Wet Wood & Coal

[RogerS]

I think that the details have been poorly reported - particularly on the BBC website. Another example of how modern journalism in the internet age is so clueless - particularly when there's anything remotely scientific of technical to be reported on.

BBC ? Poorly reporting ? Now there's a surprise.

..I'm very confused about the "wet" wood bit - I think that it will need to be below a certain moisture content at point of sale.

Of course, if suppliers burn gas or coal to 'dry' firewood then there's a bit of a zero sum thing going on.

The report I heard (BBC admittedly) was that it had to be kiln dried ...and as you say bit of a zero sum thing.

.... (they were able to stop stubble burning at the drop of a hat because farmers rely on state subsidies).....

And as glider pilot I miss those stubble fires...the thermals were something else .

 

[RogerS]

Tiny net bags of logs sold in petrol stations are the worst. Only ever going to be bought as a last minute/emergency purchase, yet un-useable without a lot of drying.

Well...you're in the right place to get something to get it going ! 8)

 

[RogerS]

I'm fortunate. I have enough growing timber to see me out. I usually have it air-drying for two years although at the moment, other logistics stop me from keeping it out of the rain

Can you imagine..when our place was built in 1752 there were outbuildings galore. Then some vandal aka owner in the past got rid of them.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think that the details have been poorly reported - particularly on the BBC website. Another example of how modern journalism in the internet age is so clueless - particularly when there's anything remotely scientific of technical to be reported on.

BBC ? Poorly reporting ? Now there's a surprise.

..I'm very confused about the "wet" wood bit - I think that it will need to be below a certain moisture content at point of sale.

Of course, if suppliers burn gas or coal to 'dry' firewood then there's a bit of a zero sum thing going on.

The report I heard (BBC admittedly) was that it had to be kiln dried ...and as you say bit of a zero sum thing.

.... (they were able to stop stubble burning at the drop of a hat because farmers rely on state subsidies).....

And as glider pilot I miss those stubble fires...the thermals were something else .

I wasn't having a go at the BBC specifically, more at the modern way of reporting news. I've gone and actually read the government proposals and they seem perfectly sensible, namely: phasing out the supply of bituminous house coal and firewood above 20% moisture content.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Perhaps a little off topic but I wonder how much embodied energy is in biomass and pellets.
We live near the main site for SDL who produce a lot of wood chips and by the time it has been felled, forwarded, chipped, carted, dried and delivered that must add up to a significant amount of oil used.

You're dead right, by the time it's been dried and driven a few hundred miles... Even worse, Drax burns 'biomass' which comes across from places like Vancouver in ships that burn bunker oil. Because the material is not very dense, the ship is used inefficiently.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I have the space but the problem Mike is finding a domestic installer and I am a bit worried about continuity of supply at the moment.

We have been on wood pellets for the past 5 years and it has proved to be a good choice. It wasn’t easy finding an installer that we felt confident with and I ended up asking the manufacturers for a list of their approved firms. Some weren’t interested in domestic but most were up for it. Our installation was during a full renovation which made it a lot easier.

Pellets have gone up in price and are probably 10% cheaper in the summer.

 

[Lazurus]

How on earth will this be policed and enforced?????

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Precisely.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I am in two minds about pellets - nice product, but a huge amount of energy is used to make them: if not sawdust already, the wood needs to be chipped, then put through a hammer mill to get consistent size. Next the pulp is dried, (fossil fuel for heating) then then put through the pellet mill, then cooled, then shipped. What's wrong with a nice log on the stove?

 

[MikeG.]

I am in two minds about pellets........What's wrong with a nice log on the stove?

The problem with a log on the stove is that a human has to remember to put it there, whereas pellets are fed into a boiler on demand in the same way gas or oil are: by a timer and thermostat. Let's be clear that we are talking about 2 different systems. Pellets can be burned in a stove to directly produce heat, in the same way as wood. More importantly, though, they can be burned automatically in a boiler to heat water for space heating and for hot water, working in the same way as gas or oil boilers. This is the real future for the product.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

How on earth will this be policed and enforced?????

Trading standards, presumably. Coal will obviously be easier to enforce. To my way of thinking only a numpty would burn wet wood anyway.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I am in two minds about pellets........What's wrong with a nice log on the stove?

The problem with a log on the stove is that a human has to remember to put it there, whereas pellets are fed into a boiler on demand in the same way gas or oil are: by a timer and thermostat. Let's be clear that we are talking about 2 different systems. Pellets can be burned in a stove to directly produce heat, in the same way as wood. More importantly, though, they can be burned automatically in a boiler to heat water for space heating and for hot water, working in the same way as gas or oil boilers. This is the real future for the product.

Yes, wood is much less energy dense than coal or oil. Two or three wheelbarrow-loads of wood per day vs 10 or 15 kg of anthracite vs a couple of litres of kerosene.

 

[llangatwgnedd]

Bloody EU telling us what to do and can't do. Wait!!!!

Good news for the Anthracite mines still working near me.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I am in two minds about pellets........What's wrong with a nice log on the stove?

The problem with a log on the stove is that a human has to remember to put it there, whereas pellets are fed into a boiler on demand in the same way gas or oil are: by a timer and thermostat. Let's be clear that we are talking about 2 different systems. Pellets can be burned in a stove to directly produce heat, in the same way as wood. More importantly, though, they can be burned automatically in a boiler to heat water for space heating and for hot water, working in the same way as gas or oil boilers. This is the real future for the product.

I was being overly facetious - sorry. We have a similar system locally using the leftovers from the olive harvest - very similar to sawdust, and it has olive oil to help it burn. A lot of people use a Heath-Robinson system with augers to generate heat for household hot water and heating. My point was that, as a sustainable, eco-friendly, green fuel, wood pellets use a surprising amount of fossil fuels. Even more if they are being shipped from Canada and USA. Perhaps I should have just said that.

 

[powertools]

I along with most of us I assume create over the course of a year a lot of dry timber offcuts so when we had a new house built in 2015 we had a proper chimney incorporated into the build and a Clearveiw multi fuel stove fitted into the corner of our L shape kitchen diner inorder to use up the offcuts and get some free heat.
It didn't take me long to work out that it's a mugs game. I was tending to the stove every couple of hours throughout the day there was always smoke coming out of the chimney and there is no way that it would have stayed on overnight.
I now give away my offcuts and use a smokeless fuel called Supertherm I now tend to the stove 3 times in 24 hours it stays on overnight and heats the entire house.

 

[Trevanion]

Coal should've been completely phased out years ago really, at least in the next five years there shouldn't be any power generation from coal. In 1913 we mined over 250 million tonnes of coal out of the ground in Britain, In 2013 we imported 50 million tonnes of coal, in just five years in 2017 that was down to 8 million tonnes, I believe what was mined out of the ground in Britain in that year was under half of what was imported.

The unfortunate truth is it's cheaper to have some poor sod mine it in horrendous conditions for a pittance in Russia or Poland and have it shipped by the boatload to here than it was to have it mined and distributed completely here. THAT didn't help as far as pollution and carbon emissions were concerned.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A properly designed wood stove will be much more efficient at burning wood than a multi fuel will be - the draught intakes will be in different places. Clearviews are nice stoves, but cost a small fortune in baffles, grids, firebricks etc. - Mine worked out to cost £400 or so every three years on average. By the eighth year it had cost as much in parts as it had cost new. The running costs of my Dowling ............ zilch.

 

[Max Power]

I make wheels for horse drawn vehicles and use pallets to heat and expand the steel tyres to fit over the wheels. They burn like hell, no Idea what the moisture content would be though

 

[Yojevol]

The unfortunate truth is it's cheaper to have some poor sod mine it in horrendous conditions for a pittance in Russia or Poland and have it shipped by the boatload to here than it was to have it mined and distributed completely here. THAT didn't help as far as pollution and carbon emissions were concerned.

The unfortunate truth is that it was cheaper to have some well paid sod excavate it in an air conditioned cab in Australia and have it shipped by the boat and train load to Didcot Power Station than it was to have it mined and distributed completely here. THAT didn't help as far as pollution and carbon emissions were concerned, but now Didcot and the imports are no longer.

Brian

 

[Trevanion]

I thought Oz didn’t really export much here compared to the other two?