openspaceman

I wish but how much better than using the raw ingredient or encouraging the stump to decompose with amonium sulphamate? The chief benefit os ecoplug is that it is an"engineering" means of avoiding contact with a fairly non toxic chemical That is not what is implied on the ecoplug.com site which says "The content degrades by the micro organisms to natural material such as carbon dioxide, nitrates, phosphorus and water." my inference is that they are not refering to the plastic capsule. Yes I'm in Surrey and this is the first year since 1979 that I have not noticed stag beetles, so I'm all in favour of retaining dead stumps.

How many do you do in a day? Stihl BT 45 is less than 300 quid or find an old atom drill attachment for a saw. I assume you mean eco plugs, what a terrible misnomer, is the plastic compost-able?

Anything alkaline will kill moss, so the bleaches, dairy or toilet cleaning chemicals.

Not likely as your air is only going in at 100C. The risk comes when you are recirculating and most of the water is gone, the temperature rises quite quickly. The key thing to measure will be temperature and RH at the outlet. My guess is you will be wasting a lot of heat which can still do useful work.

OK then efficiency is not a problem? Even saturated air at 100C only contains 600 grammes of water but this is immaterial as once the vapour pressure of water exceeds the air pressure it is boiling off. Then other considerations apply, like whilst you are putting in nearly 3m3 of ambient air it now occupies 4m3 and every 18grammes of water you drive off increases this by 22.4 litres. In effect the hot air only becomes a heat transfer vehicle and of course the limiting factor is the thermal conductivity of the wood to its interior compared with the heat arriving at its surface. It's very easy to demonstrate that given an average 1kg log dries to below 10% mc in an oven in 24 hours, so if you can keep every log in your kiln at 100C for 24 hours it will work but what will be the temperature of the air+steam mix you are venting be? This is the measure of the efficiency and also the reason I feel a high temperature dryer like this, whilst being fast, should cascade its waste heat to dump it into a lower temperature load, like underfloor heating. I did have a reason for asking about recirculating and it is this; at these temperatures for the air flow the hot secondary surface of your heat exchanger will be way above 120C, a few specks of sawdust landing on this may carbonise, and nascent char will burn at 200C, so a fiery spark of carbon may reach your now hot dry surface of logs, what might happen next? I certainly would know.

Is it recirculating or straight through? That's an air change every 15 seconds but if you’re heating the air through 100K at that rate it looks like 400KW(T). You've got good insulation so heat losses may only be around 4kW, the biggest losses will be in the mass flow being vented.

Not the best of photos but looks like a bird cherry prunus padus

I've never been directly involved but have witnessed some failures from the B(9 units to the big white elephant at Norwich campus. Thermally you need to minimise parasitic losses because in essence you aim to feed 1kg of air to every kg of dry wood and make sure the whole massflow passes through 850C+. Any moisture is robbing the system of .7kWh for every kilo it has to vaporise and then heat to this temperature. However as the cold gas efficiency will be less than 80% and your heat engine won't be better than 33% you actually have a lot of low grade heat for pre drying. Having said that the units being installed in the midlands by edge with burkhardt and the smaller entrade one that have both been running for 1000s of hours without hiccup use premium pellets for their consistency and bulk density plus some very sophisticated system control.

He probably means the sasmo, later to be the Laimet screw chipper, these were used to produce chunks for downdraught gasifiers. Actually the first Jensen machines were chunkers. Loads of images if you google chunker, . The branch loggers are similar types of machines.

Yes the agricultural or forestry exemption allows for carriage of goods for or from the holding, I was referring to general arboricultural work

Sorry Scotty I missed your post before sending mine, I concur.

That's not a problem as long as it isn't used in a smoke control area and the 5" outlets feeds into a 6" flue.

It took a bit of finding but here is a couple of shots, taken some 8 years ago, of a single skin 316 SS flue which had been allowed to cool the combustion gases below their dew point. the acidic conditions had created an oxygen free environment that had allowed the chromium oxide (a thin layer which protects the iron content from rusting in normal use) to be stripped and the tube then perforated. I suspect there was something other than clean wood being burnt because the stain underneath looks like iron chloride. Had the flue been insulated this would not have occurred as the inside would have remained dry.

As has been said this is an exemption from O licence, tacho still needed unless travelling to site within 100km and with tools and equipment driver will use on site. Big question is which modern 4WD diesel has an unladen weight less than 2040kg??

I've just checked part J and in fact it a wood burning stove which is exempted from the clean air act (AKA DEFRA approved I assume) can be up to 20kW and have a 125mm flue if that is what the manufacturer says. As I posted previously this is a change since I was working with biomass brought about largely by the need to allow foreign pellet boilers.

Unless they are quarter sawn, and mostly they aren't as you need the width, they will cup and shrink. The way round was to fit them and use folding wedges at the edge to keep tightening the boards together before final sanding if necessary.

I'm glad someone agrees Ian. The other point is unless the BCO is coming to look at other work the £250 quoted is the same order as the cost of a 2 storey plus roof flue liner. Strikes me it's worth finding a HETAS installer who will let one do the donkey work of feeding the liner down and letting them make the union twixt liner and stove.

Part J requires an air opening for greater than 5kW. The bit about a 6" flue for a solid fuel device was relaxed a couple of years ago for those stoves designed with 5" flues. At the same time pressurised water boilers became lawful, mostly to allow pellet boilers from abroad to be used here.

How much did building control charge for certifying the flue? I only assisted on domestic stuff so the boss self certified it. All the commercial installations was rigid insulated twin wall and part J didn't apply, neither did part P for the electrics come to that. The point about the certification is that it is proof of competence (or should be) just like a FENSA certificate for windows, NAPIT for electrics or BAFE for fire alarms and extinguishers. I don't think you can get round the latter on business premises if the fire risk assessment specifies the need for extinguishers or emergency lights.

I thought single 316 was only for non condensing oil boilers?

Yes you are right, it's just that the 904 904 will withstand a chimney fire which I don't think a 316 316 will but that's not a problem if the liner is regularly swept. ... and that prompts a question: what do you guys use for sweeping 6" and 5" liners? At work we used to have Wohler viper but they are very expensive I still have a 9" concrete liner but it does mean having to take the Jotul out to sweep the chimney and I can barely lift it nowadays.

If there are no bends you will be able to see the sky from the fireplace. I've had a 6" liner which got stuck in a nominal 9" chimney and brickwork had to be chopped out, second job in the same street and identical building and they put a 5" flue liner and smaller stove in. If unsure I'd pull a waste 1m length of 6" through as a trial before ordering the full 9 odd metres of 904, and yes I do expect the occasional runaway fire to put more than 650C up the flue.

It's to do with the flue gases from a stove being hotter than from an open fire, it lessens the risk of combustion gases seeping through cracked brickwork and hot combustion gases seeping through cracked brickwork and setting fire to roof timbers. The job can be done with other types of liner or indeed if the chimney is inspected it can be used as is. The proper sized liner keeps the flue gases moving and if it is insulated prevents tarry water condensing on the brickwork and rotting the mortar or pargetting. I agree, it has turned into as bad a restrictive practice as the guilds of old and spawned it's own parasitic industry of paper pushers. These things seem to go in cycles of tens of years

Yes 904, 904 twinwall is what you need for multifuels, 316 is just for gas. You need to install the liner and have a CO monitor now, it's part J of the building regulations and yes you do need a certificate and a plate to show the flue has been installed correctly, HETAS registered installers can self certify this or you pay building control to pass it. HETAS installers cannot certify work done by others. Also make sure a 6" (150mm) as even with a nominal 9" flue it can be a problem getting round corners. It's only the smallest burners (<5kW I think) that can use 125mm flexi pipe. Also it's directional so make sure it's the right way up and only feed it down from above. Alcydion will be along to quote the regs.

Yes still my favourite pick up and whilst it isn't 4wd the limited slip differential gets it out of trouble. I still have a virtually unused rebuilt 2.3d engine in the garage needing a new home.