Real world gasification log boiler accounts needed

[Woodworks]

1 hour ago, Mr. Ed said:

Yes as much as possible but I don’t think we’d ever reach passive house sort of levels. We’d still need hot water of course. 

If you cant then as above and go for high levels of insulation and a heat pump. We have a GSHP and a woodburner and can heat the house either way but have a good market for logs so its cheaper to sell the logs and run the GSHP. Also way less faff and does the hot water. We sell logs for a living and supply folk who rely on wood for heating and its not a route I would want to go down given the choice 

[Mr. Ed]

7 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

If you cant then as above and go for high levels of insulation and a heat pump. We have a GSHP and a woodburner and can heat the house either way but have a good market for logs so its cheaper to sell the logs and run the GSHP. Also way less faff and does the hot water. We sell logs for a living and supply folk who rely on wood for heating and its not a route I would want to go down given the choice 

Now THAT is the voice of experience, though it has the drawback of opening up more obsessive routes of research in re GSHP. 

 

Would you say it's the faff-factor that's your main motivation in this? I can see that if you work with wood all day long it's not going to cheer you up to have to fill a boiler every morning.  

[Woodworks]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Ed said:

Now THAT is the voice of experience, though it has the drawback of opening up more obsessive routes of research in re GSHP. 

 

Would you say it's the faff-factor that's your main motivation in this? I can see that if you work with wood all day long it's not going to cheer you up to have to fill a boiler every morning.  

To be fair our wood burner is a stand alone sort and not connected to a heat store so it would need running 24-7 which is a PITA. A big gasifier and thermal store would only need batch burns I guess and not be in the house so no mess. 

 

The GSHP has just been hassle free for 15 years now. No servicing other than a new controller after being hit by lightning (covered under warrantee) and recently needed a new flexible hose which had corrosion in it. It's connected to an UFH system which is certainly recommended with heat pumps. We run the GSHP full time at a lowish temp and use the wood burner to pep things up on a cold evening. This has been a good combo for us and economical IMO 

[Mr. Ed]

1 hour ago, KH1 said:

Hi there,

 

Also in SW Ireland. Did a major renovation to an old farmhouse with extension last year. The old house was wrapped in insulation, new roof, floors etc. The extension is new build. Have a bit of forestry ( Ask, Oak, larch and Spruce) so went for an ECOANGUS 40kW log boiler with 3000L tank linked to UFH. Overall, I'm happy with it. The house is as warm as my wife likes it ( very hot!) and plenty of hot water. I too have a large old stone shed adjacent to the house as a wood store. The shed is very handy as cleaning out ash and the odd bit of smoke etc when reloading isn't a problem.  Cats not mad about it though!

 

Be advised, it has used A LOT of wood since we moved in last Oct. It is a lot of work to cut, dry, and stack enough wood for it ( maybe for the next 15 years hopefully!). The boiler suits somebody at home at lot of the time ( farmer etc) as plenty of checking when lighting / loading required. During cold spells, I will light it every day, every second day currently.  I batch burn very dry ash from thinnings in 500mm lengths and it seems to suit it well. I'm going to try spruce/ash mix next winter. 

 

Installation was a problem. Got rid of first guy. Then found a polish plumber who was familiar with them ( it is really a rebadged polish Orlan boiler) . ECOANGUS support from UK is excellent. Sometimes I wish I had fitted a heat pump for the ease of turning on a switch but when I get my electric bill, I change my mind. Don't forget there is a cost associated with felling, splitting, loading and transporting your timber to the shed even if you do it yourself ( diesel for tractor, petrol and oil for saws, logsplitter etc.. it adds up!) but for me, it is a cheap way to have a very warm house IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SUPPLY OF WOOD !!!! Otherwise, it is crazy without RHI.

 

Any other questions, give me a shout !

Thanks K - sounds sounds very similar to our project: about a 1200 square foot house, most of which is an old stone farmhouse with a badly built extension. We're going to do away with the old extension and do a new timber frame one (with our own timber d.v.) which would bring the footage up to 1500 or so.

I'd been hoping to get away with a smaller unit than yours but will take advice.

I do wonder if I'm committing myself to a life sentence . . . Also I'm going to have to travel to England quite a bit for work, when travel starts happening again, and I don't know how happy herself will be about the prospect - we have calor gas here as well, so maybe we could have a little on-demand hot water boiler as well for the summer?

I'm just back from the shops 100 Eur poorer thanks to chainsaw fuel, bar oil and a couple of new chains . . .

Honestly now (for I've read conflicting accounts) how often do you load it?

Edited March 19, 2021 by Mr. Ed

[muttley9050]

We run a100kw atmos with a 5000 litre store. It certainly is a lot of work. Ours gets loaded about 3 times a day in winter, but as its a shared house I only have to do it once a fortnite.

Gets lit maybe once every 4 days in summer or not at all when it's hot as we have solar hot water too.

My opinions on the atmos are that it's a bit smokey when loading etc. Generally easy to service but could be improved.

Good customer service for spares, although I never deal with them as one of the guys I live with speaks czech.

My sister has an eco Angus. 2000litre and 30kw I think and I think that is a better quality boiler although both have their benefits.

Another friend has a farm2000 which is great as you can stick loads of stuff in there. Whole pallets etc but it's way bigger than you need.

Don't underestimate how much work it is. It's alot of logs and alot of filling. Not great if you are not always at home although you could easily set yours up to only need lightning every 3 days for 2 or 3 loads if your store is big enough.

If I lived on my own I don't think id go down that route. Especially in a full renovation..

My choice would be, loads of insulation. And under floor heating for back ground warmth with a decent wood burner or two. Under floor could be run from a gasification boiler if your set on it but gshp easier and similar set up costs although gshp will be more expensive, it will be cheaper to run if you value the firewood you burn at commercial rates.. This is way less work and much easier amount of timber to manage.

Consider timber frame, straw bale infill, and timber clad, or even better load bearing straw bale for your extension.

Cheap fast and great insulation and nice and eco in a woddland setting.

 

 

 

 

 

[TuscanPhil]

I have been using an SHT TDA 25Kw for the last 4 years - heating a 2000L thermal store.  It also has a pellet chamber on the side (not separate burner) and is auto start.  Just load it with logs, press the 'on' button, and wait for it to 'call' for heat and it lights the boiler automatically.  It uses hot air to light the handful of pellets (literally a small handful), which then light the logs, which then heat the thermal store.  Burns once per day in the winter when cold - 1 deg or so, (though I do extend the burn by topping it up with logs while it is still burning) and once per 7 or 8 days in the summer for hot water only.

One thing to be aware of, that wasn't made clear to me, is that my pump system and boiler, like to put 50-55deg C water through the rads, so as we've been renovating the house, all rads are being swapped out for 'oversized' rads - or for us - normal sized rads.  There's a conversion chart online for different water flow temps in rads, but ours are about 1/3 bigger than a gas boiler heated house would use.

One benefit of the SHT TDA is that is also has an internet enabled interface, so I can control the boiler from my phone when out and about.  It has a 'holiday' mode, so you can load it before you go away and it will start itself automatically after X days (whatever you set).

SHT do 4 boilers in that range 15, 25, 30 and 40Kw.

Don't underestimate the amount of logs you'll need, we use about 15-20 M3 per year.

Happy to answer any questions etc.  Oh yes, the ash pan needs cleaning about once per 3-4 weeks over the winter (assuming you are burning good wood and not crap pallets etc)

Not my boiler but it looks like this (boiler, thermal store and expansion vessel)

http://www.efficientenergycentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/IMG_3133-800x380.jpg

[maybelateron]

8 hours ago, Mr. Ed said:

Thank you for this clear recommendation. 
There’s a distributor here in Ireland, which is good, and Atmos’ own website is reassuring. 
No fancy electronics to tell you when you next need to load and so on? Maybe not a bad thing if so. Do I assume you load morning and evening in the winter? And every few days in the summer? 
Many thanks again: this was just the sort of info I was hoping to get. 
Ed

In winter we light it around 4-5pm with a full load, then reload it once more generally. At weekends we often light it earlier, but never in the morning unless we have a houseful at Christmas time (remember those days?!).

 

In spring and autumn we use it less, as we have two stoves plus solar tubes for hot water and PV panels for electricity with a 16kw hr storage battery.

[maybelateron]

Regarding amount of wood used:

 

We get through one bay full of timber in my main shed per winter. The bay is 15ft wide, loaded about 8ft high, and depth of 20ft, ie 2400 cu ft of wood. This is a mixture (approx 50/50) of low grade conifer and higher grade hardwood, in lengths up to 20 inches.

[KH1]

If you are not going to be around much, I would go heat pump tbh. Too much faff with kindling, lighting, reloading, cleaning, moving hefty doors and flaps etc for my missus.

As suggested, maybe sell the wood to pay for electricity? We do have almost the most expensive electricity in Europe here!

Going one size up for boiler and tank was a good move for me.  If tank top temp is 30 degree celcius, about two chambers full of logs is needed to get to 80 degrees over about 12hrs. Could squeeze two days of heating plus hot water in the middle of December but you have to time the burn properly so you are around to reload. 

The major plus for me is one less bill to pay 👍

[Mr. Ed]

Thanks everyone for these really useful pointers. I’m going to try and do some sums now - based on a thinning we have coming up which will produce some 60 tons of spruce and sycamore and what we would get for that (not a lot) compared with what we pay for calor gas (quite a lot) versus the cost of heat pumps. I notice no one’s biggjng up air heat pumps (if that’s what they’re called - the things that look like air conditioners.)

back with you soon

Ed