Wood burning boiler

[bixy]

Has anyone got experience of a wood fired central heating boiler [chaudiere]? Any information about cost of the boiler, running costs, convenience greatly appreciated. I understand there is some kind of tax advantage [credit d'impot] for  installing a system burning renewables but I don't know how it works.

Thanks

Patrick

[Jonrev]

Hi there, I have a 16 Kw Fireview Stove which runs nine radiaters and the hot water we dont light the boiler until early evening and it costs us €750 for the wood for the winter

[Alcazar]

I thought very carefully about this before we decided how to heat our house, but for the life of me, I COULD NOT get an answer to the question as to how to control it.

As far as I can see, and if my woodburning stove is owt to go by, control of the heat output is rudimentary at best. How you stop it boiling off the water is beyond me.

 

Maybe someone out there knows..........[:^)]

Alcazar

[Deimos]

Some time ago I had an architect round (specialist in energy

conservation and very environmentally aware). 

Whilst he actually visited to check on planning permission requirements,

we were talking about the possibility of changing the boiler for a wood burning

one.  He was saying that there were only

one or two such installations in the department (i.e. not common) and his “finger

in the air2 guess about costs was €25000. 

House is about 400 sq m.  Unsure

if this was including TVA/installation as he was not quoting, just “finger in the

air (and it was far too much for me so I didn’t ask further).  As a comparison, I have established that a

decent quality gas boiler will cost me around €4500.  However with so few installations around the area he must have

limited experience so I would not treat his figures as too reliable – I also

have a suspicion he may have been getting confused between FF and € (quite a

few locals do seem to, even younger people).

 

A useful web site with loads of info about renewable energy

systems (real available boilers, models, etc. from specific manufacturers,

etc.) is http://www.prochauffage.com/ - including wood burning boilers.

 

However, I do think they sound like an excellent idea so do

pursue the idea.  Do not be put-off by the figures above - which I believe are wrong.  Maybe telephone your

local ADEME (http://www.ademe.fr/) office – I have found mine very very helpful.  Also, remember you will probably get a 50%

tax rebate on the boiler (assuming you submit a French tax return and they

qualify as e.g, wood burners do).

 

Ian

[[email protected]]

We  only have a holiday home out in France , but it's in the outback where it gets very cold.We managed to buy a second hand Franco Belge in the UK which is a French make (you may be able to search for there website). Anyway this was around £250.00 secondhand and pumps out 11.7 kw. From this we run 4 tripple rads up in the bedrooms , which are like toast. To control the heat you can first of all turn down the woodburner to cut of the air supply which gives a slower burn and of course less heat.The other method is to open the bedroom doors!!

I would say that for us it is a much cheaper system , our loacl French builder did the complete installation (with header tank etc) incl the installation of the burner.So our total costs were around £2000.00 but now we only need to light a fire down stairs to heat the whole house. Hope this helps you , if you need further info let me know.

[emma5]

Hi Patrick i've pm'd you.

 

Emma

Pons 17

[ChezShells]

Hi

Took me a while to figure ours out.

We have an electric boiler and wood boiler for both water and heating (also oil for heating but not water!), only after the elec one breaking I found the wood one did the water as well, with me?

I looked after a house for somebody last year and their fairly modern heating packed up, it did water as well, i wasn't happy, I could cope with no heating, they had a wood burner in lounge but not having any water.

Oh, our wood burning boiler heats water by turning on the cold inlet tap to the wood burning boiler and automatically bypasses the elec one wether its on or not!
Costs. Difficult to put a price on, we normally give it a blast first with the oil to get pipes hot while im sorting a fire out. Get a big gas bottle installed.

Lee

[Jc]

I had a friend who had a combined C/H boiler and cooker(hotplates and oven)-the downside was the amount of wood it burned-still he had his own forest.He also had a gas cooker for summer.

[LesFlamands]

Villager stoves make a very good stove with integral boiler (AHI/ALI) with a 15kW output to water. These stoves are very easy to control but are not thermostatically controlled (although the heating circuit can be). The design of the heating circuits is all important from both the safety and efficiency point of view. There are quite a few of these around here which I have installed and I've also supplied quite a few stoves to other installers around France.

There are limitations to solid fuel central heating and unless you have a cheap source of wood they probably don't cost much less to run than oil or gas heating.

[Deimos]

[quote user="LesFlamands"]

There are limitations to solid fuel central heating and unless you have a

cheap source of wood they probably don't cost much less to run than oil or gas

heating.

[/quote]

The boiler I was mentioning above is the type of traditional central heating

boiler (not something you light and put some logs in when you are cold). 

There are two main types, those that run on pellets and those that run on wood

chips (probably most people even having their own wood do not have the capability

to make the pellets not chips in sufficient quantities so you have to buy them even if you live in a forest).  They are self lighting, self fuelling (i.e.

they have feed mechanisms from you wood pellets or chippings supply.  They basically replace the traditional CH

boiler.

For comparative purposes, the wood pellets format cost 3.82

c€ per Kw, dry wood 2.67 c€ per Kw,  oil

6.91 c€ per Kw, propane 11.32 c€ per Kw and electricity 11.69c€ per Kw.  Thus the wood (incl pellets) is

significantly cheaper than many other traditional Central Heating energy

sources (source Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie,

Mai-juin 2005).

Plus, being CO2 neutral they will almost certainly qualify

for tax rebate on purchase price (helping to bring down the installation cost).  There are some “down sides” – e.g they do

require some space to store the fuel (i.e. bulkier than oil), ash needs dealing

with periodically, (plus probably a few other things as well)

I would encourage people to investigate as avoiding fossil

fuels must be a good thing.

 

Ian

[bixy]

Thanks all for the useful and thought provoking replies. I'm quite sure that burning wood is the cheapest option fuelwise, a Deimos confirms. With oil and gas prices going in only one direction, security of future supply possibly in doubt and tax advantages for renewables, I think that wood burning c/heating is well worth a look. The drawbacks would seem to be initial cost of installation and the need to replenish the boiler, depending on the system. Though I see from the following site, which may be of interest, that some boilers can take a charge of 25kgs in one go. http://www.selfclimat.com/

Patrick

[Dave&Olive]

hi

        ive got one of these http://www.selfclimat.com/Morvan/afx/afx.php we have had one of the coldest winters for ????? in 79 and i was going to rip it out ??? if it blew up tomorrow I would buy a new one

             dave

[bixy]

Dave, I'm not quite sure what your post is saying. Are you saying it's very good [if it blew up tomorrow I would buy a new one] if so why were you going to rip it out? I'm confused

What about cost of installation? How practical is it in terms of frequency of reloading? How much wood do you use?

Patrick

[Dave&Olive]

[quote user="bixy"]Dave, I'm not quite sure what your post is saying. Are you saying it's very good [if it blew up tomorrow I would buy a new one] if so why were you going to rip it out? I'm confused

What about cost of installation? How practical is it in terms of frequency of reloading? How much wood do you use?

Patrick
[/quote]

             hi

                   ok the MORVAN afx is a big ugly brute ,it`s a good job it`s in the utility room !!!! it`s a bitch to light , unless you start it first on oil , it burns upside-down , ie the flue is at the bottom and the fire at the top,  but we have an old long house that we are renovating with no insolation and we are warm and have loads of hot water .

          ok we have burnt 12 stere of wood and 250ltrs of oil since march 2005, but like i said we are warm .

a reload of wood can vary between say 2- 4hours depending on the wood ,but it will stayin all night if you turn it down ???

               dave