Wood Burning Boiler

toao

Hi Everyone,

I am after some advice, I have recently moved my business into an old building that has been stood empty for around 5 years, There is around 20 rooms and their is a gas fired boiler is in the basement which has a 80kw output to heat the building.

As there are only half a dozen people in the building we have just been using electric heaters however yesterday we had a commercial heating engineer to look at the boiler to see if we could get it back into use, He informed us however that its faulty and because of the age we cannot get replacement parts, He said it would be about 5K for a new boiler.

I have been looking on the internet to see if i could find a used boiler and i came accross this wood burning boiler:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191469497427?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I am after advice if something like this could be used and would it be a simple replacement of whats already in, Also if it could be used is there specific wood that needs to be purchased or could i use logs which i can get a plentiful supply of free of charge, Also is there any specific regulations about emissions, the flue being used or could i just use the flue thats in place already which runs from the basement up into the chimney.

If a boiler such as this is not a viable option, Does anyone have any advice on a good economical way of heating the building with minimal outlay. It seems a shame that everything is is place apart from a working boiler yet we are all working huddled around electric heaters.

Thanks

alleycat`

As it's a polish product i'd start here:-

http://www.pereko.pl/en/

The flue will need to be able to cope with solid fuel emissions (not just "gas") so that might cause you some issues.

You may also be limited by "clean air" regulations, depending where you are located ( i don't know how these differ between business and residential installations).

You might also need to keep in mind this doesn't appear to have any sort of automatic feeder so it will need "looking after" with manual feeds of fuel and it won't be just "off and onable" in the way that a mains gas device is.

Finally i've no idea on parts availability for it in the UK so you might want to consider that also.

I suspect most of the information you need will be on that website though.

toao

Thanks, I will take a look at that

Robwiz

Log boilers are best connected to a thermal store (a big insulated tank) so that you burn the wood hard, storing the heat up and then circulating to radiators over the next day or so until another burn is needed.

Most log burners require seasoned wood (less than 20% moisture).

There are very good incentives for using biomass to heat non-domestic premises. It may be worth doing it properly and qualifying for renewable heat incentive (RHI) payments.

toao

The problem with that is i only currently have a 3 year lease on the property, I am now looking at maybe buying a used (but not too old) gas boiler but does anyone know if regs on things like the flue etc will have changed in the last 10 or so years? i dont want to buy one only to find it cant be used because of regulations
Thanks