Large Biomass boilers are not that reliable?

[Pilatus]

An estate near me have installed a centralised Biomass boiler to heat the cottages in the village which they own.
I have heard on good authority that the boiler is very unreliable.
My wife has also told me that insurance companies that insure bio mass boilers , do not have a high opinion of them due to the claims they must have had against them. It gives me the impression bio mass boilers can be very problematic!!!!

 

[T Hectares]

An estate near me have installed a centralised Biomass boiler to heat the cottages in the village which they own.
I have heard on good authority that the boiler is very unreliable.
My wife has also told me that insurance companies that insure bio mass boilers , do not have a high opinion of them due to the claims they must have had against them. It gives me the impression bio mass boilers can be very problematic!!!!

There are certainly some horror stories from the installers to the boilers and on to the back up but ours are pretty good, I’ve heard of several that are not running properly several years down the road, our smaller older one gives more problems than the the bigger one which is 5 years old and a different make.
We deliver chip to several local boilers, these seem to run similarly to our own, the biggest problem though can be availability of the less common parts causing downtime

 

[rollestonpark]

Our 250 KW Froling is absolutely fine. I do get some stoppages though, but this is because I burn waste wood(v cheap), which has some long spears, oversize etc.
So my stoppages are due to bad material, because I'm not willing to pay for proper virgin chip. So I put up with the stoppages to save money.

Generally with the biomass boilers, if you get the right brand you'll have very few problems. But there are some rubbish brands out there I would not touch, but they are cheap and people only see the £££ signs.

The other issue is that the plumbers do a bad job and the means the heat doesn't get away from the boiler and to the loads correctly.
This results in all sorts of problems, mainly the boiler over heating and the houses are still cold.

Poor plumbing design is a major issue with district heating systems and very costly to put right. Get a proper designer to do it and question everything on the design before starting work.

 

[betternextyear]

My 80 kw CN boiler fitted by Geo gen (Oswestry) has ...(touch wood)...... been fault less. It is time consuming cleaning and maintaining it tho.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

An estate near me have installed a centralised Biomass boiler to heat the cottages in the village which they own.
I have heard on good authority that the boiler is very unreliable.
My wife has also told me that insurance companies that insure bio mass boilers , do not have a high opinion of them due to the claims they must have had against them. It gives me the impression bio mass boilers can be very problematic!!!!

which make, or if if you fancy it, which estate or what location ish?

like all things it’s some and some, often plumbers didn’t know what they were doing and due to the rush wannabikes ditched their 15mm copper fittings for some bigger stuff And jump on the bandwagon.

ive seen boilers with a 3inch outlet stepped down to 25mm directly. Client wondered why the boiler was crap!

 

[Pilatus]

I don’t know the make , the head forester just mentioned the boiler was troublesome during general conversation.
Then my wife told me about an insurance company wanting a large questionnaire answered, before they would insure one of the bio mass boilers that the company have on their properties.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

I don’t know the make , the head forester just mentioned the boiler was troublesome during general conversation.
Then my wife told me about an insurance company wanting a large questionnaire answered, before they would insure one of the bio mass boilers that the company have on their properties.

ah ok, not some Americans then with a nice place, river running through the middle north of the A40 then?

the NFU had a paddy initially along with the HSE advisor on mine. after they calmed down and took stock all they could comment on was the proximity of the flue to the fibre cement roof sheets!

it all depends on the design tbh

 

[quattro]

Have a 6 year old heizomat no problems just servicing

 

[chickens and wheat]

Nfu inspected mine when new and basically the whole insurance cost didnt alter, as using boilers takes the lpg burners out of the sheds reducing the fire risk

 

[555]

I would be very careful about saying the type of fuel being burnt, and stating it in an open forum.
As installers we have been removing underperforming boilers. It seems to be a combination of boilers not producing the Kw stated, undersized pipes and pumps and fuel that is a bit too moist, which affects the kw output and the price you pay per tonne. In any combustion cycle the key is using suitable fuel for the given combustion requirement. I know, as installers, we always blame the flue , but when you get to site and unblock a fuel auger and you can ring out the straw it’s clearly a fuel problem.

 

[___\0/___]

I would be very careful about saying the type of fuel being burnt, and stating it in an open forum.
As installers we have been removing underperforming boilers. It seems to be a combination of boilers not producing the Kw stated, undersized pipes and pumps and fuel that is a bit too moist, which affects the kw output and the price you pay per tonne. In any combustion cycle the key is using suitable fuel for the given combustion requirement. I know, as installers, we always blame the flue , but when you get to site and unblock a fuel auger and you can ring out the straw it’s clearly a fuel problem.

I asked our installer to supply fuel that would make our burner work to a point that was near the performance they stated when selling. They refused and refunded me a large chunk of my install costs.

 

[555]

Wow, if that’s not an admission of under performance I don’t know what is! What kw are you expecting? What are you using it for? Is the max demand there to make the boiler work hard ? What fuel is specified ? What are you using? Moisture has a huge impact on power, as you will use quite a bit to get damp fuel going.