cornish wood burner

Sorry Stubby you were right, still plastic so presumably short lived. Looks like back go the Stihl holder.

Husky do a set with steel rollers now. A bit strange after a normal file holder but seems to work OK.

Homelite XL2 auto dual handle/ trigger. Around 1968 vintage, pre chainbrake of course. Running up to a few years ago but needs a bit of TLC to the carb when I have some spare time.

This is probably a little off track but a couple of years ago my wife and I had a holiday in Canada and we thought the Canadians were the most courtious people we had ever come across. Still no change to that I see. OP you have a great country, thank you but as said apology not necessary.

One of the lasting memories of my father was him showing me how to fell a tree with an axe. I still have the smaller than average axe I used to this day along with his patchhook. I renewed the handles on both a few years ago, and my son and I still use the patch hook when trimming out our firewood. I think I might take the axe out and repeat the lesson with my son. He appreciates the quality of his grandfathers old patch hook so I think he would enjoy using the axe as well. I must give it the once over on the oil stone first though.

If you have an overgrown hege to cut back then you might consider a cheap multi tool ie chainsaw on a stick. I have a 26 cc unit and it has cut up to 5 or 6 inch blackthorn, ash and oak. I have found it very usefull when it is not possible get near enough with a normal saw (blackthorn) and with an extension bar you have a extra reach. Obviously an ideal world type saw will not suit professionals but all I can say is mine has done a lot of work and I would not be without it. If you can see it being of use then it might be something useful to spend your money on. Stihl do the same but at 4 times the price if you want to spend more.

If an ecologist finds a rare flora or fauna I think the concern is what he or she might do with that information. I am sure all of us would do our best to preserve rare species but as woodwasp suggests restrictions could be imposed and if they went over the top might prevent the primary objectives.

Was it a barc,hetta?

If any of the blackthorn is big enough it makes good firewood, just watch the spikes.

I would think similar principles applies as in a larger chip boiler. A constant fuel supply gives constant O2, constant exhaust temp and a constant heat output. Fuel input every 10 seconds for maximum output. Obviously your stove will have bigger gaps between stoking but little and often seems the right way to me.

Hi open spaceman Always worked on 4KWh/kg @20% and 3.5@ 30%, boiler efficiency at 90%? With a little cleaning time gave me 50 tonne Walking floor holding 120 tonnes of chip, the chip then drops into a cross auger (extract) that then feeds the stoker auger. Photocells look across the extract to start the walking floor. Another photo in the stoker feed chamber to start the extract. Our de- ashing is on timers so fairly simple there. I have made timers to give an air blast over the photocells which shift most chip but still get some problems mid auger. 200,000 ltr accumulator tank through the byroads was interesting. The 3MW was our first and I had little input in the design layout but for the second I made sure things were to my liking and especially that there were no sloping augers. Lesson learned the hard way. The first install company are still installing near vertical augers which only work with screened chip. We looked at one of their systems when choosing the 1MW. They obviously have not learnt so lost a sale. Totally agree about the out of spec chip and I too enjoy the snagging and fine tuning. Hate drive chains, lost a couple but job for the apprentice now I think. If you ever are passing Plymouth and would like a look around pm me.

That would be the nails I expect unless he was running too hot. Pallets might be very dry and some are treated so he might have needed to turn his air down a bit The burning is no problem its getting the chip into the furnace. The chip locks together and does not flow properly, (bridges). It can jam augers if they are marginal. The longer pieces trip safety devices, flaps and finger activated switches. They block photocell line of sight then the chip feed stops and the boiler goes out. To be avoided if you rely on your boiler.

Looks very much like shredded pallets. Sorry to be brutal but if you were chipping my round wood you wouldn't get to fill a second trailer. Too many other things can go wrong running biomass boilers without knowingly introducing problems. That said if the wood you were chipping was very old and brittle then you might expect something like your picture. Problem is when wood gets to that stage it absorbes water quickly. I try to dry for a couple of years with good airflow and chip before the wood goes over.

Certainly on my garden hedge the ash covered in ivy is not doing so well as the clear ones. I have noticed the deteriation over the last 15 years as the ivy coverage increased and now it is starting to drop larger dead wood. I am no expert but it appears to me competition rather than coincedence.

The other problem with shredded chip is bridging in the delivery/ holding system. That sort of chip would bridge across walking floor elements causing a cavern you could stand up in.( if you are crazy enough to do it )

Merry Christmas open spaceman I guess it is all relative. We run our RHI funded 1 MW. 24/7 and hope to put through up to 50 tonnes a week. Both our boilers have walking floors with the feed controlled via phoocells. Auger size on the 1 MW is about 250 as far as I remember but is prone to long pieces hanging across the auger blocking a photocell. Runs out of chip then of course. Another rarer trick is for a long piece to poke the blockage flap open same as yours. Sometimes we get zero blockages in 500 tonnes but a batch with some overlenght bits in can easily result in many stops. Our 3 MW has 330 dia augers and is far more forgiving as it needs longer pieces to bridge or stick into the photocell line of sight. It did have trouble with very dry fines rattling down the auger and eventually causing a jam. It was install too steep by the installer but we changed this and has been OK since. We buy our wood in but use around 3000 tonnes pa depending on the temperatures.

5 boilers burning 20 tonnes per week means they will be very small. Therefore the chip delivery system will almost certainly be very sensitive to any out of spec chip. If you do buy a chipper you need to make sure it is absolutely top notch to provide this standard of chip. One of our boilers can burn more than 20 tonnes a day and overlength pieces can still stop it. As matter of interest why didn't your woodland owner go for a centralized system with one larger less sensitive boiler. Unless the houses are very large distances apart it must be the cheaper and certainly the more reliable way RHI funded drying I presume.

Agreed. We have to park a pallet inside to brace against the wind

Last day today, been doing last minute repairs before the holiday. Tomorrow off, on call Christmas and boxing day, definitely in on Saturday cleaning out and feeding the boiler. Back Monday. You self-employed guys have it SO easy!! Have a good Christmas all.

Only problem I can see is for £200 a day you are charging a fair chunk of the cost of an electric splitter so a lot would do it themselves.

After a bad day that made me smile, Thanks Treequip

I think your first job tomorrow should be a sharpening lesson, give him a saw then keeping it sharp is his responsibility. Practice makes perfect as the saying goes. Sounds like he will get plenty of practice.

Hi John We have some experience using contract chippers and the heizos you mention are a bit small. I am not sure what power you have but I would have thought a minimum of 300hp to be remotely competitive. You will be competing with outfits that can chip 25mc wood for £8 a ton. As a guide we use machines driven by 360 to 780 hp. Why only G30, that has to be the slowest and the most power hungry. Moisture content has a big influence on price and desirability. I cannot say what you would get per tonne but possibly if you could air dry the wood then sell direct you might have a sideline market. The sun takes some beating for cost of drying.

3MW wood burner sprung a leak, stone went through a telehandler tyre, puncture in my car tyre and my lad broke my last jigsaw blade. Average sort of day. Time for a beer I think!!!

Assume 4 KWh/kg so a 8kw stove should use about 2.5kg/h allowing for some inefficiency So burning 10hours a day then 25kg/ day Hard or soft little difference in weight used just need to feed it more often with softwood as less dense.