Mycoman

Phew, spent more than a couple of days catching up with this one, fascinating stuff. Afraid I know jack about modern urban forestry, not my line, but in Britain generally I reckon we need more pollards. Trees don't need to be confined to woods - those gorgeous shots from the Basque Country are of (lapsed) wood pasture. And all the veterans, wow.

That's for your own use, right? Surely no need to split them much smaller than will fit into your stove/hearth? They might take a wee bit longer to dry but less energy expenditure by you.

This is a squid a tree just for labour, yeah?

So far the tide seems to be going woodchipwards... A thought: either form of biomass will be more graft than oil, but isn't that, in part, what the RHI is supposed to compensate for? I'm not generally a fan of the government giving out money for nothing.

Great stuff already, thank you. Tbh, others' experience would be brill but the thoughts and educated guesses of Arbtalkers is just as good. What kind of questions should I ask salespeople, for example? I had been told that it's better to have a smaller system running flat out than a larger one idling (esp with an accumulator tank). Any other views?

Hi, been following for a few weeks, everyone here seems like they know their onions (or talk a ruddy good game), so here goes with a first post: advice, please... I want to put a biomass boiler in to my house - well, outbuilding. Home is a six bedroom 'big hoose', have two let cottages next door as well. (currently using fuel oil - red diesel - and spending a fortune to be lukewarm.) Therefore, I'm looking at an 80kw to 100kw system with accumulator tank, etc. This seems to be at the upper end of things for log boilers (wood gasification) and at the lower end for the more automated woodchip systems. I have around 25 acres of unmanaged broadleaved woodland plus scope for a few more acres of planting, I have a quad and trailer and L200 pickup. I have a saw, an axe and my health. We're 2 miles from an industrial user and supplier of woodchip but we've an old and space constrained property, can't accept artic loads to the outbuilding. Would I be mad to consider the log gasifier? Does anyone have experience of log boilers on this scale? Do log boilers work significantly differently to chip ones (ergonomics and feed supply excepted)? Sorry if this is a ramble and too many questions but this will be a big investment and one I can't afford to get wrong (btw, a log boiler is a good not cheaper to install than all the automation gubbins involved with chip). Thanks in advance for all help. M