On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 15:39:05 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

I have various firms wanting me to have a woodchip boiler. Does anyone
know if this would be a good idea?


I'd doubt it.

I worked snagging for a biomass boiler installer in the days before
RHI grants and most of the problems were to do with the quality of the
chip. Chip deliveries are only economic in 25 tonne loads unless you
produce your own and generally whole tree chip is worse than roundwood
chipped for the purpose.

I also own a 150kW woodchip stoking boiler and a few pellet stoves,
the fuel for the latter has priced itself out of the market.

I have access to unlimited quantities of woodchip and roundwood.
Woodchip in a heap outdoors never gets dry enough to burn cleanly.

The daily ashing out and fortnightly sweeping the firetubes is a chore
which compares badly with maintaining a gas burner. The hardware
occupies 20 times the space of an equivalent gas or oil boiler and
short cycling means any time less than 24 hours.



For RHI on the domestic scale with wood you don't pay for (may be
difficult to register as a self supplier) one of the batch loaded type
coupled with a couple of tonne thermal store and the time constant of
a heated slab of concrete may be cheaper.

AJH