Alycidon

As others have said willow is probably the long term way forward. Commercial biomass pellet and chip plants are processing willow harvested with modified forage harvesters on something like a 3 year rotation. It is chipped by teh harvester, piled into heaps to dry for a few weeks then ground, dried and pelleted. Had a tour of just such a plant near Newark maybe 4 years ago. I have been burning willow in my stove this week, burns well, good heat, wind blown last winter I cut and split it in April, stacked it, then brought it inside a few weeks ago. A

You would think that the stove retailer would advise customers about the inns and outs of what to burn, I do and labour the point but an awfull lot dont and people buying stoves on line do not have a hope in hell of getting this info from their suppleir. A

Think I got mine for here: [http://bagsupplies.com/uk/ventedlogbags.htm Use green 1 cu m ones and white barrow bags. Some of the green ones have done three trips so far and are holding up ok. Green looks less of an eyefull if seasoning outside. A

As a slight aside how are you boys filling barrow bags ?. Filling direct from the processor would mean a new bag every few minutes. I processed in bulk of into meter bags. So I am hand filling barrow bags at present. A

Tried them this year, delivered my first one tonight. Not as popular as the vented cubic meter bags so far. Customers like the ability to store the meter bag in their garage, just roll it off the trailer on a pump truck and pop it where they want it. Got 50 of each bag, all my meter ones are full, wonder of I have wasted money on the barrow bags but time will tell. A

News papers are worse. When you read in print something that is nothing like what you actually said. I had an artical in a local free issue by monthly magazine on my buisness this month that was titled. Center of Eccelence for Home Farm Stoves Ltd. That is exactly how they spelt excellence !!, I complained and they are now running it again. A

Dont know that I would fancy sitting on a County day in day out as a working tool. Had my share of that 40 years ago, then we got John Deere's. But as a collectors tractor it will never be worth anything less, the big front wheels require a LOT of turning space and the diffs have a habit of failing but its an appreciating asset especially if its an 1124 upwards. A

Not heard of them, they do state British made but anything made abroad can I believe be called British made as long as some part of the assembly process is in the UK. Not saying that they are not made here but do the maths, sell out 273 ( inc VAT?) , 3 or 4 hours to make, say cost of 120 for labour including employers NIC etc, + steel costs + profit. Cant be a lot of profit there but in fairness I am not aware of steel plate costs. Weight of 53kg is far from heavy as a stove, a standard Morso 04 which is a mainly steel stove of 5kw is about 90kg from memory so your 20kw stove, significantly larger yet half the weight will have far thinner steel plate than the industry norm, thin steel plate is likely to twist under the heat that stoves generate. How big is your workshop?, 20kw will heat 240 cubic meters given poor insulation, thats a fair size. They advise a 125mm flue, that is legal ( unlike some workshop stoves currently for sale with 100mm flue pipes, not illegal to sell those but is illegal to install one) If you can get a 5 year warranty on it then its probably worth a whirl. A

Further to comments about Trading Standards on another thread please be aware of this scam thats doing the rounds, Esentially I bought an advertising board for 2 years in a local town center, turned out the seller did not have permission to erect same boards from landlord. Landlord took them down. Eventually a deal was agreed between advertsing company and landlord, advertiser put another set up but did not pay the landlord, landlord takes them down again. This all took 8 months, the amount of time it took for all the standing orders to be taken. A week later the advertising companies rented office was vacated, four months later the company applies to be struck off, as there are no outstanding court cases against it companies house will allow this despite my protests. No point taking the company to court as there will be no assets in it. I and many others are owed for services we have paid for that have not been supplied. Myself and the other people advertising on my local boards recon as a group we are 20K down, appears the company also hit Manchester and took 100k out of there, not bad for 8 months work is it. Just all of you beware of this scam, this company was based is South Wales, if anyone wants the name then please pm me. Looking at the main director he seems to have done this before, set a similar name company up then had it stuck off a few months later. You could pay by credit card if doubtful then reclaim costs from them. Trading Standards said tell the Police who it turn said they would report it to the appropriate office. Action as a result, NIL. A

Fair enough. A

I have had Auto Discos since about 1994, sold the first 200 series after 274,000, now run a TD5 and have got to 230,000 with it. Excellent bits of kit, mine pulls big trailers at max weight, takes a ton of wheat across a ploughed field if I want it to, mine does what it was designed for, gets cleaned when it rains etc. The wife now has her own Defender TD5 as well. Other than routine maintenance the Disco TD5 has only needed to be recovered once when 2 fuel injectors seized up at about 180,000. Plenty of scrap and accident damaged ones to get cheap low mileage replacements, cant do that with a Japanese one so easily. The 200 was faultless. So a fan yes but I do hear that the Disco 3 is a nightmare on parts costs and availability ( no aftermarket parts much so main dealer only at high cost) , mate who repairs them for a living recently had one brought in for a few odds and ends, parts alone were over £1500 !!. Suspension air compressor, rear air springs were the main culprits. A

Looks an excellent system for any suitably equipped tailgate and the money back offer is probably unequalled. It deserves to succeed. A

Hi Steve, Might be an idea to add a second haulage rate for 50 miles as 25 miles is maybe restricting likely customers. A A

The problem with UK military is that if someone makes a decision to change a supplier and its a good decision nobody takes any notice and they get no recognition for it. If they make a decision that is bad then their record will have a black mark on it for life. Hence there is no incentive to change anything. The US military on the other hand work in totally the opposite way and their Sargents are encouraged to use their initative. A

The only way you might be able to in future talk this round is by advising that lots of small logs will give better flame patterns that bigger logs. They will burn faster as well but there's no need to tell him that. At present I only do one length, 240mm. A

Better that an a pound a net !!. If they decided that they wanted to be a big player in a given market they undercut all the competition until they are forced out of business then put the price back up while driving the cost price down. Thats how companies like that operate. A

One or two of my farmer friends have had horrific renewal quotes. Another has a a major fire, farm buildings he had insured for X amount they are only offering 50% of the insured value. Shop around. A

Its now been removed, might be an idea to talk to Fuelwood to see if they are aware of any being stolen. I am sure that the Police could trace it through E bay and an e mail address if needed. Sounds like a fraud to me as well. A

There's a place just down the road from us producing wood pellets for pellet boilers out of perfect processor size cord. I don't know how wasteful of energy the process of making pellets is, but I'll bet it's at least as bad if not worse than kiln drying. If it were a waste product that was being made into pellets it would probably be justifiable, but decent wood that could just be cut up, air dried then shoved in a stove? Bonkers. Grind it down to sawdust, dry it, then pass it through a high pressure extruder to pelletise it, pellets come out warm and pliable. It takes a lot of high energy to do that, when I looked at the idea a few years ago processing costs were about £20 a ton in decent volumes. Product is sold at about £200 a ton + delivery, the major player in that market keeps the price just below oil per kw. A

Ask Pellheat, they are well advanced in using alternative pellet materials. Pretty sure they have trialled pelleted cardboard. A

The only benefit of KD over your (and my) barn dried product is that the kilning process kills off any woodworm etc. Your product is in no way inferior and if at 16% or less is probably better. A

Well it does to get the same amount of heat into the room, ie 16% MC will produce a lot more heat from a log than 25%MC as less of the energy in the log is used to evaporate the water in the log. So the drier the log the hotter it burns so the more heat is produced. Personally I am buying cord now for use in winter 12-13. I probably have enough stock to maybe cover into early 13-14. Take it when its available, it certainly wont be going down in price but it is cheaper now than it was during a part of the 1990s so I was reading the other day somewhere. A

My brother is pretty handy with a welder, he spent most of last winter trying to build a splitter that worked. What was happening was the force the ram was generating was bending the ram mounting brackets, he gave up in the end when I bought an elderly small one. For the money you might as well have a unit that has been profesionally designed and built to do the job. A

10 inches is to long really for most stoves in use, it can be a bit if a struggle to get them in and thats not good news with a hot stove. I cut at 240mm which is really as long as you want to be, that fits most stove openings which are usually narrower than the firebox perfectly. A