Wood pellet Burners...

motorguy

We're just about to start building a house and hopefully more experienced MSE'ers on here have info and experience they can pass on! We dont necessarily want to go into really flash showrooms and therefore potentially pay through the nose, but we dont want poor quality either!

Therefore can anyone advise who we can contact RE: using a wood pellet burner as an alternative to oil fired C/H?

Also has anyone any experience of relative running costs compared to oil?

Bigcammy

I know we're a suspicious lot, but a new poster and SEVEN posts about the same thing, sticks to high heaven to me

Bigcammy

For anyone wondering, a new user came on and replied to this thread and 6 others advertising a website for burners. The posts have now been deleted, leaving my comments.

Carry on Pgilc1, sorry!

deskhead141172

pgilc1 wrote: »

We're just about to start building a house and hopefully more experienced MSE'ers on here have info and experience they can pass on! We dont necessarily want to go into really flash showrooms and therefore potentially pay through the nose, but we dont want poor quality either!

Therefore can anyone advise who we can contact RE: using a wood pellet burner as an alternative to oil fired C/H?

Also has anyone any experience of relative running costs compared to oil?

Hi there pgilc

im pretty much in the same position as you although have the house half built. I have been researching all of the alternate energy solutions for heating and so far the wood pellet seems the most cost effective. If your not quite ready yet i would recommend waiting till the end of july as the government are releasing a report into the actual running costs for burners and heat pumps which you will be able to get by contacting the energy saving trust,failing that give me a shout as i have a copy coming when released. Probabaly the only downside i see is a monopoly on the pellets by one company which will increase the price but it really depends on your individual needs for heating your home,just because it suits one home doesnt mean it will suit yours!

metalgal

my aunt got one of thoses pellet boilers installed recently. we did work out that there is quite a saving compared to oil. the only problem she has is the space for all the bags of pellets as she only has a small courtyard garden. the boiler is small with no fumes and pretty simple to use.

motorguy

This thread seems to have been resurrected from a while ago now.

We did actually go ahead with it in the end. I will find out the details of the model etc - all i can remember is that its a big yellow thing!

Basically we have it heating a 1000 litre thermal store, and being fed from an auger taking pellets from a 4 tonne custom built storage bin. Fortunately we were able to build the garage with a 'boiler room' attached, so that the wood pellet burner and the bin are housed within that. The 1000 litre thermal store is then housed on the other side of a wall in the corner of the garage. Basically, the wood pellet burner keeps the thermal store at a constant 73 degrees, and each zone in the house calls for the heat as it needs it.

There is then a 300 litre storage tank upstairs in the house fed by solar panels on the roof. When there isnt enough heat from them, the tank pulls hot water from thermal store.

There are concrete floors upstairs and downstairs with underfloor heating and every room is a zone.

There were some teething problems with the boiler setup, but it seems to be working now. Will maybe take some photos too and post them as it may be useful for people to see pics etc, to get an indication of space required.

We also upgraded the glass in the house to glass with a lower mu rating, and the frames are fitted with thermal breaks to reduce heat loss. There are no trickle vents fitted to the windows instead we use a drymaster system to push out the air gradually using positive pressure. Extra heavier duty insulation was used during construction and finally, there are no letter boxes on the house to remove the risk of drafts!