Above ground Insulated pipe for heating AD plant

Chippy

Member
Location
Cumbria
I want to heat my AD plant just once in a while for couple of weeks at a time when it’s struggling using my biomass boiler but don’t want to dig concrete up to bury pipes so is there a cheap way of running pipes above ground that are insulated that won’t loose loads of heat over 40 meter distance. Pipes will be inside sheds all the way under cover. These proper rehau type pipes are too awkward to bend round corners and too heavy to attach to inside roof of buildings so is there an easier way of doing what I’m trying to do?
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Pretty sure I have seen single insulated pipe at the Telford Energy show last year or 2016. Seemed easier to use/handle than the semi-rigid twin core stuff. Sadly, any brochures have long been recycled!

Use pex pipe with Polyethylene Lagging and stuff the whole lot in some plastic drainage pipe and stuff it up in a roof? What diam pipe do you require?
 

f0ster

Member
if you are using the heat off the biomass you have to use approved insulated pipe once the pipe goes outside the confines of a building, if you use non approved pipe you will have to fit a heat meter to record heat loss, if you were to get an inspection they wont be happy, you will also have to submit an amendment to the rhi.
 

Chippy

Member
Location
Cumbria
I was going to avoid the heat meters and go straight from the buffer tank just incase I got an inspection. The alternative is I replace the 3kw lecy heater already in the container with one big enough to get store up to 37 degrees. Not sure how many KW it would need to be though
 

f0ster

Member
if the biomass is on the rhi you are not supposed to use non approved pipe outside the confines of a sealed building unless a heat meter is fitted to record the heat loss,
 

Fowler VF

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Doesn't matter at all what the pipe is if you are not running the heat through the meter and claiming RHI. Its classified as a non eligible use. I would think that you probably couldn't claim heating of an AD tank as being an eligible use however you plumbed it, or at least it would require very long winded approval process. You must make sure that none of the hot water is passing through any of your RHI meters at all (even any that are just measuring boiler output and not heat use), if its a complete bypass then that's Ok and you can do what you want with it. Strictly speaking you should also revise your schematic to show the revised layout and the non-eligible use to Ofgem. But its not really material to RHI payments, they will make a meal of it and waste months looking into it and will suspend payments while they do it. The pragmatic approach is probably right, if you had an inspection your transgression would be very minor and you wouldn't have over claimed, so you probably just get a warning. We use Mapress steel fittings and pipes for most of our plumbing, simple to do (just hire the press tool), or steel threaded pipe, even cheaper but more work (again hire a decent pipe threader). This assumes that you have a decent inhibitor in your boiler water (should have been notified to Ofgem) at the right concentration and kept topped up, otherwise you will corrode the pipes. Rockwool silver foil pipe insulation for inside pipes, phenolic sections for outdoor. We have measured the heat losses on long runs and they are very little.
 

Fowler VF

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Its the dissolved oxygen and salts in the fresh water that do the harm to the pipes and boiler. So strictly speaking once you have mopped these up then that's that. But in reality the system always gets the odd top up of fresh water so should be topped up at the same time, manufacturers recommendations as to longevity etc should be on the drum. What we tend to do is to add a bit when we check the in line filters every 6 months, just to be on the safe side. Inhibitor % will have been specified in the RHI application, but being a bit over on the amount probably wont show up in any audit test since the active ingredients get used up in dealing with the dissolved oxygen and salts. being over on the inhibitor level isn't going to significantly affect the RHI meter calibration either, not in the way that adding antifreeze would (don't ever do this unless you have notified ofgem and have meters calibrated for it).
I think the inhibitor manufacturers recommendation is to drain, flush with their cleaner then refill with fresh water and inhibitor periodically. I confess we don't normally do this, but probably should. No inhibitor at all? Severe corrosion issues and crud everywhere whenever we have done this by forgetting to add it. We use Mapress pipe and fittings and these aren't very thick, without inhibitor I would be very concerned about their length of life. I am a steam engine owner as well, would never run a steam engine and boiler without an additive. Admittedly this is a bit more extreme as we are adding fresh water all the time, but its very easy to spot a traction engine boiler that has been run on plain water and one run with an additive, both in terms of lime scaling and corrosion pitting.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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