Chalgravesteve

Hot air rises!! Try lying where they lie. It is surprisingly ok, but generally, we have some part of the body at glass height and that is too hot.

The only building I have nearby that requires heat is the staff facilities which essentially is a mobile home/caravan. It was non qualifying for RHI when we set up our scheme and if I make it nice and toasty in there they won’t go outside and split logs in the cold and wet! ?? next nearest building that can use the heat is 100+ m away and the insulated pipe work to put it onto the Rhi boiler is not worth the cost. We park the old diesel forklift next to the air vent in the shed. -5 outside and starts on the button. ??

Likewise. I’m not going to change our existing system or add capacity. It’s fine as it is and there is plenty of scope to get more wood through the kiln over 12 months.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has published the Government's full response and here is a brief summary of the changes: The Government does not intend to remove all drying practices as eligible heat uses. This includes drying of crops, and wood used for purposes other than fuels which will remain eligible (subject to the existing scheme rules around drying) However, the Government will: Remove wood-fuel drying as an eligible heat use other than where the renewable heat installation is replacing a fossil fuel heat source. Where installations are considered to be in development, they will have an additional six months after the reforms take place to get an RHI application in. For plants that are in development, evidence will be required such as planning permission and purchase of equipment to be eligible for the proposed transition period Remove the drying, cleaning or processing of waste as an eligible heat use as soon as the reforms are implemented Further tighten the eligibility of swimming pools so that only swimming pools that are used for a municipal or commercial purpose receive Non-domestic RHI support These changes will apply to new participants (those applying for accreditation after the new rules come into force) and existing participants who add capacity on or after the date the reforms come into effect. This is in addition to any participant who begins to use heat generated by an accredited installation for an ineligible heat use on or after the date the reforms come into effect. Additionally, the Government will amend RHI scheme rules so that installations, where heat is produced predominantly for single domestic premises, will no longer be eligible under the Non-domestic RHI. The Government will not, at this time, amend the eligible heat use criteria in relation to any other heat uses. These changes are currently anticipated for spring 2018. In effect, this will mean once the new regulations have gone through the parliamentary process which could be as little as six weeks from now Excellent.....so those of us who are already accredited will have absolutely no likelihood of increased competition in the kiln dried market for the next decade or so...... was clearly a masterstroke in getting our setup sorted out early doors......

I’m not sure I would want the downstream heat from my kiln heating a “normal” building. Once it’s passed over the logs to dry them it has become laden with moisture so it needs to be vented in my opinion. Taking heat off the boiler to the building as a separate draw is a different issue.

I'd be interested in that info as well, I'll get a picture of my 4 fans when I can get at them! I've got a 270Kw boiler, system paid for itself over three years. If the RHI stopped I'd still be kiln drying the firewood as the income from the firewood sales is more than double the RHI income now and increasing each year. We keep tinkering with it to find out what gives us the fastest drying time, so for example, originally, the fans ran until the accumulator tank dropped to 30 degrees from its maximum of 80 which is where the boiler fans shut off. By raising the low cut off to 40 the drying fans run for a shorter time but the kiln temperature is always higher. Warm air holds more moisture so the drying has got quicker despite the running time being less. The only bit of drying time we lose though, is the fans going between 39 degrees and 30 degrees in the accumulator tank, which clearly wasn't having any great impact on the drying in the kiln itself. My fans do run 24/7 during the week though usually, from one loading of the boiler in the morning. Very occasionally, we might top the boiler up but thats rare really.

I process a lot of arb arisings, where log diameter can be anything between 10" to 30" diameter, and each chunk either already in the 6" to 8" size or we cut it to that so we get 6-8" logs out of it. I'm looking for a horizontal splitter, so we can just load multiple pieces on to the bed and then push through the splitting knife. At the moment we feed them through our normal processor on the conveyor belt and drop them into the hydraulic ram channel, but it would be far quicker to put them straight onto the ram bed, than put them onto a conveyor which drops them onto a ram bed one at a time. We also get 1.5m large trunks, so again it would be better to run that through a 4 way knife and then use the standard processor to turn that into logs. I'm looking at the Binderberger Gigant 40, with a 12 way knife, which looks a great piece of kit. Has anyone got any experience of actually using it, or even got any suggestions of anything similar or better suited? Cheers

Page 3 of the call for evidence..... in the statement prior to asking questions they say.... Wet wood is classified as having greater than 20% moisture content. We are considering phasing out the sale of wet wood where this is sold in packaging that does not lend the wood to being seasoned before use, for instance in packaging of up to 2m3 (a large dumpy bag). LOL I can't wait to read the rest!

I sell mine as stovemix, a random mix of hard and soft. I have an 85% returning customer ratio and of the other 15% who don't just reorder, they usually buy a pile of wet crap from somewhere and then come back to me once they have tried it. I explain to all my customers, that its how dry it is, is vastly more important than whether its hardwood or softwood. Wet hardwood buggers up your flue as well. So I reckon mine is about 50/50 hard/soft mixed together.

Sounds like the hydraulic system to me. Either a valve is stuck open/part open in the valve bank allowing the oil to bypass the ram to pressure it, or possibly (and easier to check I would think) that there is a blocked hydraulic filter? That will slow the amount of oil that can be sent through the system. I don't have one of the machines, but I have a stack of machinery which runs off hydraulics and those would be my favorites from my experience. You can get the system pressure tested so that you can see where there is good pressure and where it is dropping off, which in turn isolates the problem.

Ah cheers. Clearly they have a flat bracket below the belt and sandwich the belt between the L and the flat plate. That would spread the load and resist tearing the belt I would think. Just what I needed, thanks

I've got some missing/damaged rubber slats on my lift conveyor off the processor. 2 or 3 are missing and another 2 or 3 are coming loose. The fitted ones are rubber and bonded to the main flat band of the conveyor belt itself. Clearly not man enough for the job. I was thinking of just using L shaped aluminium and using a dome headed bolt (coachbolt or similar) from the underside of the main belt and up through the L shape. This will mean that the dome head of the bolt will be running on the steel bed of the conveyor housing and also over the two main rubber rollers at each end of the conveyor belt when its running. I can't believe that this will cause any damage to the drive or the conveyor bed? Someone else must have either already done this or got a better plan? The only other way I can see of doing it is getting some rubber mat, same as conveyor belt, cutting a 6" long/same width of conveyor, attaching the L shape with the dome bolts to the "patch" and then bonding the patch to the main belt. This removes the issue with the bolts running on the bed or over the rollers, but the patch is on the outside of the belt as it curves over the rollers so that might come unstuck over time? Im inclined to go with the direct attach of the L to the belt? Any experience on this anywhere? Cheers Steve

Yes somebody else has said that to me. We get through tier one anyway on drying wood so it is almost not worth the time/money/effort so I don’t think we will. Far easier just to put a log burner in there.

The frontage is as long as we could make it. Took the longest 6 poles for the roof, then put a pitch in from the front to the back. Thats a 40' shipping container to the right and the barn goes back about another 2m so its about 14m deep, about 5m frontage. Cost me about £2k all in I reckon and most of that was the roof sheets. I could have done it for less but didn't want 2nd hand sheets

I'm looking for a back up processor, needs to be PTO driven unless it has its own diesel engine, and was scrolling through ebay looking at various second hand models. Came across this, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lumag-SSA400Z-PTO-Firewood-Processor-GREAT-PRICE-GREAT-QUALITY/173015394708?hash=item2848856994:g:tnkAAOSwVgtZu7N8 seems incredibly cheap, so I assumed China, but its actually German! Vorsprung Durk Technik then!! Anyone have any knowledge of them? Cheers Steve

We didnt faff about with purlins lol. By the time the roof and the sides are all fixed its all locked up solid

Exactly that. Except we used telegraph poles, we buy them second hand for about £15 each, 2 uprights, 1 as a cross beam, like a set of goalposts, 4 sets, 2m apart and tin roofing sheets 3m in length. Just overlap the sheets and fix to the poles. Huge barn, and high as well.

Main business is a Golf Club, so I have 4/5 greenstaff who have time availability in the winter period. We also had about 6/8 tree surgeons who brought us their chip/logs. We used the chip for pathways, then sold the surplus as a biomass fuel in bulk. Decided to get our own biomass boiler to heat the clubhouse, but found out that burning the chip was too complicated, but one supplier said we could easily burn the woodpile of logs, which was handy as we used to just push them into a big pile each winter and set fire to them to get rid of them! I had looked at doing firewood years previously, but the thought of doing all the work today and getting paid in 2 years time was a bloody bad hobby! So we went to look at a Dragon Boiler, and saw one attached to a drying floor drying firewood. In the earlyish days of RHI as well, so we eventually bought the boiler and an accumulator and a 40' container kiln, got it all approved for RHI, we burn the hard to split stuff as fuel and split the easy stuff into firewood. Had to buy in a processor, I bought a Gandini Forest cut (but got an EU grant for 40% of it). So. I've not really got any staff costs as I was already paying people, already had most of the kit. the boiler and kiln and processor was a total investment of £60K, and the RHI income is about £21k a year. Been going 3 years now, so I've got my money back on that, 17 more years of RHI to go then! We sell about 1,000 barrow bags a year, although that's just growing year on year now. Biggest problem this year has been the mild weather into December, as the grass has still been growing and we have been spending 3.5 days a week keeping on top of the golf course and 1.5 days processing. It needs to be the other way around to keep up with demand!! Still haven't got around to laying the pipework to the clubhouse to heat that from the boiler either, although I'm now more inclined just to whack a woodburning stove in there instead, if I can source some firewood.....

I'm not sure that having a sharpened blade pointing vertically is a very good idea! If you can do all that welding and post holes, then build the same frame as the youtube video! Any reasonable size hydraulic ram will work, you just need a long ram which gives you a long stroke to push a big log so that it splits completely. If you can lock down the teleporter there is no reason why it shouldn't work, on the boom extension, but a teleporter has multiple rams for the bucket tip and the boom lift. I think you run the risk of bending these if the log doesn't split/push straight. If the log starts to lift or twist then you are exerting huge forces in a direction you were not intending. Bending one of the other rams is a "king expensive mistake. I would be looking to get a single ram exactly as the video, fix it into place so it pushes square. The risk of bending that ram is still there to a point, but you only have to look at one ram whilst its working. If it goes off line you stop. An equation for you on calculating ram pressure. This gives you the force in PSI. I think you divide by 2000 and that gives you push pressure in tonnes. Pressure = force (in pounds)/Area (square inches) We describe pressure as: X amount of PSI, Example: A round rod 1 1/8 inches in diameter has about 1 square inch of surface if stood on one end. Pushing with a force of 10 lbs downward, we would be exerting a pressure of 10 lbs per square inch (10 PSI). Now suppose we exerted the same downward 10 lb force on a round rod with a diameter of .18 inches, now we have 400 PSI. Let’s do the math. A=R² x TT (Area of a circle in square inches equals: radius of the circle squared, times TT), TT=3.14. Example: 1 1/8 ÷ 2 = .562 x .562 x 3.14 = .99 or almost 1 sq. inch. Continuing with the rod which is about 3/16 in diameter, 3/16 =.188 ÷ 2 =.094 x .094 x 3.14 = .025 Square inches. Pounds ÷ Square Inches = PSI; in this case: 10 ÷ .025 = 400 PSI. Putting pressure to practical use: One of the simplest hydraulic systems is the common hydraulic car jack. It contains a reservoir, a pump, a linear actuator and a valve; it does not however contain a prime mover (a motor or engine), our arms and hands become the prime mover or power by which we “jack up our car.” Fig. 1 Reciprocating Pump How does this happen? You can see by the drawing (Fig. 1) that when we push the small 3/16″ plunger down we are creating 400 PSI of pressure under the linear actuator (piston and push rod). In the example above, we showed that a 1 1/8 piston has an area of about 1 square inch. One square inch x 400 PSI = 400 pounds of lift. Now push the 3/16″ plunger down with a force of 50 pounds and we have the capacity to lift a weight equal to 2,000 pounds. However, we must be patient with the process as the 3/16 inch plunger will not displace very much oil with each stroke and therefore many strokes are required to lift the weight up, but we are able to do so because of the mechanical advantage the jack provides for us.Volume is a function of area x distance traveled for linear actuators. Example: the area in square inches for the 3/16″ plunger is .025 sq. inches x 1/2″ of stroke, that equals .125 cubic inches of oil pumped per stroke of the jack handle. Our 3/16″ plunger is a fraction of the size of the 1 1/8″ piston in square inch area and therefore the piston will only move a fraction of the distance that the 3/16″ plunger strokes. Which explains why we must operate the jack handle fast and furious if we want to raise the car in a hurry.

The problem with the teleporter and massive logs, is not the hydraulics but grip/gravity/friction. My teleporter, when you put it up against a solid object and extend the boom, it just pushes itself backwards as the boom extends. So you would have to park the teleporter with a solid object behind it and the log solidly fixed in front of it. Then the winner will be which solid object is more solid, or the teleporter will break! One of those three things will occur!

might be interested in buying the diesel trakmet? what model is it, how old, how much? cheers

Hairdryer, waste of time. Use a hot air paint stripper gun http://www.diy.com/departments/bosch-1600w-240v-hot-air-gun-phg-500-2/1172238_BQ.prd for example. Plenty of heat from that. put your paper and kindling and start logs in and ready, run the hot air gun for a minute at the flue entrance, then point it down at the paer so it catches light!! Close door, job done. I used to light my BBQ with one!!

As a bit of additional info, my 195kW boiler heats a 10,000 litre accumulator and the kiln is set to run its fans when the water tank is between 50 and 80 degrees Centigrade. Once the kiln draws it dawn to under 50 degrees the fans shut off. In practice this means we can run the kiln pretty much 24 hours a day in the week. We load up the boiler at least once a day, occasionally twice and let it go out over the weekend, then clean it out on Monday before starting again. The kiln is a 40 shipping container. I can't see the point of a 20' you can't get enough wood in it to make it worthwhile surely? Based on the above, it usually takes us about 10 months to hit tier one upper limit. .

You can't burn fencing waste as a fuel in a RHI funded boiler. You have to declare what the source of the fuel is. There are some small exemptions for small volumes of waste wood, but it still has to be clean. Treated pallets and treated fencing panels are not clean. The revenues received from an RHI funded kiln depend upon when it was approved. Tier one is 1326 hours @ the rated output of the boiler as a max. There are different rates depending upon how big the boiler is, the threshold was 200kW I think, so if you were under 200kW then it was a higher rate than than a 200kW+ boiler. From the post above, if those are current rates, then my tier one max would be 1326 x 195 x 2.96p which is £7,650 if I did it now. I wouldn't install one now at the current rates, the payback time is too great against the investment required at the outset.

I'm interested in insulating mine. I've PM'd you about it...