Bio mass boiler

[woof]

Does anyone have one or got experience of them ?, if so how does it compere to running your previous boiler ?.

I'm told that there is currently a government scheme for those who live in none gas areas & want to replace a oil or lpg system, with a bio mass boiler.

Rob

 

[Ogri the trog]

I have limited experience of them in commercial premises, and from a little research for domestic applications.

Up until a few years ago, the fuel source for domestic boilers was wood pellets made in Scandinavia and shipped over, hardly an ecological practice. The price and availability of the pellets was volatile - and so really only suited the committed user.

It is something that I will be looking into again, in the hope that some of my former fears have been addressed, so fingers crossed.

For now, I will be staying with my oil fired boiler, which is becoming expensive, but is manageable for now!

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[mountainm]

A friend has one. The wood pellet hopper for it is as big as a shed. The boiler itself slightly smaller

 

[allrightscud]

You get the same grant for a gassiess wood boiler. and you get paid per therm output as well. It takes less room although it does need a 1000l to 3000l tank of water depending on the size of your house. It needs manually filled once or twice per day with logs. I'm looking into this at the moment and running it in tandam with my oil. I have more than enough logs to keep me going for the payback.

 

[woof]

Thanks folks.

Rob

 

[Turnip]

I'm currently working for a biomass company so if there's anything specific you'd like to know I can do my best to find out. I've only been with the company 9 months so still learning. domestic boilers can be pellet, chip or log. the company I work for try to avoid installing the log boilers these days though as they can be quite a hastle apparently.

Cheers

Jon

 

[Robbi]

a serious question.......why would you want one ?

I ask as I am currently trying to get 3 removed from schools I deal with.

 

[British Red]

Why do you want them removed Robbi? Presumably not to go back to using fossil fuels?

 

[woof]

a serious question.......why would you want one ?

I ask as I am currently trying to get 3 removed from schools I deal with.

As per my other thread, I'm looking to buy another house, & one is in a non gas area, & I'd heard of the offer if I change from oil to bio mass.

Rob

 

[Robbi]

A number of reasons really BR, they have been installed to tick the green box but have a number of drawbacks.....

In schools they are used as a primary heating system backed up by gas or oil, however, for a number of reasons the gas or oil is used as the main heat source with the biomass only used occasionally......

The only provider of the pellets is over 100 miles away so any carbon footprint made by delivering them. Rather negates any green box ticking.

They have to be cleaned out every day, not a job caretakers are prepared to do these days.

The manufactures recommend that they are services by approved engineers every month. ( think costs and carbon footprint for travel )

Storage is a problem, not only space but if the pellets get damp, they swell and jam the feed screw, requiring an expensive engineer to attend.

The gas given off by stored pellets is potentially lethal and requires special training and equipment to clean out a store.

For all the above reasons and more they are very unreliable.

 

[British Red]

Ahh - the choice of the pellet based ones is I think a bad choice - the chip based ones appeal more to me - good use of brash