How do you heat your home

[Milly]

The rising price of gas and oil made us decide to install I bio heating system. We kept the oil boiler as a back up system. The current wood boiler runs on pellets or wood chips and logs in an emergency. The system is a 100w the back up boiler is also 100w which we use to top up the system when it reaches -15 !

 

The idea is that we will eventually run our system on wood chips ,which we will produce from managing our forest properly.

 

The plan is to plant a series of fields with willow to use as fuel as my understanding willow can be coppiced in 3 years.

 

How many of you out there use wood to heat your home?

 

Here are some pictures of our system its all automatic i.e the silo auto feeds the boiler, the boiler is 93% efficent when using pellets and produced very little ash.

 

This is a pic of the boiler.

 

 

This one is the hot water storage for the rads its a 2200 ltr insulated tank.

 

 

Pipe work could be from a ship !

 

 

This is the wood chip / pellet storage / auto feeder

 

[PhilBeech]

Fantastic, well done for making the leap :-)

[Jamiedownes]

Wow, that looks the dogs...

 

Can I ask how much the system cost you?

[Big Bolt]

I got some fast growing willows from BOWHAYES 0140481229 to make a screen around the wood yard , they took about 2 years to settle in i pollard mine to stop the deer having a feast ,every year and they grow 10 / 15 feet every year a few acres and you would have ample to chip or plant as screens. I have a wood burner 11kw to heat my house and water i just use the waist wood from my yard that is past it's best to sell

Edited July 31, 2011 by Big Bolt

[Milly]

Wow, that looks the dogs...

 

Can I ask how much the system cost you?

 

We installed a whole system, the main house already had rads but the rest of the outer buildings had no heat nor rads so the system was expensive also there was a 100m run from the boiler house to connect to the main house the cost of the insulated pipe nearly made me fall over.

 

What would you like to know the cost the whole system or just the boiler ?

 

Insulated pipe carrying the hot water 100m to the main building.

 

 

[Daniël Bos]

Having seen the pics of your modest little abode I assume it's 100Kw rather than 100w?

If not, please tell us homw many meters of insulation are in your walls and loft.

 

I burn mainly hawthorn from my hedgelaying business but then my house is not much bigger than your pellet silo!

[Milly]

Yes sorry 100KW ! This is how the pellets are delivered 40 tons at a time.

 

[Milly]

I looked at heat pumps which work well for a new build but not for a 17th century building.

We have 15 acres of mature forest with more than enough wood for the next 5 years not to impact on the forest as its hugely over crowded.

By then the willow should be well established. I know its not totally free heat, as there is the cost of cutting the timber splitting it chipping it etc but the forest would still need to be thinned etc.

Still should be much more cost effective than oil even buying in the pellets its a 1/3 cheeper.

[Milly]

Next year we are looking to chip our own wood for fuel. I am looking to purchase a chipper and would like some sugestions for the best type of chipper. The stuff we will be chipping will be smallish limbs or any thing that is too big we can cut up and split.

We also have a small 22hp tractor that we can use the pto ,would that have enough power? What sort of cost should I be looking at would like to buy a second hand model.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Milly

[Peter]

The chipper you will need is dictated by the type of chip your boiler needs.

 

If it needs proper G30 spec chip with no oversized material, then you will need a proper biomass type chipper.

 

Not sure you will get anything small enough to run off your little tractor though, you might be better stacking all the cord to dry and getting a contractor with a big crane fed chipper to come in for a day and chip it all in one go. If it is properly stacked and organised a contractor will be able to chip a massive amount of wood in a day.