Advise on wood pellet central heating system

[Aly]

We are seriously thinking of replacing our Gas propane system (tank) for heating and hot water as the costs of gas are high and the prices are still rising. Having done some research it appears that the wood pellet boiler system is cheap to run and efficient and also we would benefit from a 50% tax rebate on th boiler cost. Our plumber has recomended a 48kw capacity boiler.

Two questions has anyone any experince of these systems and secondly does anyone know if a 48kw is sufficient for a house with seven bathrooms and 10 bedrooms?

    

[Deimos]

I do not have one of these boilers and am not a plumber. However, I had an architect come round a year or so ago who specialised in consultations for renewable resource energy use and I discussed this possibility with him.

There seemed two types of such boilers; those burning pellets and those burning wood chips. Apparently the larger ones tend to be wood chip based and smaller ones wood pellets.

At the time of his visit he knew of only one installation in the department (so they were not yet that common). He also gave me some “ball park” costs which made the system payback totally OTT (thus I did not even bother to look into it further (even with the tax credits).

You may find more info on http://www.prochauffage.com/ (suppliers of such equipment and other renewable resource energy systems) and http://www.ademe.fr.

Not a plumber, but from the capacity of my own boiler and the size of my house I would have thought 48Kw a bit low. I assume that as you quote 10 bathrooms that the boiler will also be heating the hot water. However, if that’s what your plumber says then he knows far more about it than I do (and he has to provide a 10 yr warranty that the system will work, etc.) I know my plumber and visiting experts were really cautions when investigating geothermal due to possible problems with the water table level occasionally which would make it less effective and thus they would be liable.

Ian