Woodfuel Chipper

[renewablejohn]

I am looking for a small woodfuel chipper that will handle brash to provide woodchip fuel of a grade suitable for a CHP plant. The Heizohack HM 4-300 seems suitable but the price on earborist is £14495 and direct from the same dealer is quoted at £17895. Can anybody advise of an alternative as I believe the dealer is taking the Michael. Is it possible to import direct and cut out the middleman.

[Arran Woodfuels]

We have been advised, quite categorically, that woodchips produced from stumps and brash contain chemicals which are not suitable for use in biomass plants without proper treatment, storage and testing.

 

Flue emission controls for these chemicals are neccessary, and most large (5mW +) CHP plants have them. If they don't and they are burning chips made from brash, then they are breaking environmental laws.

 

We produce woodfuel only from virgin timber and leave the brash on the ground as a natural neutriant provider for the next crop of trees. Also, brash mats are generally covered in mud from the forwarders, so not too attractive.....

[renewablejohn]

Arran Woodfuels

 

Depends on how you produce your woodfuel and the sort of woodchip burner. Soil contamination is not good for equipment or ash content which is why we prefer to extract without brash mats.

[Arran Woodfuels]

Depends on how you produce your woodfuel

 

Not quite sure what you mean here, but you probably mean how you blend brash chips with virgin wood chips?

 

Since brash contains higher levels of sulphur, nitrogen & chlorine (compared to the virgin timber) you may struggle to keep these chemicals in your woodchip within the requirements of BSI CEN/TC335 (assuming you subscribe to the BSI standards). Also burning brash can be classed as disposal of a waste material and would require notifying SEPA and obtaining a licence. .

 

To avoid any issues with the levels of these chemicals in our woodchip, we steer well clear of brash.

 

However, as I said earlier, if the CHP plant has proper emission treatment facilities, then this will not be an issue.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Arran Woodfuels
typo

[Buzzsurgeon]

Not quite sure what you mean here, but you probably mean how you blend brash chips with virgin wood chips?

 

Since brash contains higher levels of sulphur, nitrogen & chlorine (compared to the virgin timber) you may struggle to keep these chemicals in your woodchip within the requirements of BSI CEN/TC335 (assuming you subscribe to the BSI standards). Also burning brash can be classed as disposal of a waste material and would require notifying SEPA and obtaining a licence. .

 

To avoid any issues with the levels of these chemicals in our woodchip, we steer well clear of brash.

 

However, as I said earlier, if the CHP plant has proper emission treatment facilities, then this will not be an issue.

 

UPM and the FC bale up brash and harvest stumps for Biomass??

[Buzz]

Arran, if you let the brash brown off it's fine for CHP plants.

 

Euro forest are the ones doing stumps and they can't make it work.

 

Brash bailers working for Tillhill are operated by a sub-contractor and are heavily subsidised. They cannot work without being subsidised. The FC lets Tillhill bail 80 % of brash on sites where the harvester forwarder does not have to run on brash mats.

 

A HM 300 is a fine chipper BUT you really need bigger if your going to deal with whole trees. It's not the stem diameter it's the crushing power on the branch work which slows the chipping operation right down.

 

Try Alex Price for Heizohack as they need a few modifications before you'll get the best out of them. You'll have nothing but problems straight out of the crate so to speak.

[Arran Woodfuels]

UPM and the FC bale up brash and harvest stumps for Biomass??

 

 

However, as I said earlier, if the CHP plant has proper emission treatment facilities, then this will not be an issue.

 

I am not saying, of course, that nobody burns brash as a biomass fuel, far from it! CHP plants (5 mW +) will probably have the proper emmission controls in place, and it's perfectly ok. What I am saying is that if one is selling woodchip with high levels of nitrogen, chlorine & sulphur to customers without the proper emmission controls in place, the owner of the plant could be breaking the law.

[firewoodman]

got a hm5-400 3pt linkage, its only a 16" but it does work well, easy to maintain and change blades (5 blades are only £10 each) and good aftersales from fuelwood, never delt with ac price. for wood fuel it is good for a specific size chip and is fairly fast, but for tree surgeons they find it slow on the brash, but it is actually quite fast. it just does not have enough weight in the top roller to break the brash down when feeding, but price do an add on for that. oh heavy machine that one is 2.5 ton and we need a front weight when on the road to balance. i quite like it an prefrer it over the junkari and farmi chippers. just dont get used enough.

[Mr Ed]

If you want a good fuelwood chipper, I would look at spending a tad more than £17k.

As for combustion of brash, the high sulfer and chlorine content comes from the chlorophyl contained in the leaf matter. once thats browned, the chemical composition changes and it becomes safe to burn in boilers. Also, even properly designed 25kw boilers can burn leafy chip if they ar eof a two pass design with ceramic lined combustion chamber, as the combustion temperature is high enough to consume the noxious chemicals.

[Buzz]

...... it just does not have enough weight in the top roller to break the brash down when feeding, but price do an add on for that. farmi chippers....

 

Junkari chippers are made out of tin foil !!

 

Must be a problem with your chipper as i have used most biomass chippers and have found this and the dynamic conehead the best chippers and brash.