Biomass burners

[Luckyeleven]

37 minutes ago, Ratman said:

What was your buy and installation cost on the boiler for your 4 bed if ya dont mind me asking? Whats it costing you to run?

I'm in France so everything is 1.5x the cost. Your looking at the better part of 13k but here we get a tax credit.
Its certainly not a DIY project for anyone but pro Plumbers.
Its not costing me anything in monetary terms to run as the wood is free, but I've been told to count on a large barrow of logs per day in the winter.
Ours is a stone house with not a lot of insulation. The installation includes a 1000l accumulator tank, 200 litres of domestic hot water and runs 9 rads.

[Ratman]

Cheers for the reply. Its interesting in general seeing what other people have and do differently from day to day (call me a nosey get if ya like [emoji23]) and i wrongly assumed you where here in the uk ??‍♂️ so the fact your in france makes it different again.
I keep debating about straying away from standard electricity in one way or another and introducing an alternative but have never committed.

[Luckyeleven]

We're spending a F*ck tonne of money upfront during the renovation, in order to have lower running costs thereafter.
I'm hoping that the system will last for a lot of years to come, and win us a decent saving in the long term.
Apparently oil boilers are to be banned within 10 years here....doesn't leave a lot of options.... 

[Ratman]

Probably your only other viable option would be solar with battery backup / storage. But like you say, large upfront cost plus installation, and a maintenance cost too with batteries.

[Woodworks]

20 minutes ago, Ratman said:

I keep debating about straying away from standard electricity in one way or another and introducing an alternative but have never committed.

 

Look at ways to improve insulation first. In the long run, it will probably the cheapest option.

[Ratman]

Look at ways to improve insulation first. In the long run, it will probably the cheapest option.

Did the insulation in the house back when bought it in 2012, we gutted it, got rid of old storage heaters and installed full gas central heating, full plaster work throughout, insulation in the few stud walls we have, insulated roof and floors throughout. Re roofed and fresh felted main house last year, built new extension year before that and that was overkill..... 100mm in between roof trusses, 25mm under that, 3/4 ply under that then 12.5mm plasterboard and skim. 100mm in floor topped with 100mm slab, 100mm cavity with 60mm insulation.
Installed wood burner year before that for main house.

[Ratman]

Biggest loss for us will be in the floors in the main house, they’re all solid bitumen topped floors so can lose a fair bit of heat i would imagine around perimeter.

[Jcarbor]

Cheers for the reply. Its interesting in general seeing what other people have and do differently from day to day (call me a nosey get if ya like [emoji23]) and i wrongly assumed you where here in the uk ??‍♂️ so the fact your in france makes it different again.
I keep debating about straying away from standard electricity in one way or another and introducing an alternative but have never committed.

I’m in the uk, our whole unit cost about 21k, it was plumbed into the existing oil burning heating system which we have kept as a back up. Our running cost are nowt due to the fact that we are swimming in arb waste, it burns an IBC of wood in 5 days.

[Luckyeleven]

4 minutes ago, Jcarbor said:

I’m in the uk, our whole unit cost about 21k, it was plumbed into the existing oil burning heating system which we have kept as a back up. Our running cost are nowt due to the fact that we are swimming in arb waste, it burns an IBC of wood in 5 days.

How many KW is that J?

[Ratman]

I’m in the uk, our whole unit cost about 21k, it was plumbed into the existing oil burning heating system which we have kept as a back up. Our running cost are nowt due to the fact that we are swimming in arb waste, it burns an IBC of wood in 5 days.

Wow [emoji33] thats a huge outlay! You must be in a big house, an ibc in less that a week is going some, but as said if your in a huge house then its very reasonable, and having free flow of wood obviously is a huge bonus. I’d have to pretty much buy in everything as not got free run of wood. Great idea leaving old oil system in place as a back up.
I had thought about (when my garage is built) the possibility of running heating on waste oil as i can get a abundance of the stuff. I’d could probably connect into existing heating system but have to introduce zone valves as to bypass my current combi boiler, and it would obviously have to run on its own separate pump. Trouble is with waste oil your in to burning licences etc [emoji30][emoji30][emoji30] but all doable.