Wood pellet stoves

[Over The Hill]

I live out in the sticks and have an oil powered central heating system. Seperate to it is a wood burning stove in the lounge.

I would not run a pellet stove in UK as it is too reliant on the chain of supply on price and delivery. Ordinary log stove is good as you can keep it going all night where an open fire needs to be fed more often and has little control.

If I buy cut logs they seem to cost more than oil does but I have not done a proper evaluation. but at the moment I am turning a few trees in the garden into fuel. been outside today for about three hours and produced about £50 worth of logs. As the tax man does not get his cut on money saved it seems worth it.

It is a bit like getting a pet dog- lots of time spent and you have to love it to live with it.

 

[joe85recumbenttrike]

We had one installed in our new house last year. Its easy to use, economical, a 15 killo bag lasts approx 20 hours and cost 5 Euro. it takes me between 5 and ten minutes a day to clean and it should be cleaned every day. The ash pan is emptied once a week and can be thrown on the garden. It also looks nice and makes a focal point for the room, it has six programs and some of the newer ones can be activated over the phone with the correct equipment

We would not use anything else the price of pellets here has not altered for two years and the price above is if we buy less than a pallet, if you buy a pallet of bags it drops by about half to three quarters of a Euro so you save between 40 and sixty euros depending on supplier.

I did some checking in the UK and they are available and pellets should be easy to get the efficiency is very high so if you a resonable space to store the pellets one delivery a year should be all you need. We only used 80 bags last winter, I should add that our house is timber framed and very well insulated

Hope this helps

Joe

 

[sloe]

Phone round those stove suppliers for a stove that will burn smokeless fuels. Typically they burn hot and can burn out a grate quick. Get something that will do that and you can then supplement it with whatever renewable fuels you can find locally.

Point of order: well-seasoned wood IS smokeless, is it not ?

 

[Night Train]

Pellet boilers are good if they are properly specified and installed. They generally fail because of human error in having non pellet or incorrect pellet feed stock clogging the feed screw.
Do ensure that there is a sufficient local supply of feed stock of the right size and type of pellet and by sufficient I mean sufficient with your needs added to all the customer base together.

Another option may be a batch burner. This works with a more variable feed stock of large pellets to logs and burns very hot and very quickly. This produces more heat energy and is more efficient then pellet burning and also produces less ash. The heat is generated in one quick burn and the heat is stored in a heat store for later use. The timing of the burn can be set to supply heat when it is needed and matched to your own routine.

 

[Night Train]

Point of order: well-seasoned wood IS smokeless, is it not ?

Wood will smoke depending on the type. The best way to burn wood is very hot and very quick as in a batch burner. The heat created also burns the volatile gases released when the wood is heated. Slow burning releases the gases and then sends them up the flue unburnt.

 

[Crackle]

Looking last night and working on some of the figures of people's use, depressingly, it's looking too expensive. Anything from a third more than natural gas to more than double.

If I've got this right, then gas is about 2.2p per Kwh and pellets are about 3.3p per Kwh and could actually be more. It's making no economic sense unless I live in the sticks and am comparing to logs and oil.

Is that sounding right. Any thoughts?