Biomass burners

[Baldbloke]

Our 60Kw boiler takes a big builders heaped barrow a winter day. 

We too kept the oil boiler (for when we’re working or back from staying away) and have to switch two levers and turn a switch.

Before the biomass we burnt more wood in stoves to heat a couple of rooms. The biomass can now heat the whole house. Much more efficient. Insulation? No. Georgian manse so bugger all.

[Jcarbor]

How many KW is that J?

65kw, heats a 5 bed farm house, a 3 bed new build,plus my barn/workshop.

[openspaceman]

4 hours ago, Ratman said:

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.

I've not heard of bitumen floors before, what's the construction?

 

You're right about the heat being lost at the perimeter, I've read that you can create a "heat island" by trenching around the house and installing 150mm thick polystyrene foam  all around to a depth of a few feet.

 

I vaguely considered it here but the house is so small that as long as I can chop wood the little gas I use is affordable.

 

These semD cottages were built as farm workers homes in 1862 with suspended floors but a fire between the wars killed the occupant,  when they rebuilt they just seemed to infill and render the floors so we have a similar problem, no damp course either and only 600mm footings.

[Ratman]

I've not heard of bitumen floors before, what's the construction?
 
You're right about the heat being lost at the perimeter, I've read that you can create a "heat island" by trenching around the house and installing 150mm thick polystyrene foam  all around to a depth of a few feet.
 
I vaguely considered it here but the house is so small that as long as I can chop wood the little gas I use is affordable.
 
These semD cottages were built as farm workers homes in 1862 with suspended floors but a fire between the wars killed the occupant,  when they rebuilt they just seemed to infill and render the floors so we have a similar problem, no damp course either and only 600mm footings.

We’re in a large 3 bed bungalow, 4” brick with a 4” cavity and shitty sinter block internally, my foundations only go to about 600mm too as were on to blue clay round here [emoji35][emoji35][emoji35] (pig to dig out and hellish wet at same time) the floors inside are literally rubble, sand blinded with some what looks like tiny chipped slate, (similar looking to hen grit, and like what you get on roofing felt) theres about 10mm of it the its just simply bitumen poured on top, 20mm thick i’d say. We’ve still no carpets down yet as i said to her i didnt want them till building work was done, so just got rugs down everywhere, pointless when dragging crap in all time. As it goes, carpets are to go down in the new year as extension etc is all done now. Garage starts end of April.

[Baldbloke]

I have a neighbour who has installed a biomass log burner in his new build. I didn't want to criticise his (or his installers) workings but cannot agree with the sizes chosen for his accumulator tank. As it's a new build, I'm presuming his house must be fully insulated, so heat loss should be minimal. However, he is doing two burns/fires a day at present, and his pile of logs is diminishing more quickly than my wood usage for a three floor seven bedroom manse. I suspect his accumulator tank at 1000 litres would have been better had it been at least two thousand litres. It appears that the small tanks reserves cannot sustain the demand for 24 hours. He had a wood lorry of supposedly seasoned big logs delivered and cuts into logs as needed. His 22/24 cubed wagon delivery happened in mid September and was set down in a field opposite his house. The pile in three months is two thirds used already, so I reckon on him having already used 12-15 tonnes. Hopefully he is getting some subsidy payments to cover his usage.

I believe my tank is either 4000 litre or 4500 litres with an expansion tank of 500 litres. I'm seriously considering to piggybank an additional 2000 litre tank onto the installation as the 65 kW boiler often exceeds the household demand and could comfortably heat another tank and stop the frequent over firing along with messages stating that I've used too much wood in the boiler. If I did that I'd move the electric immersions (powered from the wind turbine) from the big 4000 ltr tank into the new smaller tank as I reckon they'd do a more efficient job of heating the smaller body of water. It has all been a learning experience.

[Woodworks]

25 minutes ago, Baldbloke said:

I have a neighbour who has installed a biomass log burner in his new build. I didn't want to criticise his (or his installers) workings but cannot agree with the sizes chosen for his accumulator tank. As it's a new build, I'm presuming his house must be fully insulated, so heat loss should be minimal. However, he is doing two burns/fires a day at present, and his pile of logs is diminishing more quickly than my wood usage for a three floor seven bedroom manse. I suspect his accumulator tank at 1000 litres would have been better had it been at least two thousand litres. It appears that the small tanks reserves cannot sustain the demand for 24 hours. He had a wood lorry of supposedly seasoned big logs delivered and cuts into logs as needed. His 22/24 cubed wagon delivery happened in mid September and was set down in a field opposite his house. The pile in three months is two thirds used already, so I reckon on him having already used 12-15 tonnes. Hopefully he is getting some subsidy payments to cover his usage.

I believe my tank is either 4000 litre or 4500 litres with an expansion tank of 500 litres. I'm seriously considering to piggybank an additional 2000 litre tank onto the installation as the 65 kW boiler often exceeds the household demand and could comfortably heat another tank and stop the frequent over firing along with messages stating that I've used too much wood in the boiler. If I did that I'd move the electric immersions (powered from the wind turbine) from the big 4000 ltr tank into the new smaller tank as I reckon they'd do a more efficient job of heating the smaller body of water. It has all been a learning experience.

Sounds like a disastrous build. Is his house still covered by a guarantee? However poor the heating system is I can't see how you should need that much wood to heat a well insulated new build or he lives in Buckingham Palace. I would be looking to have an IR camera scan of the house and spot where all the heat is escaping and then taking it up with the builders. http://www.earth.org.uk/thermal-imaging-survey-of-house.html

[Baldbloke]

2 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

Sounds like a disastrous build. Is his house still covered by a guarantee? However poor the heating system is I can't see how you should need that much wood to heat a well insulated new build or he lives in Buckingham Palace. I would be looking to have an IR camera scan of the house and spot where all the heat is escaping and then taking it up with the builders. http://www.earth.org.uk/thermal-imaging-survey-of-house.html

Large enough bungalow but self built with underfloor heating throughout. I agree, something is not right 

[Woodworks]

4 minutes ago, Baldbloke said:

Large enough bungalow but self built with underfloor heating throughout. I agree, something is not right 

Oh dear, so no one to blame but themselves if the insulation is at fault. Upside I guess is a large proportion of the insulation in a bungalow is in the loft so maybe they can do something about that?

[Ratman]

Is he burning just for sake of burning? The heat store should surely knock the burn off when it gets to maximum stored / heat volume, on domestic and heating needs. I cant believe that he has a major heat loss of such proportion from his build. Regs are quite stringent on full self builds, more so than doing an add-on or extension. Underfloor heating is a tick over scenario once up to temp and usually very efficient to run.
I’m favouring an installation cock up some where that isn’t knocking the system out of play when it should and its sending all other / excess heat out the flue. [emoji848]?

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, Baldbloke said:

I have a neighbour who has installed a biomass log burner in his new build. I didn't want to criticise his (or his installers) workings but cannot agree with the sizes chosen for his accumulator tank. As it's a new build, I'm presuming his house must be fully insulated, so heat loss should be minimal. However, he is doing two burns/fires a day at present, and his pile of logs is diminishing more quickly than my wood usage for a three floor seven bedroom manse. I suspect his accumulator tank at 1000 litres would have been better had it been at least two thousand litres. It appears that the small tanks reserves cannot sustain the demand for 24 hours. He had a wood lorry of supposedly seasoned big logs delivered and cuts into logs as needed. His 22/24 cubed wagon delivery happened in mid September and was set down in a field opposite his house. The pile in three months is two thirds used already, so I reckon on him having already used 12-15 tonnes. Hopefully he is getting some subsidy payments to cover his usage.

I believe my tank is either 4000 litre or 4500 litres with an expansion tank of 500 litres. I'm seriously considering to piggybank an additional 2000 litre tank onto the installation as the 65 kW boiler often exceeds the household demand and could comfortably heat another tank and stop the frequent over firing along with messages stating that I've used too much wood in the boiler. If I did that I'd move the electric immersions (powered from the wind turbine) from the big 4000 ltr tank into the new smaller tank as I reckon they'd do a more efficient job of heating the smaller body of water. It has all been a learning experience.

Maybe he is burning unseasoned wood?  Sounds a crazy amount of firewood for even a large uninsulated bungalow never mind one that should be up to modern insulation standards!

 

Or is he a fresh air freak and leaves all the windows and doors open all day and night?