Woody Wood Pecker

I've wondered this too. A normal wood burning stove burns at a certain temperature. However, a wood gasification boiler burns at up to 1200 degrees centigrade (I believe) - this is the same temperature that a commercial incinerator burns at which gets rid of all pollutants (or at least deposits it over Rotherham if the reports in the Sheffield newspapers are true). Now, I'm not sure what the firebox temperature is in a gasification boiler and whether that would allow the odd offcut of stuff like decking to be mixed with wood from tree surgery. Having just finished my decking in my garden, I have a few kilos of offcuts to get rid of - so long as they won't cause more damage to the environment throwing in a gasification boiler rather than burying in a landfill site, I may as well produce a little hot water with them. G

What are you cutting your logs with? I was cutting my logs with a 24" bow saw - was taking ages - like 5 minutes for a 3" thick log. Replaced the blade with this [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bahco-23-24-Raker-Tooth-Bowsaw/dp/B0001IX71K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=diy&qid=1303559273&sr=1-5]Bahco 23-24 Raker Tooth Hp Bowsaw Blade 24In: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools[/ame] now goes through an unseasoned log in seconds - about 15 seconds for a 3" log - about a minute for a 10" one - and that includes rotating it as the log is too big for the saw. The blades are specially designed for the amount of moisture in the wood so if you're sawing seasoned wood, you may need a different blade - hopefully someone will be able to advise. Oh, a shorter log will season quicker too. G

Any Idea on how much wood would be used annually? Also, how often you need to load it up with logs? According to my house size and the tables on the eco angus website, I would need an 18kw boiler. However, as we are thinking of extending the house, it was recommended that we put in a 25kw boiler. The fuel usage was said to be 6 tonnes of seasoned hardwood per year - not sure if this is for the extended house (about 160m2) or pre extended (90m2). I'm hoping to reduce the wood usage as much as possible by insulating the house as much as possible - we had cavity wall insulation a couple of years ago and it made a massive difference. I'm hoping that insulating under the floor and in the loft will reduce the heat loss further. Somewhere on the Eco Angus website it gives graphs showing house size in square metres verses boiler size and insulation. I can't find it now though. Here's a case study though which is roughly what I was advised re loading. Eco Angus Wood Burning Boilers - Case Study I've been advised by other means that a wood run on a coppice system would produce about 9 tonnes of wood per year for three hectares. Hope that helps. All my information is through research rather than experience. If we do go ahead, we intend to get the system next summer. G

I'm looking at an Eco Angus boiler myself - for a domestic property. It works in conjunction with a heat store - you heat that up and then get hot water through a heat exchanger and heating water direct off the store. For your situation you'd need a large thermal store - I'm looking at 1,500 litres for a 3 bed (the house is to be extended though). The price of my system is £5,500 & installation, flue and vat. I reckon about £8k (at least). What's your budget? Is yours a domestic or non-domestic property? If non-domestic the RHI paper is now out and tells you the payment amount plus the length of payment (20 years). If you've got free wood then the RHI incentive would pay for the boiler and you're not paying for oil/gas. G

^^ It's called Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). I'm assuming that you're in a non smokeless zone. G

If I were closer then I would. I've added you to my contacts though as, is I'm passing I may come along with a saw and get a boot load. I think that they're usually pine - just got to watch as sometimes they have preservative on. Cheers G

How much were you going to charge for the job? How much would someone buy the wood in for roadside? I'd tell him that you'll do the job for your normal price but will leave the wood on site in rings. He can then eBay it and should get over £20 a tonne. If I were close by, I'd buy some off him. In fact, where's the job - If it's local (to Sheffield), give me a PM. G

Where about in the country are you? Nah, I believe that the chemical poisoning is quite quick acting.

Quick question but do you know a supplier in Lancashire who delivers for £52 a tonne? I may have found a regular supply now but if that doesn't work out, I could do with a similar priced supply myself - unfortunately I'm the other side of the Pennines. G

How much homework have you put into this idea? How do you get charged for a container - is it by weight or size? Where would you ship to - from what I can gather on here, firewood is more expensive in northern England than in the south. Would you be shipping cordwood or processed and seasoned wood? You may get your answer to that if you get charged by weight for shipping rather than volume. From what I can gather, seasoned and chopped logs are about £80 per m3. Just looked on Wikipedia (so it must be true ) and an ISO container comes in a variety of sizes. Most are 8ft wide by 8ft high - so 2.4m by 2.4m. Assuming you went for the longest, that would be 16.2 metres long - you'd get 64 bags in but would have a fair bit of space at the sides and top. The actual volume of the container is 93 metres though so the potential is there to get more in if you didn't use cube bags. Let's, for ease of calculations, say that you could get 80 bags in. That would give a street value (sounds like illegal substances) of £6,400. Someone's going to have to buy, store and sell these - not sure of how much they'd want per bag but you may get someone who will do that for £15 - you may not (so they make £1,200). Would £5,200 cover your shipping, haulage, purchase of wood and bags, export and/or import duty and give you a return on your labour? G

Just looked at the advert on eBay and I think that there may be some confusion now with the VAT bit. I realise that you can't change the actual description now that there is a bid but, when I've had a situation like this, I've got someone to ask a question (I may have asked the question myself) and then posted the answer so that everyone can see. Hope that makes sense. It just may clarify whether there is or isn't VAT. With regards to the actual load of wood, I wish deals like this came up in or around Sheffield. G

If there's anyone ever on the West side of Sheffield (Crosspool) who can't be bothered taking Poplar (not that you see much Poplar in Sheffield) or any other wood back to their yard and wants to dump it on my drive in exchange for a few beer tokens, drop me a PM. If you need my number in advance (on the off chance), let me know. I feel dead cheeky posting the above but hopefully something will come of it. Cheers Gordon

I saw some in Sheffield the other day. They were in one of the older industrial parts of Sheffield - I would assume that there may be similar in Donny. No idea how much they were to lease or buy (both were available). I think that driving around and looking for empty yards is maybe more fruitful than looking in papers. I would have thought that Sheffield was too far but, if it isn't, let me know. G

Many thanks for the answers and advice. Much appreciated. G

Hi everyone Question from a non-arborist. I have a Horse Chestnut at the bottom of our garden that I need to get rid of. I'm going to chop the wood, season and use it for our log boiler. When is the best time to cut down the tree so that I'm not going to be making work for myself seasoning wise? I read that you shouldn't cut Horse Chestnut in the winter as they will bleed excessively. This doesn't really bother me as it's going anyhow but is there a 'best' time for getting rid? Thanks in advance G