Advice please: logs or chips

[likeitorlumpit]

If I didn't have free wood from tree work I'm not sure which way I would go. You will spend a lot of time chopping wood and sawing- neighbours will love you.

National trust will have good info on wood burners as they seem to be moving over heating their stately piles this way.

I've seen a great one set up in Scotney castle.

Woodchip tipped into a hopper and fed by conveyor into the burner. Very professional set up.

[Mycoman]

So far the tide seems to be going woodchipwards...

 

A thought: either form of biomass will be more graft than oil, but isn't that, in part, what the RHI is supposed to compensate for? I'm not generally a fan of the government giving out money for nothing.

[MikeTM150]

Hmmmmm?

Somewhere in the midde on this one.

Currenty heating near 4000 sq ft of 1995 built, with 1995 standard insulation, dwelling hoose.

We have always run a 5kw Morso in the front room, with "free" forestry to the rear of the house.

I installed a 40kw logburning gasifying boiler with buffer tank, under a NI grant about 5 or 8 year ago.

I did seriously consider the woodchip option but being unable to hire a suitable chipper and not justifing the purchase cost went for logs.

Previously running on 28 sec oil we were consuming about(but def less than) 2500 litres per annum.

Despite enjoying playing with an old tractor and new chainsaw, and still being a big fan of the Morso stove.

And despite the boiler being well able to heat the house.

Its a bloody bind.

this was all probably better expressed by PGKYVET, Muldonach & TM150 as above.

Tee Hee, whoever mentioned the ever growing list of kit werney wrang

Tractor (7really need another one)

Forestry Winch

Log trailer with crane

Just about to be delivered 17 tonne splitter with winch

Ditto PTO driven saw (hence justification for 2nd tractor)

Ditto a wee quite unnecessary 5.0m log conveyor belt

Plus...........sufficient sheds to keep it all under cover

And I Actually need another one o them too:001_rolleyes:

And sommat bigger than the current 2 No. 30' by 60 ft's I already gotPlus I really gotta clone another "me" to do all the manual work.

Hey, perhaps on reflection

HEATING OIL is really CHEAP

assuming reasonable insulation.

Cheers

M

 

Trust me you'll never have enough of these, we've got some huge sheds but i still could find reason for more and more of them to fill with stuff!!! Somedays i feel like one big huge 10ha aircraft hanger style thing over the whole farm yard so we could work in the dry all day long and there wouldn't be all the mud about to..............

 

Which ever way you go, it'll be harder work than pressing the button and using oil to heat the house, but you have to balance it out, woodchip is the next easiest but won't be very cheap and i guess the price if you have to buy it will only go upwards. I reckoned it wouldn't exactly be cheap to produce 250kg of logs/day all winter excluding your labour!

 

The old man used to have a big Farm 2000 boiler that run on straw as well as wood, but that was in the days when we burnt straw and didn't sell it for £60/ton.........

 

So i think long and short is nothing will be easy other than oil, but it depends how you define 'cheap'!!!!

[muldonach]

So far the tide seems to be going woodchipwards...

 

A thought: either form of biomass will be more graft than oil, but isn't that, in part, what the RHI is supposed to compensate for? I'm not generally a fan of the government giving out money for nothing.

 

Yes either form of biomass will be a lot more graft than oil, exactly what the RHI is meant to compensate for I would not like to say but irrespective of grant your system has to make sense for you.

 

The thing is what you are proposing is a hell of a lot of work for one man and you do not really have the kit to do it. It is all very well bringing out a pickup load of logs when it suits you but that is not what you are going to be doing. Your timing will be determined by the time needed to dry your firewood to reasonable moisture content and ground conditions within your woodland and you need to be well ahead of demand all the time, and in my opinion you have nowhere near enough woodland to keep you going long term.

 

That is not to say you should not take it on but simply that you should understand what you are taking on.

 

Hence the recommendation to put individual woodburners in - you can produce firewood for them at your own pace, if you run short you can throw chip in them, or buy some firewood to tide you over. If you have a sufficiency of good firewood you can use them more than normal etc etc.

 

You have a source of fuel ready to hand which is produced at a price you will never match for main heating, at the same time you have a resource of free fuel on your doorstep and in going and getting it you will get some exercise and help the woodland as well without killing yourself trying to save coppers.

[treedave]

No real personal experience beyond the stove with back boiler that feeds into the oil base heating/water system. This suits me as I've got someone at home most days and it all saves on oil.The logs aren't much more for me as I sell firewood anyway and I can cut to 45cm for my fire.

Have heard horror stories about auger feed systems breaking and being sensitive to chip size and moisture levels.

 

For a range of examples go to the web page below and look at the PDF in the wood fuel section. They're real people who have done it, but it is still a promotional document.

 

http://www.cumbriawoodlands.co.uk/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

[Busy Daddy]

I deliver logs to a number of people with large log boilers , they all seem to use a lot more timber than they first thought , and still a lot of hard work

I also supply woodchip which seems to be a lot more efficient , just feed it through the chipper and done

Some of the smaller biomass boilers come with smaller hoppers that you can fill daily

I deliver to one guy whose biomass boiler will take within reason arb waste

Some of the smaller bio boilers use as little as a dustbin full of chip a day and minimal ash to take out

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Very interesting thread. I'll be watching this - thank you.

[pembswoodrecycling]

......Have heard horror stories about auger feed systems breaking and being sensitive to chip size and moisture levels.....

Cumbria Woodlands - Home

 

I've heard similar stories, which I think is rediculous. An auger can be used to move just about anything as long as it's designed properly. If you do go down the chip route be sure to buy from an engineering company rather than just some stockist, and look for the company with the most years experience and best after sales service. Make sure you get references and follow as many of them up as you can. Any engineer worth his salt will stand by a machine he designed.

[Pedroski]

How about looking into geothermal/ground source heat pump to raise the water temperature, thereby giving your existing oil fired system less work to do? With geothermal, you can generally get 4kW of heat out for every 1kW of electrical energy going in. You could retain log burners in each part of the accommodation for the 'ambience', but get the heat for central heating and hot water from the ground source heat pump, enabling you to ditch the oil altogether, and not completely clear your 25 acres while knackering yourself. There are also grants available for this.

[Busy Daddy]

Most of the auger problems are from slithers of chip that cross or bridge the auger not letting the chips into the auger , a bit of a problem when you have a few tonnes of chip sat on top

Another problem has been keeping a large chip store full all the time ie topping up every day keeping all that weight on the drive systems .With some motor failures

Both are easy fixes just let the chip store run low every so often also reducing the chip at the bottom from starting to rot