How many of you run chip boilers at home?

[njc110381]

I was having a rant about the gas bill the other day and wondered, how common are wood chip boilers? A couple of big houses I work at have them and although they take a bit of work to feed, would be free with a good supply of clean chip!

 

Does anyone here use one? Are they worth having?

[Stephen Blair]

our gas bill came in and it was £410 from feb to now, i live in a 2 bedroom semi, and i now have an open fire that heats the living room and dining room, so those radiators are off, we never have the thermostat over 19 during the day and it gets set to 16 from 10pm to 8 am it is a joke:thumbdown:

 

how does that compare to you mate:confused1:

[tractorboy1]

Those gasification log boiler look good don't know how the economics adds up thou.

[Johny Walker]

our gas bill came in and it was £410 from feb to now, i live in a 2 bedroom semi, and i now have an open fire that heats the living room and dining room, so those radiators are off, we never have the thermostat over 19 during the day and it gets set to 16 from 10pm to 8 am it is a joke:thumbdown:

 

how does that compare to you mate:confused1:

 

have u still got gas lighting as well stevie

[njc110381]

I recon ours works out at about £500 per year. That's with the heating suplimenting the wood burner when it gets really cold. I burn about 1.5m2 of wood per month (about a level Hi Cap Landy) in the winter (allowing for the fact that the mrs has an office job so is usually cold! I find it pretty warm when I get in from work!).

 

We have a 5 bed bungalow and that keeps the living room quite warm and the rest of the house cool but comfortable.

 

There are a few reasons I've been thinking of a chip boiler. It would be a good way to get rid of work waste (so would save money twice in a way). It's better for the environment too. The 50kw boiler I looked at uses 8m2 of chip instead of 1000L of oil. I haven't found a gas comparison yet. Most importantly I think they're cool and I could afford to get the whole house really hot (saves the mrs moaning that it's cold) for no extra cost!

 

Can I find a price though?? No chance! I bet they cost a fortune!

[Stephen Blair]

pm angus from on here, he supplies them mate. he will have the answers and know all the grant ins and out. i have been burning 2 bulk bags a month on our open fire, but i like to be in charge of myself, waiting for a bill from someone else isnt cool, and we have had about 6 power cuts since chrimbo, so i reckon a diesel silent pack geny is the answer and a log burner down the basement

[njc110381]

That's a lot of power cuts! Is your house in quite a remote area? I've got a genny setup ready for my shed. I can turn off the main switch on the trip, fire up the genny and back feed the house if I need to. It's not ideal but it keeps the kettle working if we get stuck!

[redmoosefaction]

our gas bill came in and it was £410 from feb to now, i live in a 2 bedroom semi, and i now have an open fire that heats the living room and dining room, so those radiators are off, we never have the thermostat over 19 during the day and it gets set to 16 from 10pm to 8 am it is a joke:thumbdown:

 

how does that compare to you mate:confused1:

 

Jesus.. that sounds like loads. We have a 5 bed edwardian semi, we kept the heating on at 21degrees - 24 hrs a day and our bill came in at six fiddy for the quarter. No supplementing with logs fires.

 

There is the discussion of constant temp or the old up and down during the day and night, namely not having to blast it to get it back up.

[djbobbins]

I recon ours works out at about £500 per year. That's with the heating suplimenting the wood burner when it gets really cold. I burn about 1.5m2 of wood per month (about a level Hi Cap Landy) in the winter (allowing for the fact that the mrs has an office job so is usually cold! I find it pretty warm when I get in from work!).

 

We have a 5 bed bungalow and that keeps the living room quite warm and the rest of the house cool but comfortable.

 

There are a few reasons I've been thinking of a chip boiler. It would be a good way to get rid of work waste (so would save money twice in a way). It's better for the environment too. The 50kw boiler I looked at uses 8m2 of chip instead of 1000L of oil. I haven't found a gas comparison yet. Most importantly I think they're cool and I could afford to get the whole house really hot (saves the mrs moaning that it's cold) for no extra cost!

 

Can I find a price though?? No chance! I bet they cost a fortune!

 

Heating oil is about 40MJ per litre, so 1000 litres = 40GJ, or 11,100 kWh.

 

I'm on oil myself and haven't bought gas for about three years but I'm guessing it's about 3p / kWh, plus CCL at about 0.16p or so, plus 5% VAT. Based on those prices, the 8m3 of wood is replacing £368 worth of gas.

 

As a sanity check, dry ash weighs about 675kg per m3, and is meant to have a calorific value of 4.1 kWh per kilo. Softwood is about 400kg per m3 and has a CV of 2.6 kWh per kilo. The 8m3 of woodchip if dry softwood, would therefore work out at 8,500 kWh.

 

So in effect, the sanity check rings true and the numbers sound about right.

[djbobbins]

And another thing to bear in mind is that the follow on from the new feed in tariffs on electric generation at home is going to be a "renewable heat incentive" so you might - and I say might 'cos I don't want to end up getting in trouble for telling someone a porky - get paid a bit for producing your own domestic heating from woodchips. It's due to get announced over the summer I think...

 

Renewable Heat Incentive - Department of Energy and Climate Change

 

Watch how the market for woodchip and pellets opens up a year from now!