my MCZ wood pellet biomass boiler

lovesgshp

Very interesting reading Nostrawaggus, thanks.
For the number of hours that the biomass has been operating, then you may have been better to go for the GSHP if you had the land available. I think that you would have also got a higher RHI.
The GSHP here has operated for over 15000 hrs, over nearly 10 years, which apart from a sticking 3 way valve, has been pretty much faultless.
I know very few people in my area in Italy, who have gone for the biomass system, as most still use logs in woodburners.

Robwiz

nostrawaggus wrote: »

Yes, I have claimed RHI - you'd be an idiot not to.
I was looking at a GSHP initially - because we are rural, no gas mains and have outside area where the technology footprint could potentially be installed. I decided against this as it would have meant lots of disruption to the area and the associated cost. Plus I am of the school of thought that if most of your kit is buried, fault finding becomes a costly headache down the line should issues arise or a leak occur etc.

I looked at ASHP systems, but felt this was not suitable due to the nature of our building.

Biomass technology and wood burning stoves are established in rural and mountainous regions of Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria (and perhaps directly this is where the best equipment comes from IMO).
My cousin is also involved with a district heating system in Germany. Although on a much larger scale, it provides heat to the local school, the caring home and one or two other public buildings in the district.

I had a lot of positive information on biomass technology via word of mouth from the onset, which I guess helped trigger the decision to go biomass.

It was only the installer of our biomass who mentioned the RHI incentive for this technology when discussing it with him, and by then I had already more or less made up my mind. The RHI formulation at that stage still had a few uncertainties hovering over it, so although the news was good it was shrouded in some uncertainty.
We paid for our installation outright and didn't require any type of funding or installer funded options.

So, now looking back, it is a comfort to know we will be getting our RHI payments for the technology and this will cover our heating costs of the short to mid term.


UPDATE BTW on the broken COMPACT 35 system that has no power at the moment from Saturday:
It's been broken and without power since Saturday. I've had some phone calls form my installer in respects to waiting for Specflue Help Desk to get back to him about the issue, but as yet, nobody has even been to see the unit or even knows what's wrong with it by the looks of things. This underlines the value of having a reputable installer. At the moment I feel like opening the thing myself to see if there is a blown fuse inside somewhere. Not happy at all at the moment with the level of service I'm receiving for my unit which isn't working.

With a GSHP it's only the slinky which is buried below ground – a continuous length of HDPE pipe which shouldn't ever leak. All the clever machinery, controls and valves is above ground.

As your boiler failure demonstrates, having a reliable installer with a commitment to standing by and supporting their installed base is paramount.

Having spent the last two years plus researching renewable heating systems, I would choose GSHP provided there was room for the ground loop.

lovesgshp

I honestly would try and eliminate a slinky installation if possible, especially if you have enough land. A proper ground loop, would be far more effective. We do not use them in Italy. (slinkies)

Ray_Alexander

Sounds like good advice about Ground Source Heat Pumps - I'll have to look into this ... Sounds good so far though !

captainhindsight_2

teabelly wrote: »

As a matter of interest how much does a 10kg bag of pellets cost when you buy in bulk?

Ground source/air source heat pump and solar pv/water heating was something I was looking into as it seems a normal gas boiler, although efficient, clean and no hassle may not have so much of a long term future.

You can get it to around £1.70 - £1.80 per 10kg bag if you buy in bulk, but if your only buying 1 or 2 ton at a time expect to pay around £2.5 a bag

kelsae

Here's our experience of bio mass:
3 bed, stone built , terraced, doubled glazed, loft insulated, rear extension to double ground floor area.
Red compact 15 slim and 300l buffer tank installed and running for 2 weeks.
No running problems as yet.
House comfortably warm, plenty hot water.
Using about 20kg pellets/day.
Great.


After a few days we noticed that the boiler would power up every 1.5 - 2 hours through the night to top up the 300l buffer tank. This used up .5 to 1 bag when we thought no running was required. After discussing with a biomass enthusiast on this topic he agreed with me that a check valve was required on the CH flow pipe to prevent heat escaping slowly into the radiators by gravity overnight. The installer thinks this to be a good idea too.
So, would this be a standard addition to a system?


Otherwise we are quite happy with the system.

abjem21

Hi
I have an mcz fire that is tripping out our home circuit as well right now. Please can you advise what the fault was that was causing you fire to do the same so I can try the same as a cure to mine!

Thank you

LukasMc

HI, you mentioned in your post that you attributed a problem to substandard pellets. Were these ENPlus A1 certified, would you mind expanding on this such as the brand?
Many thanks / Luke