Future Firewood Demand Optimism?

[Billhook]

4 hours ago, Stere said:

You don't hear  much  about solar thermal hot water theese days?

 

Hardly see any installed sytems around either.

 

 

I went on an installer's course in Wales about ten years ago which enabled me to buy about 30 solar tubes at a discounted rate

The firm was Navitron, The course was ok and the installation pretty obvious.

The result was excellent and we still use them for heating just the hot water in the Summer months but even at other times it warms the cold water so that the immersion heater or the gas boiler do not have to work so hard.

I have a separate cylinder for the solar and a mixer valve to the other gas/wood/immersion cylinder.so filling a bath on a dull day with tepid water and topping up with very hot water is a big saving on energy.

 

The evacuated tubes are really efficient and if the pump is not working they will boil the water in the manifold on a hot day.

I took a tube out and left it in the sun and measured the temperature on the copper prong which slides into the manifold with my infrared gun at 150 degrees celsius,!

There is a massive difference between these evacuated tubes and some earlier forms of solar heating which basically relied on black panels/pipework

I also put up some solar panels for electricity at about £1000 each but that was the cost of the panels in the early days when we had a 42 pence/unit payment.   Now the panels cost less but the tariff has also been reduced and there has not been as much to crow about as the savings that we make with the tubes.

 

A lot of this alternative energy is the capital cost versus the benefit.   If you can buy a system for reasonable money and install it yourself there is a big difference when you pay a firm to do it for you.

Navitron - The Small Solar Company

WWW.SMALLSOLAR.CO.UK

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Solar Hot Water, Equipment and Systems for Installers and Homeowners. Navitron provides renewable technology...

 

[Billhook]

On 20/10/2021 at 22:09, difflock said:

How to make a small fortune from farming, simple! Start with a large fortune.

 

Found an old 78 record from father’s collection which I dedicated to you on “songs I am listening to” in case you missed it!

Sung by tenor John McHugh

 

 

[Commando]

Forget $100, Options Traders Now Betting On Oil Prices Hitting $200 | OilPrice.com

OILPRICE.COM

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Speculative traders are betting on the options market that oil could exceed $100 a barrel by the end of this year and even reach a record $200 per barrel by the end of 2022

[Commando]

At those prices wood would be a cheaper option!!

[Baldbloke]

30 cube a year, heating a 102 square metre detached (and fairly exposed to wind) old farmhouse in Devon. Sod all insulation. It's just a 20kw stove in the middle of the house. We have to have a little electric radiator on in my younger daughter's room overnight when it's properly cold.

 

I can't see wood catching on in any serious sense. Increasingly restrictive legislation (Woodsure Scheme etc), lack of national supply, extremely high firewood cost and idiot customers who won't season their own all restrict the market's potential to grow.

 

Heat pumps are the way to go I think. The majority of houses in Sweden are on geothermal or air source heat pumps, despite the obviously massive availability of timber and it's much lower cost. That said, electricity being 2-4 pence a kilowatt hour certainly incentivises it. 

 

Insulation is the main issue here. Most houses are terribly insulated. Even new builds (where there is no excuse whatsoever for shoddy specification and workmanship) have the thermal efficiency of a paper bag. My brother's new build in Exeter is always markedly hotter in a heatwave in summer and chillier in winter than our crappy old farmhouse.

 

Anyway, I've planted about 62 hectares of eucalyptus nitens down here, so I'm sure we'll find out how good a firewood that is in a few years [emoji3]

 

30 cube a year is about what we use from October to March for our 7 bed lump of a house through a 60kw biomass log boiler.

No subsidies on ours, and because oil was so cheap last year I didn’t bother busting my arse cutting, and just used the oil boiler. This year looks like I might need to get my act together though, but the 20Kw wind turbine does help, -when it works.

[Billhook]

5 minutes ago, Baldbloke said:

 

30 cube a year is about what we use from October to March for our 7 bed lump of a house through a 60kw biomass log boiler.

No subsidies on ours, and because oil was so cheap last year I didn’t bother busting my arse cutting, and just used the oil boiler. This year looks like I might need to get my act together though, but the 20Kw wind turbine does help, -when it works.

How many litres/gallons of oil did you use to be equivalent to your 30 cube?

Edited October 24, 2021 by Billhook

[trigger_andy]

 
30 cube a year is about what we use from October to March for our 7 bed lump of a house through a 60kw biomass log boiler.
No subsidies on ours, and because oil was so cheap last year I didn’t bother busting my arse cutting, and just used the oil boiler. This year looks like I might need to get my act together though, but the 20Kw wind turbine does help, -when it works.

I like the idea of a Wind Turbine. We certainly get more wind than sun where I am. [emoji16]

What issues have you had with it and how much was the instal?

[Baldbloke]

 

 

I like the idea of a Wind Turbine. We certainly get more wind than sun where I am. [emoji16]

 

What issues have you had with it and how much was the instal?

 

Issues included taking the manufacturer and service provider to arbitration and their subsequent appeal against my award by contesting it through the High Commercial Court in London. This because of total destruction of their product and their attempt to replace my new turbine with a knackered 2nd hand one. I did the arbitration myself but come the HC Appeal I utilised my house insurance legal cover for the HC Appeal. That cost my insurers 60 K. This as well as other downtime associated with the ongoing breakdowns.

This in spite of me being an acknowledged domestic consumer

through Government bodies and the company’s own Directors at contract inception to reduce VAT from 20% to the correct 5%.

Multiple hassles and breakdowns and expensive repairs (14k this year). Not for the faint hearted.

Yet my 91k cost has actually been returned through the subsidies and award since 2014.

13 years of increasing subsidy to go as long as the bastard continues to rotate🤣

 

[Baldbloke]

How many litres/gallons of oil did you use to be equivalent to your 30 cube?

A very good question to which I’d struggle to accurately answer due to the oil tank being partly full and still using oil for its all too easy usability through the spring. Probably a couple of grands worth being a tight arse.

What additionally complicates things is an oil Aga running most, if not all of the year.

Our elderly neighbours admit to an annual oil bill of 7k for their pile.

 

 

 

[Big J]

2 hours ago, Baldbloke said:

 

30 cube a year is about what we use from October to March for our 7 bed lump of a house through a 60kw biomass log boiler.

No subsidies on ours, and because oil was so cheap last year I didn’t bother busting my arse cutting, and just used the oil boiler. This year looks like I might need to get my act together though, but the 20Kw wind turbine does help, -when it works.

Its a ridiculous amount, I know. 

 

The house we're in presently is the worst insulated I've ever lived in. It's roasting hot in the summer and very cold in winter. We use a little bit less than our last house in Scotland, but then that one was 30 square metres larger and the climate is colder.

 

I'm in Sweden at the moment and the houses here feel so warm and comfortable by comparison to home. I was out walking with some German friends who recently moved here and parts of their house is quadruple glazed. With ground source heating, they are very warm indeed.