woodchip

I have various firms wanting me to have a woodchip boiler. Does anyone know if this would be a good idea?

Bill

is this a Bill-type comment on the grammar of trying to sell boilers made out of woodchip, or is it simply an invitation to comment on "bio-fuel"?

If the latter: I've always been deeply suspicious of "bio fuel" as a means of replacing fossil (or any other type) of fuel. Especially when I heard a year or two ago, that they are planning (building?) a multi-million (billion? who knows these days!) pound "biofuel terminal" somewhere on the East coast, just to *import* the stuff from Scandinavia, in order to fuel our power stations. YET ANOTHER taxpayer-funded wheeze for the barrow-boys.

John

I'd doubt it.

I worked snagging for a biomass boiler installer in the days before RHI grants and most of the problems were to do with the quality of the chip. Chip deliveries are only economic in 25 tonne loads unless you produce your own and generally whole tree chip is worse than roundwood chipped for the purpose.

I also own a 150kW woodchip stoking boiler and a few pellet stoves, the fuel for the latter has priced itself out of the market.

I have access to unlimited quantities of woodchip and roundwood. Woodchip in a heap outdoors never gets dry enough to burn cleanly.

The daily ashing out and fortnightly sweeping the firetubes is a chore which compares badly with maintaining a gas burner. The hardware occupies 20 times the space of an equivalent gas or oil boiler and short cycling means any time less than 24 hours.

For RHI on the domestic scale with wood you don't pay for (may be difficult to register as a self supplier) one of the batch loaded type coupled with a couple of tonne thermal store and the time constant of a heated slab of concrete may be cheaper.

AJH

I thought you were going to ask about repapering the lounge walls.