Why is wood chip not a saleable commodity?

[shendy]

Thanks for your help. I do know of some one local ish to me that has a chip boiler running on Arb waste. So I know it can be done. He is just feeding his own house I'm looking to do my 3 bed pulse my parents 5 bed.

 

 

Sent from the future.

[adowning7]

I can never get my head around that Stobart thing on channel 5; matey picks up an artic of chip from back of beyond and drives 100+ miles with it? All that carbon malarkey...

[Stevebeanz]

I have been making compost with mine which is the added to my farmer buddies muck heap, it's then all rotted down further and used as an agricultural fertiliser/compost, super fert that has the ability to not only fertilise but increase the organic matter within soil. Local authorities sell lower grades of this to farmers! Get making and selling, v easy!

 

 

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[aiden]

a friend of mine has a small green waste disposal site and had his compost tested and due to haveing a lot of wood chip it was very low in nitrogen so rubbish compost! If you are making compost stevebeanz i think you need to be carefull of the ratio of green waste and woodchip. A very good use of wood chip is to put down around roots of tree after treatment from airspade ( or so i was told at a bs3998 info day)

[skyhuck]

Wood chip as a fuel even for commercial boilers has to conform to particular sizes, eg. G30 or G50, and moisture content so arb waste is not suitable. To buy a chipper that could produce the correct grade you would be looking at spending upwards of £80,000 plus a power source. Also as some have mentioned, the dirt, grit, leaves, etc on arb waste make it unsuitable - if you had a contract to supply biomass fuel to a commercial boiler it would usually state the chip must be made from virgin timber. The feed augers most of them use are quite temperamental at the best of times.

 

Not true,Heizohack chippers produce G30 or G50 and start at under £30K for the smaller ones.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Not true,Heizohack chippers produce G30 or G50 and start at under £30K for the smaller ones.

 

You're right there! There is smaller scale kit (boilers & chippers) without having to go 5-6 figures in capital outlay. I spent lots of time & effort researching 'domestic' scale outfits a couple of years ago. I couldn't make the numbers work on the smaller scale though. Settled for a pellet boiler and a pellet manufacturing outfit.

[Breezeblock]

You're right there! There is smaller scale kit (boilers & chippers) without having to go 5-6 figures in capital outlay. I spent lots of time & effort researching 'domestic' scale outfits a couple of years ago. I couldn't make the numbers work on the smaller scale though. Settled for a pellet boiler and a pellet manufacturing outfit.

 

can you post some pics of set up

[benedmonds]

You're right there! There is smaller scale kit (boilers & chippers) without having to go 5-6 figures in capital outlay. I spent lots of time & effort researching 'domestic' scale outfits a couple of years ago. I couldn't make the numbers work on the smaller scale though. Settled for a pellet boiler and a pellet manufacturing outfit.

 

Can we see you pellet manufacturing outfit..?

[renewablejohn]

Boilers like the REFO can easily handle woodchip. If you cannot afford a heizohack chipper to produce G30 or G50 spec then a rotary screen will effectively do the same but you will have to dispose of the reject material. Hardest problem is drying the green waste so that it can be stored. The easiest way I have found is to put the screened chip into chicken wire lined IBC containers and store in my polytunnels. After a month I tip out into another container using a pallet rotator to break up the lumps and allow it to dry. If I had a rotary screen I would use that. Its then ready for use with a moisture content normally below 25% and I think the Refo handles upto 30%

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

can you post some pics of set up

 

Will do, later today.