Log Burning CH

[chris pp]

Yup, it's exactly the same principle as a Severn, with a built in water jacket. I think that my point here would be that if you are having a "lounge type" wood-burner, you may as well spend a bit more and run a load of rads as well, especially if they are "upstairs" in the bedrooms etc, it just makes sense.

I'm very nervous about where the price and availability of other "fuels" is going in the future, there's no way in the world that I would spend a lot of money on a system that had that type of vulnerability, look what's happening to gas, but then I have woods.

Chris

[powerdesal]

Chrispp,

your point is well made, but if you already have a 'lounge type' wood burner without the back boiler its a tad expensive ( make that very expensive) to kick it into touch and buy another, There are also the additional points of various pumps ( if required) etc.

There are various views on the future of fuel prices. I think it is reasonable to assume that oil will not become the cheapest, although it may, in real terms, become cheaper than it is today. The fact that wood grows relatively quickly ( in fuel terms ) means that it is 'likely' to remain the cheapest option, even if bought in from local sources. The competition is, realistically, electricity - being from nuclear fission or preferably from nuclear fusion.

In the final analysis, a mixture of all with dependency on no one fuel source is the best to aim at. (IMHO)

[Mikey]

the problem with woodburning stoves with water jackets is about 70% of the heat then goes to hot water, so you'll need to add a rad in the room where the stove is depending of course on the size of room and stove output. Also stoves with water jackets need top quility dry wood or they aren't as effective whereas stoves without jacket a more forgiving and you can mix dry with not so dry wood. plus your consumption of wood will go up by huge amounts. if someone just has a small house say 1 big open plan room downstairs and a couple of bedrooms and bathroom upstairs i wouldn't bother having stove with back boiler, just a stove and leave doors upstairs open and a small convecter in the bathroom. that way you'll possibley get away with 2 cord of wood per yr. the reason being with a good stove set on minimum 2 cord will last ages, maybe 1 fillup in the morning and one when going to bed. from my experience thats what we did in our cottage and the lounge was 40m2 and with stove on minimum the furthest end of the room was 28c. once you add the plumbing and rads to other rooms you can't run the stove on minimum anymore because the rads won't get hot enough. So you then need to have a roaring fire in order to get therads hot, therefore consuming much more wood.

I run an aarrow 29kw stove with wrap around boiler in my much bigger house, which is fine, but consumes about 8-10 cord a yr for 8 rads plus DHW.

Now that I've decided to do different things with my house i'm looking at getting a gasification boiler as they are far more economical.

I've been looking at http://www.solarenergyireland.com/wood_gasification_boilers.html which seem pretty reasonable, also the Vigas, does anyone know of any other makes that can take logs as well as wood chips.

I think wood is the way to go, or some sort of pellet heater or even straw bales. I've planted 400 fast growing hybrid willows this yr and should be ready for short rotaion coppicing in 4yrs. 400 should be enough but as i've got a fair bit of land i'm going to have about 1200 in the end. That way i'll not need to buy in any wood, and all the smaller stuff can be chipped and burnt too. hopefully i'll get some wildlife taking root in my new forrest..

cheers

[Bertiebe]

We've just bought a place burried in the heart of the Pyrenees and are going through these same agonies.  At the risk of stating the blinding obvious and with apologies if this has been posted before but I found this document: http://www.ademe.fr/Collectivites/bois-energie/docs/depliantch.pdf quite useful from the renewable energy agency.  Apart from anything else, it has quite a comprehensive list of chaudiere manufacturers, some of which (DeDietrich and Energie79 seem quite good) have quite a lot of good information on their sites and networks of distributers all over France.  Also the document cites www.anah.fr who seem to have all the regulatory stuff.

Hope this is of some help to those of you going through the decision process.