Farm 2000 or Glen Farrow Log Boilers

[Marky-mark7810]

We are farming background, live in a rural area, main line of business is in the forestry industry, so through all this we decided to install one of these 'all singing and all dancing' Glen Farrow Biomass boilers complete with a log drying kiln...

The boiler installed is a 210 kW so is eligible for the RHI on the 20 year plan.

We have now had the boiler in 3 months, first quarter of RHI is due, we have achieved about 90.98 mwh, and that has being running it hard, we thought this was not enough after speaking to others with similar systems in but no glen farrows.
we are a BSL registered supplier, we have being burning the same wood that we have being supplying to others who have being achieving way more productive heat.

Through learning and reading about the systems and how they work and finding data out through the meter we have found that the system is only producing 50 kW max!!
****bearing in mind is was sold as a 210 kW system****

Glen Farrow promote how they have done 350 successful installations of the 210 boiler. so I thought some people with them are about to be on here , if you are can you give me some feed back please!!

To try and make the best out of a bad situation i am looking at installing a farm 2000, to run along side which from what i gather is more than tried and tested!! They are posting me a list of happy customers that i can go and see but in the meantime i would really appreciated some feedback on either machine, amounts of wood used, heat produced....ect....

we only are looking at log boilers, as it is more beneficial to us than wood chip.

 

[Bernt]

hi, i cant help with your particular boiler as we dont install log boilers but what are you heating, what size buffers do you have, a bit more info on your system and we may be able to identify some possible issues.

 

[Marky-mark7810]

We only have a 100l and with the farrow
And a 4 meter chimney - not creating enough draw??
We are heating a 40 ft shipping container. It struggles to get above 35 degrees
The wood is really good Douglas it's at about 8.5% moisture

 

[frustratedfarmer]

Hate to slag others off but I have heard all of this before with both green boilers of that ilk

It could be a number of things, what size pipes are you running? 100l buffer? Surely not? 4 m is not enough I don't think.

Farm 2000 are ok, I think much better than the others. Mine has nearly paid for itself in 3 yrs. it has a 23.500 litre tank and a 10m flue.

Also seen an Ekopal at work, more money but better made and loading is side ways rather than end on so if you go bigger can fit tree trunks in.

I learned a bit from www.strawburners.co.uk.

As @pennine biomass said, sometimes the boiler is ok but the tight farmer put 1 inch pipe in, not 3! Who did your install? Can't always blame the boiler all though lots of a recurring stories on here of the same problem from similar brands.

Good luck!

 

[Marky-mark7810]

the boiler was installed by glen farrow themselves. it has 2 inch pipe work. ill take some pics and put them on later. its a shambles the glen farrow to be honest.

what sort of output are you getting in KW on your meter when it is running? what are you heating? and what temperature difference are you seeing? we are only using 5 degrees of heat, a few have recommended we should be seeing about 20 degrees difference!

 

[Penmoel]

We are on 65mm pipe work with 85kw boiler, and 10,000 litres accumulator and 6m flue on Farm 2000. Did just under the band 1 RHi payment in the 12 months, very pleased did 105m/wh. max would have been 111m/wh

 

[Still Farming]

Dragon Boilers - Glen Farrow related anyhow ?

 

[T C]

My 195 glenfarrow does around 100kw on straw - been a great investment.

 

[Bernt]

Where are you seeing the 5 degree difference. 100 ltr buffer is laughable, what is the heat load for a 40ft container, wouldn't think it would be anywhere near 200kw. We fit that size boilers on 50 bedroom stately homes!!!. Sounds like you have a very small demand and have been sold a large boiler and system to claim the higher level of rhi.

 

[___\0/___]

No expert but is your boiler running at 50kw because that is all that it needs or the 100 litres of water can cope with? During its burn my boiler will vary by about 20kw depending on heat demand.

 

[frustratedfarmer]

Batch boilers work by evening out the heat spike over say 4 hrs.

The tank needs to hold enough heat for a days burning, 20,000 litre minimum I would say.

I suggest you get someone independent like farm energy to come out and write a report - I can see a legal case brewing. The fact that they installed it themselves suggests they are totally clueless if what you say is true. F2000 pipe work is 3inch fir starters. Temperature at buffer 60 deg easily.

When my boiler, which is similar is running flat out at harvest we will get 5 bales through it and get around 2500 kWh / 24 hrs. Wood should be better than that.

Your boiler must be over heating if you burn wood, after an hour it should be at 80 and desperate to dump the heat, which it can't if only pulling 59kw/hr. At peak you would expect 400 kW/hr but this is balanced by start up and shut down

No relation between glen and dragon that I know off.

@pennine biomass rember the batch boiler rating is a bit misleading, I doubt any batch boiler could produce its rating, on average over a week, it would be more like half. This is because not loading it night and day unlike a chip boiler which is 'always on' at the same rate.

If only a 50kw draw you would need a decent buffer then you would only light the boiler once every few days. Batch burn dumps maybe 600 kWh which then gets released over next say 12 hrs via tank

Mine is running house (500 kWh / 24hrs) , grainstores and commercial units with oil back up for peak times.

 

[Penmoel]

Has @ORRA LOON not got a Glenfarrow?

 

[Chippy]

Glen farrow need shooting if they sold you a 100 litre tank! Even if it was a 1000 litre tank surely they would still need shooting.
Here's me thinking my 14000 litre tank is too small!!!

 

[Penmoel]

100 litres!!! Our header tank is bigger than that.

 

[frustratedfarmer]

@Marky-mark7810 can you post some pictures?

 

[Still Farming]

Glen farrow need shooting if they sold you a 100 litre tank! Even if it was a 1000 litre tank surely they would still need shooting.
Here's me thinking my 14000 litre tank is too small!!!

if its a sealed system it dont need a header tank ?

 

[frustratedfarmer]

No expert but I have never seen a sealed system for a batch boiler and I looked at quite a few before taking the plunge.

These are very different to chip boilers in how they produce the heat etc, @Stillfarming i can't recall if you have one, have you seen a sealed batch system before out of curiosity? Need a fair expansion tank I guess

 

[Chippy]

Mines sealed. I have 2 1500 litre expansion tanks.

 

[Bernt]

It doesn't matter whether the boiler is a batch or chip boiler, the expansion vessel in a sealed system would be proportional to the system volume, the rate of expansion doesn't change.

 

[frustratedfarmer]

Fair enough, never too old to stop learning!

Why would one go for a sealed over open vented?

Hilly site? But PXE's would solve this surely?