HOMEMADE WOOD BURNING BOILER

[chickens and wheat]

rhi is a similar income to solar £££ for £££, providing you are using your solar not exporting.

rhi profitabilty/payback depends on what extra systems you need to distribute the heat. Most poultry farms for example run on gas heaters so the sheds need new hot water powered heaters and lots of expensive pipework/electrical work
A house/office with pre-existing hot water radiators would be much simpler, even more so if you had an existing outhouse for the boiler to live in.
multiple buildings can be linked but the underground insulated pipe isnt cheap and still suffers some heat loss.

straw and chip systems will require a more extensive fuel storage/loading arrangement.
pellet boilers only need a simple store, a feed bin for example, but pellets are a more expensive fuel.

There is a limit to the tarrif paid each year per boiler, I expect to exceed the tarriff amounts each year, after that a tarriff is still paid but much smaller.

4 or 5 year payback maybe , but its a considerable investment

 

[suffolksmallholder]

@roscoe erf. Can you bleed a little of the heat from the flow pipe back to the bottom of the boiler? This will ensure the water temperature is never too cold. Cold water creates the rust that will slowly and steadily eat away the casing on the inside. Just a thought!
SS

 

[nick channer]

do you have to have a shut down day to allow you to clear ash ? or can it be done while running ? - just wondering if you have a cold day once a week ??

We have pretty much exactly same thing (central boiler from America) but ours was

RHI is in short a scheme that pays you for using biomass to heat your home or business ! fdrom what i have read so far looks rather profitable and much better than solar etc[/quotwaste have a very similar boiler to rosco's except we had to pay £15000 for the privilege. (Central boiler from America)
We run ours on soft wood which we get for nothing through the tree work and would otherwise burn on fire in yard to get rid of.
It heats 4 houses and we get the RHI grant (first payment due shortly)
Its a 90kw boiler and will be running at full capacity in winter so we are told by experts we should see around £7-8000 a yr from grant.
Couple that to the £5-6000 we are gonna save in oil and its the best investment on farm.(excluding the claydon!!)
The installation wasn't cheap at around £30000, and we did all ground works etc ourselves..
Signed up for 20 yrs at fixed rate that can only go up down with inflation.
The boiler itself has been alight now non stop since march..
Maintenance is very little.
Clear a shovel full ash out the pan once every few weeks.
Fill up boiler once every few days through summer and morning and night when its cold, although I think if burning good seasoned hardwood get away with once a day.
We just let it burn right down to the coals.
Rouke it around with poker type thing they supply to get ash away from breather holes then fill up.
Very simple with few things to go wrong.
Anyone welcome to ave look if they down this way.

 

[pycoed]

Why would it be a bomb?

From post #12:" just plumed into back of oil boiler with isolating valves to switch if wanted back to oil boiler."

I assume you have isolated the oil boiler with these valves? If so & you start up the oil boiler, then very soon you will get a nasty noise!! I used to work with a bloke that filled a Parkray solid fuel stove back boiler with what he thought was dry sand, & then capped the boiler connections. He survived, but only just, after multiple operations & skin grafts. The collapsed house front & written off car were the least of his problems...

IIRC you are not officially supposed to have any valves in primary circuits (though I used them when I had a Rayburn & my Trianco boiler on the same circuit ), so please be careful. Whichever boiler you have installed the valves on, it would make sense to ensure there is no chance of that boiler being started unless the valves are open.

 

[roscoe erf]

From post #12:" just plumed into back of oil boiler with isolating valves to switch if wanted back to oil boiler."

I assume you have isolated the oil boiler with these valves? If so & you start up the oil boiler, then very soon you will get a nasty noise!! I used to work with a bloke that filled a Parkray solid fuel

stove back boiler with what he thought was dry sand, & then capped the boiler connections. He survived, but only just, after multiple operations & skin grafts. The collapsed house front & written off car were the least of his problems...
IIRC you are not officially supposed to have any valves in primary circuits (though I used them when I had a Rayburn & my Trianco boiler on the same circuit ), so please be careful. Whicheveboiler you have installed the valves on, it would make sense to ensure there is no chance of that boiler being started unless the valves are open.

No the oil boiler isn't isolated the wood boiler can be so if you use the oil boiler your not heating up all the water in the Wood boiler if you ran the wood burner isolated from the rads your heating all that water which by the time that reach boiling point you would have noticed no heat in house or the pressure relief valve would have gone off

 

[roscoe erf]

@roscoe erf. Can you bleed a little of the heat from the flow pipe back to the bottom of the boiler? This will ensure the water temperature is never too cold. Cold water creates the rust that will slowly and steadily eat away the casing on the inside. Just a thought!
SS

Have added an inhibitor to the water but not a bad idea with steel that thick I'm hoping it will out last me

 

[roscoe erf]

just collected some more firewood for boiler

 

[Penmoel]

You did say you were going into potato boxes

 

[Penmoel]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/scanfield-wood-boiler-biomass-like-farm-2000-central-heating-/231092548692


@roscoe erf What do you reckon of this?

 

[Lincsman]

Have added an inhibitor to the water but not a bad idea with steel that thick I'm hoping it will out last me

Most systems have a shunt pump fitted to recirculate water as the system is warming (switched via a stat) it stops the boiler stressing itself with hot and cold areas.

 

[roscoe erf]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/scanfield-wood-boiler-biomass-like-farm-2000-central-heating-/231092548692


@roscoe erf What do you reckon of this?

looks well used they were supposed to be the rolls royce of boilers in the day its a bit of a gamble what did you want to do with it

 

[Penmoel]

looks well used they were supposed to be the rolls royce of boilers in the day its a bit of a gamble what did you want to do with it

Its 30 years old, and looks as though its been quite hot at times. what will some of the modern gasification things look like in 20?

 

[roscoe erf]

Its 30 years old, and looks as though its been quite hot at times. what will some of the modern gasification things look like in 20?

ill tell you in 20 years but i wont hold my breath

 

[Funnywaytmekalivin]

Very impressed. Its a good job I don't have one, that fire box is just the right size for silage wrap. It would be too tempting!

 

[roscoe erf]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/scanfield-wood-boiler-biomass-like-farm-2000-central-heating-/231092548692


@roscoe erf What do you reckon of this?

i did go down the second hand road when considering this project looked at a fair few and all were "working" when removed and to be honest some of the prices were a bit steep,after a lot of use and the thickness of the water jacket put me off as there was no real way of knowing just what was going on inside,several i looked at looked liked they had leaked at sometime or the metal was thin.

 

[roscoe erf]

Very impressed. Its a good job I don't have one, that fire box is just the right size for silage wrap. It would be too tempting!

no never do that

 

[Funnywaytmekalivin]

@ exmoor dave could do with another one the same to heat his hot tub!

 

[roscoe erf]

@ exmoor dave could do with another one the same to heat his hot tub!

@exmoor dave

 

[exmoor dave]

@exmoor dave

But then I'd need to make a bigger hot tub which could lead to trouble as it's only intended for the happy couple, make it bigger and they might be tempted to invite "guests" around which I'm reliably informed will lead to all manner of trouble!

 

[roscoe erf]

But then I'd need to make a bigger hot tub which could lead to trouble as it's only intended for the happy couple, make it bigger and they might be tempted to invite "guests" around which I'm reliably informed will lead to all manner of trouble!

not keys in the pot trouble