Wood Pellet Boiler or Oil ? UFH or Radiators

motorguy

GlynD wrote: »

Unlike us who refurbished after the grants had finished.

You seem to have the same luck i have....

GlynD

motorguy wrote: »

You seem to have the same luck i have....

As far as the house and housing market I'd say so lol.

At least I don't have 100 million worth of debt though. :cool:

maggiecon

I was looking at replacing my old boiler and was thinking about a biomass boiler, how much roughly would it cost to install?

Also I have read a lot of articles about biomass boilers stating that they break down a lot, is this true?

CEON44

captainhindsight wrote: »

About £210 per ton for wood pellets, this varies depending on size and method of delivery.

I'e a small blown delivery will be more then this, a large tipped delivery will be considerably less but £210 is a good ball park, this works out at around 4.4p/kWh

standard RHI works by multiplying the heat demand shown on the EPC by the current rate for biomass.

So in England the rate is 12.2p/kWh, so say the heat demand shown on the EPC is 20,000kWh pa this would be £2,440 a year for seven years.

Or if you want you can choose to have it metered, this is only worth while if you are a high user because you will get 12.2p/kWh which only cost you 4.4p/kWh.

So in theory, you could leave you heating running all day long with the windows open etc and actually earn money.

Farmers do this with empty outbuildings and sheds, heat them even if they are empty because they are profiting by doing so.

Thanks for this info Captainhindsight. Bit too technical for me though. dont really understand all this kwh stuff. But I think I understand that EPC is energy performance certificate. So you get your house rated, which then tells you how much energy is required to heat your house, which then transfers to a price that is paid back to you. Is this correct. Is it also correct to assume that the better insulated your house is, the less energy needed to heat it, therefore your payment refund would also be less. so in effect it would be better to have a very poorly insulated home?? Part of the reason I ask this is that I have on order upvc triple glazing, due in about 2/3 weeks. So would I be better to get the house assessed before this is fitted???

captainhindsight_2

CEON44 wrote: »

Thanks for this info Captainhindsight. Bit too technical for me though. dont really understand all this kwh stuff. But I think I understand that EPC is energy performance certificate. So you get your house rated, which then tells you how much energy is required to heat your house, which then transfers to a price that is paid back to you. Is this correct. Is it also correct to assume that the better insulated your house is, the less energy needed to heat it, therefore your payment refund would also be less. so in effect it would be better to have a very poorly insulated home?? Part of the reason I ask this is that I have on order upvc triple glazing, due in about 2/3 weeks. So would I be better to get the house assessed before this is fitted???

Essentially, for the purposes of getting as much out of RHI as possible during the EPC assessment you want your house to be a bad as possible. As the worse the energy rating, the higher the heat demand shown on the EPC thus higher RHI income.

So yes I would get it assessed before you have any work done to improve the efficiency. Also when you do have the assessment just make out you have no insulation anywhere etc, this should hopefully bump up the figures a bit. (but you don't want a recommendation for loft or cavity wall insulation)

You will need a green deal assessment for RHI, but it is the EPC which is used for the RHI payments and the worst the better

motorguy

maggiecon wrote: »

I was looking at replacing my old boiler and was thinking about a biomass boiler, how much roughly would it cost to install?

Also I have read a lot of articles about biomass boilers stating that they break down a lot, is this true?

Check with the likes of Green Energy Technologies, theres grants available.

Like anything, get a reputable brand, ensure its serviced and perform any cleaning tasks on time and they should be fine.

The only issue we have with ours is a slight problem with the auger clogging from the bin once in a while which knocks the boiler off. But that wouldnt be an issue with a hopper system.

Kells54

As far as I am aware the yearly payback has been capped at £2000. There are quite a few suppliers of biomass out there. Ambergreen Technology is another I had a detailed quote from.
You can also get wood pellet stoves with built in back boiler to heat the radiators or UFH at various kw sizes.
As long as the Government don't 'pull' the payback grants after install, I doubt that would happen as they have really only started, but you never know. Its probably less tempting because of the recent decline in oil prices, but I guess we all know that wont last forever. I don't think pellet prices have dropped in line with the oil drop though.
It would be good to hear from any others who have a pellet boiler or stove actually installed as there seems to be a real shortage of real life case studies / information, and the day to day / yearly running costs. Tonnes used, how long heating is on per day, size of property etc etc

GlynD

I'd also like to know more about warm earth and warm air schemes. I think this is the way forward.

The real key is insulation. We've cut down on heating so much since we had our loft redone. I've had to put fire-bricks in the reduce the size of the coal fire because the memsahib loves it but you couldn't stick the heat in the lounge when it was lit. We've also fitted a condensing oil boiler but that's still averaging out at £100 per month and for a house this size I think that's too much (we're about 1200 square feet). In GB and on natural gas we were paying 40% less than that for about 1800 square feet.

Briezzee

maggiecon wrote: »

I was looking at replacing my old boiler and was thinking about a biomass boiler, how much roughly would it cost to install?

Also I have read a lot of articles about biomass boilers stating that they break down a lot, is this true?

It all depends on the size of your property, your heating demand, your current fuel use and the space you have for the install. I looked at biomass to replace my old gas boiler. Best option for me was a stove with back boiler and this was £8-10,000. A full size boiler with automatic hopper was upwards of £15,000. Even with the RHI payments I would be worse off and despite me wanting to 'do my bit for the planet' an ecology expert advised me to stick with gas as I don't use enough to warrant the expense.

jwdale80

I just bought Oil at 46.8p per litre, and if I have worked it out correctly that is 4.68p per Kw. That is cheaper than gas at the moment which is 4.79p per Kw. Oil has come down massivley in price and appears to keep dropping. The big question is of course if this trend will continue.
I'm wondering if oil prices have reduced due to consumers converting to other alternatives, therefore reducing the demand for oil.
One option- find a decent well serviced 2nd hand oil boiler and tank. If there remains a shift in the price of oil over the comming years 'great'! If biomass still seems the best option in the next year or two then at least you will not have spent a large expenditure on your oil boiler, and you will have used oil while it was cheap.

http://fueloilnews.co.uk/2014/07/research-predicts-oil-price-drop-will-continue/

As I said it is now 46.8p per litre with one company.