Woodpellet boiler woes

lostinrates

I know a couple of people here have woodpellet boilers working for them. Ours was installed in autumn but has been having a lot of problems which aren't yet fully resolved.

Things have got pretty 'heated':p between the installers and us so I don't want to discuss the model or the companies but I am hoping to get an idea of how other woodpellet users re finding they work for them.

We cannot get our cylinder to maintain heat when demands are made of it. Itmout heaters on or hot water being drawn in makes seventy plus with no problem. With the ch on the tanks drops to fifty five degrees and then no demands in the way of hot water can be made of it ( our installers tell us that the cylinder cannot work t all under fifty five degrees). Certainly, there is not sufficient hot water for baths at these temps.

So to have a bath we have been told we must:

1. Not have taps fully on

2. Have the heating off for at least half an hour before the bath and until temperature in tank regained afterwards

3. Have the heaters only on low on 'bath day'.

This is only serving one bathroom ATM but was spec'ed by the providers for four bathrooms in a six bed house. we were told there would be 'continuous' hot water, which we accept is probably impossible, but a bath and a few showers seems reasonable from a large kw boiler and five hundred litre cylinder? It also seems reasonable this should run concurrently with central heating?


What I want to know is if other pellet boiler users are finding these issues and if it really is something we have to adapt to if we want to stay on woodpellet or if we are being reasonable expecting a bath and heating at the same time, and more than one person bathing/ showering in a morning or evening?

I want this to work.....but ATM it's looking like a great big expensive white elephant.

diywhynot

How many kW is your boiler?

lovesgshp

Do not know wood pellet boilers, but surely the heat store etc, should have been designed for demand What size is it?

lostinrates

Thanks both.

A heat require e t survey was done and our need was seen as 28 kw. ( the plan is to augment this in the future with ground source up when we extend and solar thermal for more hot water, and link a second tank for hot water as the bathrooms are added. Tank is five hundred litres but not a traditional design, the heat storage is in the tank and hot water provided through a pipe passing through this store. There should be 350litres plus of hot water available at tank temp, but we are not finding this.

Today our hot water cylinder has sat stubbornly at fifty five degrees all day, but the boiler seems content.

lovesgshp

There seems like something wrong with the tank temp loading. 500 litres should give plenty of hot water . We have quite a few with 500 ltrs and no problem

lostinrates

Geotherm wrote: »

There seems like something wrong with the tank temp loading. 500 litres should give plenty of hot water . We have quite a few with 500 ltrs and no problem

But the five hundred litres serves the ch not the hw supply. The hot water is from a coiled pipe with in the tank, as I understand it. So that should give 350 (or 370) litres of hot water there, but more as the cold water heats passing through the hot water store in the tank.

The tank was re set up on Saturday after some fairly difficult talks. The system went in over eight weeks ago And has powered the central heating fine on several occasions, getting progressively better I think, but the hot water side has not yet been adaquate once. One bath has run hot enough, but not hot enough to have water to rinse the hair I had joyously shampoo'd.

I am trying to avoid this becoming more contentious than it has to be, we want a system that works, not a fight, and we know the providers don't want a dispute either. But what I need to know if the suggestion now that hw and central heating cannot be expected to run concurrently (not what we were told when we bought it, and not something we can live with on a busy working property where people get smelly and mucky and need two showers a day most days) is a reasonable proposition for a pellet system or whether I should expect bath water/ shower water and ch concurrently.

lovesgshp

There is a setup problem, as far as I can see. 500 litres of hot water should not cause any low heat problems for the DHW. The pellet boiler should keep the heat store at a high enough temperature.That size tank should supply all the DHW you need. Is it underfloor or rad heating?
Sorry that I cannot be more specific and I hope someone on here can give some better explanation, as I only deal with heatpumps.
Please keep us informed.

lostinrates

Geotherm wrote: »

There is a setup problem, as far as I can see. 500 litres of hot water should not cause any low heat problems for the DHW. The pellet boiler should keep the heat store at a high enough temperature.That size tank should supply all the DHW you need. Is it underfloor or rad heating?
Sorry that I cannot be more specific and I hope someone on here can give some better explanation, as I only deal with heatpumps.
Please keep us informed.

It's rad heating. ( as advised by every one we saw as better for this property much to my disgust. I really wanted underfloor, but was advised low level heating would be less good for this particular house. Ironically, that's what we have ended up with.:mad: the heating is adaquate for our needs, we don't like it hot, but we do like long hot baths!

lovesgshp

You may need to increase the tank temperature higher to compensate for the DHW temp, as the coils heat from the heat store.

lostinrates

Geotherm wrote: »

You may need to increase the tank temperature higher to compensate for the DHW temp, as the coils heat from the heat store.

Tank max temp has been set to 75/80 degrees. This is meant to be adaquate according to this set up.

But, take today. Heating has been on (adaquately) from 6:30 to 9 am then at midday I knew I wanted a bath so checked tank temp on its thermostat and it was fifty five, so immeadiately made sure heating did not come on as set at mid day. At fourpm, when meant to come on again, I checked and tank temp was only 55 degrees still. Now, heating has been off since this morning, tank temp is 65. So set temp is not the problem, its reaching and most importantly maintaining cylinder tank temp. E.g. A bath drawn when tank is seventy degrees is both not very warm and plummets the tank temperature to fifty five, sometimes even 45 degrees.

lovesgshp

Think the problem is that you have the tank switched off from the morning, so you take the hot water for the bath, then the tank does not heat up again till later. I may be wrong, so hope someone els can comment.