How many of you run chip boilers at home?

[njc110381]

I could run some ducting off of my Trukloder into a hopper. My garden goes all the way around the house and I've designed it so I can drive all the way around too so it wouldn't be hard to push/tow it to the shed once a week to bash up some wood. I'm hoping by the time I get it sorted I'll be able to reverse my Mog and chip box up a little ramp and tip through an opening in the shed roof. That really would be ideal!

[redmoosefaction]

Relatives of mine live on a huge dutch barge on the ship canal outside inverness and they chuck logs into one of those stove thingies with the door kept shut, and then it heats all the radiators in the house/boat.. Simples... or is it?

[Nick Watkins]

Using a log burner with a boiler to heat the house via radiators or in this case a boat and provide domestic hot water is fairly straight forward. The difficulty seems to be when you want to combine with an existing boiler system.

 

After recent building work in my house I did quite a bit of research on log burner boilers to be used as a top up system, i.e. plumb them into an existing boiler so that when you light the log burner and everything is up to temp that system takes control as the master and our oil fed boiler won't kick in. Perhaps I was over simplifying things in my mind but to me that seems and obvious way of doing things. Could I get an straight answer from any of the companies,er no.

 

It seems there is a real lack of knowledge for retro fitting these systems, new installs with brand new boilers etc seems to be fine but where you want to keep costs down and retro fit nobody seems to have the skills.

 

On wood fed boilers, I did have experience of a wood fed boiler for hot water and heating as the primary heating source and I have to say it was a nightmare. OK it was old and not very efficient but your life was ruled by the system and my wife constantly moaned about there not being hot water on demand.

I know technology has moved on but my thoughts were at the time it would be fine if your retired but if you have a full time job and kids and live in the modern world then it's not very practical. Pushing a button and having a cup of tea while you wait for the water to heat up is a joy compared to going out into the rain, starting a fire and waiting what seemed and age before the water heated up. I ended up ripping the system out and putting in a oil fed boiler.

 

That's why a think a linked system provides you with the best of both worlds would be interested to know if someone has successfully achieved this.

[smiles]

When I looked at it a while ago it seem that if you just want to heat your DHW with a supplimentry log burner it's relatively simple to install a double coil cylinder in place of your original cylinder - one coil is heated by the oil/gas boiler,the other by the logburner -when the logburner isn't up to temperature the oil/gas kicks in via the cylinder stat - obviously not possible with a combi boiler though.

 

But linking the heating does look like a nightmare,Navitron is a very informative website for all this stuff,but here's so much info that it gets a bit hard to sort the wheat from the chaff!

[njc110381]

Modern chip boilers are much better. They can self light, have a screw feed for the chip and even ash extraction. They can run just like a gas boiler apart from needing the ash hopper emptying and the chip hopper filling. Depending on the system and hopper sizes they can go on indefinately without attention! The small hopper fed jobs need attention every day, but the big silo run systems can go for months!

[Nick Watkins]

Any good brands out there for the UK market?

 

I have watched a few youtube clips of a us company that looked interesting but nothing over here.

[Charlieh]

i am still un convinced by chip boilers being the mainstream answer everyone expects them to be, I suspect as tree workers and having access to a ready supply of chip, but its the storage and handling that i dont really see as being the answer, as and when i get round to renovating my house in a big way, this is the approach i will be going for Wood Burning Boilers | Accumulator Tanks | Biomass Boilers | Biomass Heating | Log Fired Boilers the chip boilers can be a bit picky on feeding the material on domestic set-ups if the quality is to variable, I have advised several people towards these, and a farmer in the village has just installed a log boiler, and one in North Lincs is just getting sorted out with one as well, downside is explaining to people that the timber needs to be sensible, the guy in the village is burning green cedar and as such i dont expect that the set up will last to long without problems occuring, as the M/C needs to 22% or lower, as its not a direct replacement for a farm2000

 

until someone perfects a system that will burn reasonably fresh chip of a variable quality i will maintain that log boilers are the way to be going, I know this doesnt solve our problems reguarding disposal of a waste product, as most the small biomass plants require material that has been through a biomass chipper and as such is likely to be small roundwood from forestry anyway, so on a smaller or farm based domestic set ups you may as well just buy in the small round wood and cut it to length for the log boiler rather than paying for it to be chipped then have to deal with material handling at both ends, anyway just my view of the situation

[Bald Ed]

Any good brands out there for the UK market?

 

I have watched a few youtube clips of a us company that looked interesting but nothing over here.

 

Have you looked the Heizomat boilers, they have been manufacturing woodchip boilers for nearly 30 years now and is their core business, the chippers are manufactured to suppliment the boilers.

Give A. C. Price a ring or have a look on his website lots of good info and links on their.

AC Price Engineering - Home

[arbclimber]

Have you looked the Heizomat boilers, they have been manufacturing woodchip boilers for nearly 30 years now and is their core business, the chippers are manufactured to suppliment the boilers.

Give A. C. Price a ring or have a look on his website lots of good info and links on their.

AC Price Engineering - Home

 

Thats a link njc110381 is going to love, mogs and chip boilers:biggrin:

[njc110381]

You're not wrong!