps etc, it will be useless if the leccy goes off.