Woodpellet boiler woes

lostinrates

lovesgshp wrote: »

Sorry you are still having problems. I keep looking to see if you are getting any further forward. Had to change my user name, if you don't recognize it. Hope things get sorted very soon for you.

Ok, Grazie. .

It's depressing how long the complaint handling has taken. Trading standards have taken a great interest in that and are concerned by a number of factors, At this stage it's a little reassuring to have that and the report we have paid for confirming we are not histrionic. :)

lostinrates

At very long last a small update.

The arbitrator today apologised for the poor handling of our complaint and has said they feel the best result is to support negotiation for our request for settlement and the system to be removed. They themselves have admitted that this sitauppuation reflects poorly on them as well as the company and that they are keen to help us settle out of court and minimise the negative attention this receives.

To help this they have finally released the installing companies response to our coming, which is great as it gives us their official line, which thankfully we have evidence to contradict.

I have to reiterate that we are well and truly put off biomass not only because of the failure of the system...something's will always go wrong, but because of the failings of the complaints procedure and body. When the inevitable problems arise they need to step up. We'd be extremely unlucky to have a problem a second time, but really, this has been an education into the failings of complaint handling and competency. It's very off putting.

MonsterMonster

This post is really for anyone, like myself, that has been looking at alternative forms of space and DHW heating and has been trawling forums for other peoples historical experiences of pellet boilers. So apologies for posting to an old thread.

This has been a very unfortunate experience indeed for Lostinrates but not uncommon in this area as I have found out during my on off research over the last four years for a heating system to replace oil.

Although some installers probably have a very good background in traditional gas\oil boilers, biomass and heat pumps tend to be an area that must be treated very differently. I am no expert but I have looked at getting away from oil since 2009 and have looked at GSHP, ASHP, log boilers, solar thermal and now pellet boilers. It's now late 2013 and I am still looking in to it. This is partly due to the RHI delay but mostly due to a, seemingly, lack of installers with experience and expertise to make me comfortable that they know what they are doing.

It would appear there are many installers that simply do not know how to design and use thermal stores properly and have a proper understanding of how these things work and of the necessary components. Even installers that are registered with MCS are no guarantee that you will end up with a working system. When biomass works it seems to be fantastic but when they go wrong its a nightmare with various suppliers blaming each other.

However, I would urge people to check out a blog of a B&B in Wales (Coed Cae B&B) that had a similar, but successful, experience with a log boiler and thermal store (also known as "heat store", "heat/thermal accumulator" or "buffer tank"). It has excellent links to thermal store articles and how they are used and also of the mistakes made when installing the system. You will need to root around a bit but you will get a good basic understanding of what is required. Fortunately for the B&B owner the installer recognised their limitations in this new (for the UK) technology but were willing to work towards a successful(ish) solution amicably.

I can't put a link but just Google the B&B and look at the Sustainability section or PM for the link.

To add my two pennies worth it sounded as if the thermal store was nowhere near big enough, didn't have the right flow controls (e.g. Ladomat) and might have been connected incorrectly. I saw an earlier post on this thread that seemed to imply that "stratification" was a problem when in fact it is essential for correct operation of a thermal store. Without stratification you can end up with a thermal store full of warm, rather than hot, water which Lostinrates may have had along with undersizing issues.

MonsterMonster

By the way Lostinrates, if you are still seeing this thread I wouldn't mind knowing the installer and make of boiler so that I can avoid them for my pellet boiler!

ModelCitizen

I am very glad you are finally seeing resolution lostinrates.

MonsterMonster. I am in a very similar situation to yourself, having been looking at an alternative to oil for a considerable period. I'd like to install GSHP but cannot insulate my property well enough for a low temperature system. I am not at all reconciled to Biomass (and actually don't think the system particularly 'green' either) but feel I have little choice. I've been concerned by contradictory advice received from installers, especially where thermal stores are concerned.

The information you've linked to:

http://www.coedcae.co.uk/light_my_fire.html

is superb. No-one hard even mentioned stratification to me or raised any concern about using as thermal store with high temperature heating. It has filled a huge gap in my knowledge and clarified a great deal. It looks to me that they experienced exactly the same issue as lostinrates. Luckily they had a much more understanding and flexible installer. Thanks for the info.

Canucklehead

Good morning: great to see this thread revived. Perhaps the OP will update as any info on successes or failures of biomass systems would be helpful to those considering an installation.

lostinrates

I DO have an update but I am awaiting confirmation from my solicitor as to how detailed I can be because I would like to share all details of the company involved now with MSE.

We went to court but won on a summary judgement as the company failed to make their defence). They acknowledge receipt, made as if going to respond and then failed to, so we won.

We of course, have yet to recover the cost of anything, but it hopefully will mean I am at liberty to start warning people using the company name. They have a very heavy Internet presence.


As soon as I know I can share details ( should be this week...this all just happened on Thursday and Friday) you guys can have the information in great detail.

So.....that's it!

lostinrates

Or, you'd hope, that's it!

We had several more companies in in the beginning of summer to start proposals for something to replace the system we have. We did plenty of due diligence, and ultimately, having been let down again, this time before work has started we are giving up.

The companies are just too unreliable.

We have decided to go back to oil short term, probably supported by solar thermal, and then, when we have some more money, go back to what we originally wanted which is geothermal. Having sunk a lot of money into short term failure and some structural repairs on the Wreckstoration last year and this year we probably cannot afford geothermal now. And I need heat now, ( i have a medical condition which has significantly been impacted, though i prefer a cool house, my drug side effects are worse when i get cold). and we have been advised, over and over again that geothermal alone is not sufficient for this property and it will need support so we are thinking about keeping the oil as a back up for the month or whatever geothermal cannot cope.


Hopefully we'll have better luck with that in the future!

lostinrates

ModelCitizen wrote: »

I am very glad you are finally seeing resolution lostinrates.

MonsterMonster. I am in a very similar situation to yourself, having been looking at an alternative to oil for a considerable period. I'd like to install GSHP but cannot insulate my property well enough for a low temperature system. I am not at all reconciled to Biomass (and actually don't think the system particularly 'green' either) but feel I have little choice. I've been concerned by contradictory advice received from installers, especially where thermal stores are concerned.

The information you've linked to:

http://www.coedcae.co.uk/light_my_fire.html

is superb. No-one hard even mentioned stratification to me or raised any concern about using as thermal store with high temperature heating. It has filled a huge gap in my knowledge and clarified a great deal. It looks to me that they experienced exactly the same issue as lostinrates. Luckily they had a much more understanding and flexible installer. Thanks for the info.

Insulation has been part of our concern with gshp, mainly the chimney issue though.

The part of the house we renovated last year has internal insulation and really does hold heat ( created with a plug in oil filled raiator) despite having two chimneys and a large vaulted ceiling.

We're fairly certain gshp won't do it by its self, but might do it by itself most of the time, if we augment with fires and retain the oil we plan to restore for the very worst months, we hope we're moving more in the direction we can live at. Oil might not be green at all and wood burners/ fires might not be totally so, but are at least renewable and supportable from here. Someday, the oil back up might be able to be replaced with something greener and with more tenable running costs.

MonsterMonster

Our 4 bed 1900 230m2 house has a mixture of solid brick and mostly small cavity. Looking at the oil and wood usage over the last 4 years we used 32,000KWh per year. Our oil boiler is 26/32KW and have two 5KW woodburners used part time. Our house is pretty well insulated for its age and type. It's all very comfortable, just affordable and it works. Oil prices are volatile but I know they can deliver and there is a good range of supplier choice.

I'm not overly bothered by CO2 reductions (but should be). The proposed RHI payments are tempting financially. I have had fingers burnt by £1 per litre oil.

So, for me,the whole process of moving away from oil is about money. So long as the RHI is suitably available I will consider an appropriate alternative: GSHP; ASHP; log boiler; wood pellet; woodchip; solar thermal.

Log boiler involves too much daily hands on work and is not as controllable as oil. Woodchip fuel is cheap but need huge volumes and storage requirements and again not as controllable. Solar, too much shade. This leaves heat pump and pellet boiler options.

For GSHP we have been told we would need 1000m of horizontal ground loop (straight lay not slinky as apparently this can cause issues) or five 100m bore holes. We don't have enough land for the former (more than one acre) nor enough cash for the latter (£5k-£10k per bore hole!) assuming the geology is okay. (However Geomole might lower costs significantly but is early days).

GSHP is better suited for solid concrete underfloor heating on all floors (concrete acts as huge thermal store. Although you can retrofit UFH to floor boards its not effective). Ripping up floors is not practical and costly. You can use oversized radiators but again nowhere near as effective as UFH. If at best you have UFH downstairs it's not recommended to have rads upstairs due to rads heating up quicker than UFH causing imbalance.

ASHP's are seemingly proving to be not up to the job for such properties and there is a big debate over their stated efficiencies.

The upshot seems to be that heat pumps are better suited for smaller new build or properties that are being completely gutted Grand Designs style. I'm sure someone has such a property with a successful heat pump but I suspect it involves serious cash and lots of land.

We had one GSHP installer turn up in 2009, didn't measure anything, gave the house and garden a cursory glance and said "yep we can install one". Quote came through at £15k. My concern at the time was that no detailed design or survey took place and I wasn't convinced. I kindly turned down his services. Had we gone with the system I am certain we would have been in the same situation as Lostinrates with inadequate heating on top of a frozen garden!

So this leaves us with the pellet boiler but is subject to the same requirements of the alternatives: installer competency and possible heat store and buffer tank configuration (or not as some installers say).

Things haven't improved much since 2009 after reading the MCS blogs on the DECC website. Although there appears to be a better supply of competent engineers the quantity of incompetent ones has grown as well.

To be honest if heating oil prices stabilise at current levels of around 55ppl, and not having a crystal ball, I would rather stick with oil. It's only the RHI seven year payback that makes me look at a pellet boiler. Take RHI away then I probably wouldn't even consider the switch. Beyond RHI there doesn't seem to be a significant price advantage of pellets over oil at current prices and there is debate as to pellet price rises being linked to that of oil.

Get it right your quids in, get it wrong you pay dear whatever the alternative technology.

This all sounds negative so far but I do long for good news with alternative heating solutions.