So you think you might get a wood boiler?

[RobinBHM]

The difficulty in the UK is upgrading our housing stock for improved thermal efficiency. For a homeowner in an oldish house once the basics are done like loft and wall insulation is done and draughts are sealed, LED bulbs. the next items such as floors, windows, walls all cost serious money and in many cases cant be done without reducing room sizes or altering appearance.

For example houses pre 1980s wont have any insulation in the floor at all. To improve floor insulation in a solid floor means a lot of cost and disruption, gunning up the floor, reduced dig, removing spoil then insulation and screed.

 

[Jacob]

The difficulty in the UK is upgrading our housing stock for improved thermal efficiency. For a homeowner in an oldish house once the basics are done like loft and wall insulation is done and draughts are sealed, LED bulbs. the next items such as floors, windows, walls all cost serious money and in many cases cant be done without reducing room sizes or altering appearance.
.....

Yes may not be practicable.
It could be worth reducing room sizes though, on external walls at least. Looking at it the other way - if your walls were already lined with 4" insulation would you think it a good idea to remove it and gain 4" (or 8") on the room dimensions?

 

[Sheffield Tony]

The difficulty in the UK is upgrading our housing stock for improved thermal efficiency. For a homeowner in an oldish house once the basics are done like loft and wall insulation is done and draughts are sealed, LED bulbs. the next items such as floors, windows, walls all cost serious money and in many cases cant be done without reducing room sizes or altering appearance.
.....

Yes may not be practicable.
It could be worth reducing room sizes though, on external walls at least. Looking at it the other way - if your walls were already lined with 4" insulation would you think it a good idea to remove it and gain 4" (or 8") on the room dimensions?

That sounds like a good argument, but when you add insulation your furniture might not fit anymore ! A bedroom shorter than a bed is not much use.

 

[heimlaga]

Graduate Owner knows what he is talking about.

To make wood heating worthwhile you need proper equipment and the necressary skills to do it efficiently.
We use wood for roundabout haf our annual heating needs and I often process timber starting from growing trees.
For that we have two chainsaws (Husqvarna 42 and Husqvarna 353) with all the safety gear that belongs to them, A tractor (Massey-Ferguson 165) equipped with logging winch and log trailer and a hydraulic log splitter that splits metre long logs at least up to 35 cm in diametre. Two bark knives for removing two strips of bark from thin logs. A big splitting axe and a small splitting axe and a sledgehammer and a few iron wedges for logs too thing for the splitter. A log tong and a pickaroon

The picture shows a trailer load of sawlogs but you get an idea of what efficient wood handling is about.

I am an advocate of reforestation of all unused land that has been wooded in the past as a means of reducing oil dependancy and reducing pollution. Focusing on production of good quality timber with firewood as a byproduct. Locally grown sawn timber is a construction material which emits very little carbon dioxide during production compared to steel or concrete while locally grown firewood burned in well designed burners is a cheap source of reasonably clean energy.
Wood is just a too good material to turn into pulp used to make half empty cerals boxes and to fill every mailbox with advertising flyers.

 

[RogerS]

Mmmm..so I need to go and buy some woodland, a couple of tractors, some log processing stuff.....

But I STILL have to shove the bloody logs into the boiler. I still have to struggle to relight it when we've been away for a couple of days. I gave up tonight.

On the other hand.....oil. Switch ON. Job done !

 

[Jacob]

Mmmm..so I need to go and buy some woodland, a couple of tractors, some log processing stuff.....

But I STILL have to shove the bloody logs into the boiler. I still have to struggle to relight it when we've been away for a couple of days. I gave up tonight.

On the other hand.....oil. Switch ON. Job done !

They are a bit like solid fuel Agas - they work if they are going but you need back up for when they are not. Once you have the back up you find it's cheaper to install, cheaper to run, much more convenient, does everything the Aga did and QED you don't need the Aga.

Not that much energy is needed for hot water for purposes other than space heating so we thought for us it makes sense to have a conventional source; gas, electricity (especially if you have solar panels) for hot water but a quick response woodburner for space heating.
We got Dowling Sumo - it burns dry wood, reclaimed wood, off-cuts, mdf, chipboard, demolition stuff, cardboard, saw dust etc. and heats up in minutes. Will burn paper but it makes too much ash.
Will heat the whole place by strategically opening and closing doors. Gas for hot water and CH back up.

 

[Droogs]

Jacob,
that's prbly the coolest burner I've seen ever. Should be placed exactly in the centre of any livingroom

 

[Jacob]

Jacob,
that's prbly the coolest burner I've seen ever. Should be placed exactly in the centre of any livingroom

And so it is, almost - middle of the back wall not the centre of the room.

The pyramid shape is good for burning sawdust. I can fill it tight with 3 coal hods of dust and light it on top. Sawdust burns from the top - can't burn from the bottom as it stops all air ingress from below.
Also the width and wide front door means you can put big pieces of mdf etc in sideways on.
Also it's welded steel rather than cast iron and is maintenance free - though I suppose it could be damaged by over firing but we've had another one for about 10 years with zero maintenance, as compared to £50 a year or more for previous cast iron stove needing new baffles, firebricks etc, every year.

PS the best place for any heat source is the centre of the house - ideally the main living room. Those installations in sheds are missing a trick and must waste a lot of heat. Even our gas combi boiler spills a bit of heat and its position is important.
Space heating costs most.

 

[Farmer Giles]

I've got 3 dowlings, none with back boiler though. I have a sumo in the living room, a hybrid in the kitchen and a firebug in the wife's workshop. Only used for secondary heating and power-cuts now but great bits of kit.

I agree that placing the wood boiler in the middle of the house would be ideal but I don't think the missus would like the 250kg hopper blocking out the TV

 

[Beau]

I've got 3 dowlings, none with back boiler though. I have a sumo in the living room, a hybrid in the kitchen and a firebug in the wife's workshop. Only used for secondary heating and power-cuts now but great bits of kit.

I agree that placing the wood boiler in the middle of the house would be ideal but I don't think the missus would like the 250kg hopper blocking out the TV

Do you get a good secondary combustion with the Dowlings? Looks like they are just bare steel inside with no fire brick.

 

[Jacob]

I've got 3 dowlings, none with back boiler though. I have a sumo in the living room, a hybrid in the kitchen and a firebug in the wife's workshop. Only used for secondary heating and power-cuts now but great bits of kit.

I agree that placing the wood boiler in the middle of the house would be ideal but I don't think the missus would like the 250kg hopper blocking out the TV

Do you get a good secondary combustion with the Dowlings? Looks like they are just bare steel inside with no fire brick.

Yes bare steel. Don't know about 2ary combustion.

 

[Beau]

Yes bare steel. Don't know about 2ary combustion.[/quote]

Hope this is correct but think secondary combustion is when the gases given off from the wood ignite in the air above the logs. If the stove is not very hot these gases go up the flue unburnt wasting a lot of potential energy. It's why a lot of modern stoves are lines with insulated bricks and then have a top air feed.

 

[Jacob]

Yes bare steel. Don't know about 2ary combustion.

Hope this is correct but think secondary combustion is when the gases given off from the wood ignite in the air above the logs. If the stove is not very hot these gases go up the flue unburnt wasting a lot of potential energy. It's why a lot of modern stoves are lines with insulated bricks and then have a top air feed.[/quote]
I thought it was the old cast iron stoves which needed the bricks to protect the metal.

 

[Beau]

I thought it was the old cast iron stoves which needed the bricks to protect the metal.

Don't think so but freely admit to not being a stove expert. Our current stove was bare cast inside. It was good when being thrashed but when we didn't want so much heat so throttled it back it would soot up the glass and just not work as designed. I fitted it with some insulated fire sheets to the back and sides as a bit of an experiment but it works much better now with a lovely rolling flame and the glass remains clean due to the higher temperature in the fire box.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have a small Dowlings - a Little Devil, I have a b/b for it but haven't had it fitted as the new tank has to go into the roof. As the others , bare steel. One good thing apart from total lack of ongoing maintenance costs is that the heat is there within minutes. It has quite good secondary combustion so long as the wood is quite dry. If you read the Dowlings site info the multi fuel stoves are uneconomic if you burn only wood, as the vents for a wood stove come in on top and for a multi fuel or coal/coke come in underneath. I have seen multi fuels in NZ that have both, so you can jiggle them to suit what you're burning at any time. I assume you must be able to get them in this Country.

 

[sawdust1]

heimlaga, i see your burning softwood, over here its hard to convert people from burning hardwood.
I sell Douglas fir and Spruce logs some like it and some don't and ask for hardwood logs instead which
i can also supply. I explain that softwood is what they burn over your neck of the woods and all over
eastern europe.

jacob, the house we live in came with an Aga, we put up with that oil guzzling monstrosity for 22 year
befor i cut it up for scrap. It never reached temperature, rumbled like a train, smelt of oil and cost a
fortune to run. The only positive it kept the kitchen hot especially the summer and heated the hot water.

As we own and live in 23acres of woodland i looked into installing a wood heating system, it was just to
expensive, and as the house has no insulation and only single glazing being over 400 years old we would not
pass the energy certificate to be eligible for RHI payments.
Even looked into fitting a back boiler to our woodburner, but the work involved keeping it going 24/7 to keep
the system up to temperature was to much hassle.
Oil although at the moment is fairly cheap it is the easiest option.