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Feeding the Beast

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Feeding the Beast

Postby RogerS » 17 Feb 2017, 19:40

One of the 'charms' (or so I thought at the time) was having a wood gassification boiler.

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Claimed to be 90% + efficient, you use it to heat up the water in a large thermal store. 2000 litres in this case. The hot water from here is used to provide central heating and indirectly heat the hot water tank.
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"I fill it once in the morning and once at night in the depths of winter" said the vendor.

Right. :evil:

It eats wood. I feed it in the morning, at lunchtime, in the evening and last thing at night. A wheelbarrow and a half full each time. I have shelled out nearly £200 in wood and we've only been here a couple of weeks. :o And the house isn't that toasty either. OK, I know I've got some woodland but I really want to see what trees actually do produce leaf before I start ramping up the chainsaw. But even then, there is a finite supply.

I had thought that I might replace it with a new wood boiler and claim the RHI but that's been watered down now that it's just not economically viable. Plus it's a right ball-ache to do the regular maintenance required. For example you have to ream out six heating tubes every month or so. Yeah, right.

So the Beast is going to be replaced by a good old fashioned oil boiler.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Mike G » 18 Feb 2017, 09:47

It's the thermal store which is the real weak point of these things. Having a huge tank of hot water kept at a constant temperature 24 hours a day, and using that to heat water via a heat exchanger.......that's the fundamental design flaw. By the time hot water heads off down the flow and return system, it has passed through 2 heat exchangers (one in the boiler, one in the thermal store).......and the thermal store is constantly giving up its heat to the surrounding atmosphere.

A modern condensing oil boiler is really quite an efficient thing, and I wouldn't have any qualms about doing the swap. And this from a "greenie".

Burning the wood directly in wood burner stoves, with their own independent air supply, will almost certainly get more heat from the timber into the house than burning the same amount in a boiler to heat water to heat radiators.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby RogerS » 18 Feb 2017, 10:34

Thanks, Mike. That all makes sense to me.

One question you might be able to suggest an answer to....the hall. It's very very big. I love it! But it's very cold compared to the rest of the house.

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I was wondering about hiding some vertical ducting and a fan at the top to blow the hot air back down to ground level?
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Mike G » 18 Feb 2017, 10:51

If you can find a fairly practical route for ducting from the underside of the ceiling upstairs down to ground floor level, then it might help your comfort level a bit. Simply fit a fan at low level drawing warmed air back down to floor level. You'd need a slower running fan than a bathroom extractor, though.

A ceiling fan isn't going to push the warm air back down again, just create eddies and drafts. This might make you more uncomfortable than you are now.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Doug » 18 Feb 2017, 11:57

I can see the point of your system if you had underfloor heating Roger but not ideal with radiators.

Re your hall have you considered forced heat such as Smith's or Myson blow heaters working off your central heating system?
Last edited by Doug on 18 Feb 2017, 12:00, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Doug » 18 Feb 2017, 11:57

Double post
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby RogerS » 18 Feb 2017, 13:17

Doug wrote:I can see the point of your system if you had underfloor heating Roger but not ideal with radiators.


Do you mean the current wood burner/thermal store system ?

Doug wrote:Re your hall have you considered forced heat such as Smith's or Myson blow heaters working off your central heating system?


Not thought about that...are they noisy? Currently got two radiators there.....but hot air rises.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Doug » 18 Feb 2017, 16:59

RogerS wrote:
Doug wrote:I can see the point of your system if you had underfloor heating Roger but not ideal with radiators.


Do you mean the current wood burner/thermal store system ?


Yes Rog


RogerS wrote:
Doug wrote:Re your hall have you considered forced heat such as Smith's or Myson blow heaters working off your central heating system?


Not thought about that...are they noisy? Currently got two radiators there.....but hot air rises.


Not particularly noisy, years ago before underfloor heating was around quite a few of the big properties I worked on used them, for their size they have big outputs & work better than radiators at heating large spaces
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Mike G » 18 Feb 2017, 19:18

Their standard use was mounted under units in kitchens, which was always useful in kitchens which didn't have any spare wall space for a radiator.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Doug » 18 Feb 2017, 19:28

Mike G wrote:Their standard use was mounted under units in kitchens, which was always useful in kitchens which didn't have any spare wall space for a radiator.

The ones you are referring to are kickspace heaters, the ones I was thinking of are most commonly used in the entrance way into shops at high level though in domestic dwellings it's more usual to use the low level units
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby chataigner » 18 Feb 2017, 19:42

Mike G wrote:Their standard use was mounted under units in kitchens, which was always useful in kitchens which didn't have any spare wall space for a radiator.


I had one in my house in England, in the kitchen for exactly the reason above - was fine - there was very little noise to start with and since it was below a kitchen unit it was effectively in a cupboard that damped the noise still further.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Andyp » 26 Feb 2017, 12:13

Roger, advanced apologies if you have been through all this but I was talking to a chap who works with my missus who has something similar to your wood burner. He uses it to supplement an oil fired bolier during the winter months and has built some very fancy electronic gizmos to control how and when it kicks it. Way over my head.
Anyway he wondered if your boiler fan was not being controlled properly. When the water is up to temperature evidently the fan should slow down or even stop letting the fire burn more slowly.

Hope you get something sorted soon.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby RogerS » 08 Mar 2017, 19:06

Four days and counting to switching off The Beast. I have been spending, on average, about four hours a day scavenging wood to feed it for the next couple of days. As I've been walking the estate, I got increasingly angry with Sloth and Slobbo (my new nicknames for the previous owners) for (a) letting everything go to rack and ruin but more importantly leaving valuable timber that could have fed The Beast to lie and rot. OK...good for the ecology but .....

I did hit jackpot today and found an old electricity pole stuck inside a growth of trees and that will do nicely until switch off.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Andyp » 08 Mar 2017, 19:23

Glad to hear there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Malc2098 » 08 Mar 2017, 19:29

Andyp wrote:Glad to hear there is light at the end of the tunnel.



Or at the end of the pole!! :D
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby RogerS » 11 Mar 2017, 19:12

I watched the Dunster Heating promotional video for the Vigas and realise that my boiler has never entered the gassification stage. This would explain why it has been consuming so much wood. It's very frustrating in that as a bit of an anorak I want to know why but have drawn a complete blank. The usual reason is wet wood but that electricity pole is about 10%.

The fan is running but I don't get that blast of jet flame leaping down into the fire chamber.

Actual internal details are few and far between on the internet. I came across one drawing which suggested that the air from the fan entered the combustion chamber via holes in the sidewall. So I let the boiler run right down and had a good old poke around to see if there were any holes and if they were blocked.

No holes in the sidewall.

Dunno...but very frustrating.
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Doug » 11 Mar 2017, 19:41

I recently helped Brian change the fire bricks in his gasified stove, there are channels in the back of the fire bricks that allow the air to get to the little holes.
Don't know if yours has a similar design but it might be worth removing any fire bricks & seeing if there is any restrictions.
Also would it be possible to remove the pipe up stream of the fan & blow compressed air through the air ways
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Re: Feeding the Beast

Postby Paul200 » 11 Mar 2017, 20:58

RogerS wrote:I did hit jackpot today and found an old electricity pole stuck inside a growth of trees and that will do nicely until switch off.


Were there any cables attached to the pole Roger?

(Sorry - not helpful - I'll get my coat ......)
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