House heating that isn't wood fueled?

[Woodworks]

Just now, Big J said:

 but it doesn't address the issue that it's usually more economical to just sell the timber. 

 

And that is why we don't use much wood. It's cheaper and easier to use the GSHP and sell the logs.

 

With the demand for wood continuing to rise in a country without much woodland it seems wise to steer clear of being reliant on wood for heating. 

[Big J]

1 minute ago, Woodworks said:

And that is why we don't use much wood. It's cheaper and easier to use the GSHP and sell the logs.

 

With the demand for wood continuing to rise in a country without much woodland it seems wise to steer clear of being reliant on wood for heating. 

I agree. 

 

Obviously conserving energy is the simplest and most logical way of keeping your house warm, but on it's own that's not quite enough. Maybe some sort of hybrid system with a ground source heat pump and biomass boiler on the same system with a large accumulator. Solar water heating too for good measure!

[Woodworks]

4 minutes ago, Big J said:

I agree. 

 

Obviously conserving energy is the simplest and most logical way of keeping your house warm, but on it's own that's not quite enough. Maybe some sort of hybrid system with a ground source heat pump and biomass boiler on the same system with a large accumulator. Solar water heating too for good measure!

I wouldn't over complicate it. If your house is well insulated you are not going to need vast amounts of heat at any time. I used our wood burner on its own one winter in a very cold snap. Our 7kwh stove kept the whole house lovely and warm and  I would imagine your place will be much better insulated than our old barn. Solar in the depths of winter for space heating will do very little but could be good for DHW in the sunnier months. You can get GSHP's tapped to take solar hot water. I just went for PV as any excess can be put to good use here on in the grid.

[Woodworks]

If you are interested I can try and dig out some numbers on how many kWh the GSHP has used over the years. I fitted a meter to it 

[Big J]

1 minute ago, Woodworks said:

If you are interested I can try and dig out some numbers on how many kWh the GSHP has used over the years. I fitted a meter to it 

That would be really useful, thanks

Edited December 29, 2018 by Big J

[Woodworks]

13 minutes ago, Big J said:

That would be really useful, thanks

Bugger! now I have to find the book I wrote it all down in haha

 

That was easier than expected. So I fitted the meter on 12/8/11 and it now reads 18793 kWh so averaging 2562 kWh a year for all the DHW and a large proportion of the space heating. That will include the circulation pump for the UFH as well which adds up as they run 24/7 in the winter

Edited December 29, 2018 by Woodworks

[topchippyles]

1 hour ago, Big J said:

That had been my plan with our prospective build. Biomass boiler in the machinery barn to keep all the mess out there, but it doesn't address the issue that it's usually more economical to just sell the timber. 

What about the small stuff that is not suitable to sell big j

[Big J]

11 minutes ago, topchippyles said:

What about the small stuff that is not suitable to sell big j

If it's large enough to extract, it's large enough to sell. I don't get waste wood in the same way that tree surgeons do. It's all 3m and marketable.

[topchippyles]

3 minutes ago, Big J said:

If it's large enough to extract, it's large enough to sell. I don't get waste wood in the same way that tree surgeons do. It's all 3m and marketable.

Makes sense but i do not think you are factoring the grants that are available for these type of boilers and you can receive around 30 % back for the first 4 years i think it is on your usage,Martin my mate paid around 18k to put his system in and every year he goes online and puts in his meter readings of what he has used for the year and gets thousands back and he told me that its nearly paid for this year.Worth looking into surly.

[Big J]

6 minutes ago, topchippyles said:

Makes sense but i do not think you are factoring the grants that are available for these type of boilers and you can receive around 30 % back for the first 4 years i think it is on your usage,Martin my mate paid around 18k to put his system in and every year he goes online and puts in his meter readings of what he has used for the year and gets thousands back and he told me that its nearly paid for this year.Worth looking into surly.

That's a fair point and you are correct that I haven't looked at the grants. If at all possible, I like to try to assess the merit of something without grant funding, as the best ideas usually stand up by themselves. That being said, I don't object to free money!