Milly

I have a auto feed bio boiler http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/lounge/32237-how-do-you-heat-your-home-2.html see the previous thread. I carried out a huge amount of research prior to instalation the reason we chose the bio boiler was that we have our own forest 15 acres and we intend to plant 10 acres of willow thus its a much cheeper option in the long run. I also did not want to be at the mercy of energy companies as there prices are only ever going to go up.

I thought I would share this with you it was written a couple of months back by my partner for our blog. Contrary to popular belief and opinion, and irritating as I know it is… you can’t spot-reduce fat. By this I mean if you, say, have fat on your stomach you want to remove there’s no point in doing sit-ups and crunches thinking that’s going to burn the fat preferentially from that same area. It won’t. There’s nothing you can do to change what fat your body burns. Fat metabolism is a very complex subject and it’s only fairly recently that science has really started to begin to understand it. What we do know is all fat is not equal, and those “stubborn” areas around your bottom and thighs, and to a lesser extent around your middle really are stubborn and there’s not a lot you can do about it – you’re at the mercy of your genetics to a large extent, in particular the genetics that make you a woman or a man. There are four kinds of fat: brown fat, muscle fat, visceral fat, and subcutaneous fat. When we talk of “losing weight” or “slimming” we’re really talking about the last two. Visceral fat is actually inside the body cavity with the internal organs and is what gives men (and women with male-pattern fat distribution) that pot-belly. This is the dangerous one and is closely correlated with heart disease and diabetes. The good news is this is the easiest one to get rid of because for all sorts of reasons I won’t go into right now. When you diet, this always goes first. Subcutaneous fat is under the skin and is what’s covering your muscles. This is what you have to get rid of to see that six-pack! Unfortunately, not all subcutaneous fat is the same and it doesn’t all come off at the same rate. In general your upper-body drops fat first, then your abdomen (starting at the top working its way downwards – this is why you always see a two-pack and then a four-pack before you see a six-pack). And finally… you get to strip off the fat around your bottom and thighs. Now, this is what we call “stubborn fat” and can be very hard to shift. You probably don’t need to worry about that yet because your body won’t even begin to touch this fat until you’re lean everywhere else first (and if you can’t see your six pack, which is most of us, I think), then you’re not lean enough to be worrying about this stubborn fat. Once you are that lean there are some great things you can do to make sure the stubborn fat does come off, but I’ll leave that for another day. My point in writing this all this is to ensure you understand so long as you stick to the rules of diet and exercise, the fat will come off. It has to – it’s an inviolable law of thermodynamics. All you need to do is concentrate on the process and let your body do the rest. So remember, don’t fall into the trap of doing light arm-exercises thinking you’re going to lean your arms out, because that’s not how it works. Yes, you might build some arm-muscle (which is a good thing), and that might give the appearance of being leaner because the muscle starts to poke out more, but in reality you’re better off doing big, intense exercises using big muscle groups: squats, running, cycling, Fartlek training and all the rest. Weight Loss Boot Camp France

For those of you who are suffering with midlife spread, which I would not imagine is many of you given how labour intensive arb work is. My top tip regarding a healthy diet, have a look at the low g.i diet. In a nut shell its all to do with keeping your sugar level balanced, as sugar lows generally induce cravings. Our clients have been using the low g.i diet in combination with exercise for the past 3 years with great results.

I have thought about the idea of getting someone in to chip the prepared timber alternately I may look at renting one. Ideally the chips do need to be G30 spec. Just out of interest whats the cost in the U.K to rent a chipper for say 2 days ?

Next year we are looking to chip our own wood for fuel. I am looking to purchase a chipper and would like some sugestions for the best type of chipper. The stuff we will be chipping will be smallish limbs or any thing that is too big we can cut up and split. We also have a small 22hp tractor that we can use the pto ,would that have enough power? What sort of cost should I be looking at would like to buy a second hand model.

Thanks for sharing worth watching.

It also pays to make friends with your local joiners. I used to pop round to my local joiner every few weeks to collect there offcuts it made great kindeling and also the larger chunks went up well when mixed in with some logs. They were happy to give it to me as they did not sell it and they would have had to pay to have it removed.

Just to add to the above will it have a back boiler so it can act as a proper heating system ?

Just had a look on Wikipedia very interesting thats probably why we have so many bee hives locally ;-) Also says it burns well when green ;-)

I looked at heat pumps which work well for a new build but not for a 17th century building. We have 15 acres of mature forest with more than enough wood for the next 5 years not to impact on the forest as its hugely over crowded. By then the willow should be well established. I know its not totally free heat, as there is the cost of cutting the timber splitting it chipping it etc but the forest would still need to be thinned etc. Still should be much more cost effective than oil even buying in the pellets its a 1/3 cheeper.

The Loire valley central France

Yes sorry 100KW ! This is how the pellets are delivered 40 tons at a time.

We installed a whole system, the main house already had rads but the rest of the outer buildings had no heat nor rads so the system was expensive also there was a 100m run from the boiler house to connect to the main house the cost of the insulated pipe nearly made me fall over. What would you like to know the cost the whole system or just the boiler ? Insulated pipe carrying the hot water 100m to the main building.

The Loire valley where are you moving to ? Whats your plans ??

The rising price of gas and oil made us decide to install I bio heating system. We kept the oil boiler as a back up system. The current wood boiler runs on pellets or wood chips and logs in an emergency. The system is a 100w the back up boiler is also 100w which we use to top up the system when it reaches -15 ! The idea is that we will eventually run our system on wood chips ,which we will produce from managing our forest properly. The plan is to plant a series of fields with willow to use as fuel as my understanding willow can be coppiced in 3 years. How many of you out there use wood to heat your home? Here are some pictures of our system its all automatic i.e the silo auto feeds the boiler, the boiler is 93% efficent when using pellets and produced very little ash. This is a pic of the boiler. This one is the hot water storage for the rads its a 2200 ltr insulated tank. Pipe work could be from a ship ! This is the wood chip / pellet storage / auto feeder

We have just taken on someone for our full time position they will be starting work in September. I have a potential vacancy for a month or so. If you fed up in the U.K and fancy a change for a month drop me a line. The position comes with accommodation lunch and dinner prepared by our chef and £1250 for the month with a contact for services. The work is varied some tree felling garden work and some stone wall dismantling. 8hr working day six days. Climbing ticket is not necessary but relevant chainsaw tickets are needed. Must be wiling to start yesterday !

Its a great movie well watching the sequal you can even down load it from iTunes

I would say your welcome to have some but I think I am rather far away for collection ! This is a big part of a big cedar that came down last year after seeing some of the wood carving pics I think we may try and turn it in to a bench ;-)