Who has wood fuelled heating & hot water? I have many questions!

[FlingonTheValiant]

Are you pleased with it? Would you recommend it?

And how do you have you system set up?
Is it radiators, under-floor, in an outhouse etc?

Tell me everything you can think of please!

Thank you :)

[oricella]

Marking my place for any new insights

In the meantime, have a look at thread which I did a few weeks ago - lots of interesting points raised and lots of experience from wood burning folk

[FlingonTheValiant]

Thanks oricella, off to read it now.

[Dumbledoresgirl]

Umm, we do. But in conjunction with a gas boiler. And he has taken our plumbers 2 and half years to get the 2 systems working together.

I am not sure what advice/knowledge I can give...

[FlingonTheValiant]

I think what I'm really interested in is set up. How many radiators can it supply, is it enough hot water for a family, do you use an accumulator tank?

There's no gas available, so it'll be only wood.

[Dumbledoresgirl]

Right ok, I am not very technical, and this was not my idea, but dh's who is an engineer so understands these things, but I have picked up a bit along the way.

Our woodburner doesn't heat our hot water, only the central heating system, so I can't help re hot water, I'm afraid.

Re how many radiators it can supply, the simple answer is, you work out how many radiators you will want, work out the energy required to heat those, and get a woodburner big enough to supply that energy. (That was where dh's expertise came in although our plumber was capable of working out those calculations too. We have a big house and have 18 radiators in total so our woodburner is a monster. Most houses are smaller than ours so, assuming you have a big enough space for a woodburner, you won't have difficulty getting one to heat your whole house.

[FlingonTheValiant]

Ok, so it's basically a direct correlation between size and output. Hopefully that holds for the hot water too.

Thanks very much!

Accumulator tank anyone??

[Dumbledoresgirl]

Sorry I can't be more helpful (ie I have no idea what an accumulator tank is!)

Have you considered the implications of fueling the stove though? It is
a) very time consuming feeding our monster,
b) even more time consuming cutting the wood for it
c) quite expensive buying wood when our homegrown supplies run out, as they do, though I expect you are going to say you own your own woodland or something
d) ours is actually a multi-fuel burner, ie takes coal as well, and coal is a much better fuel source, but again is hellishly expensive.

Just some thoughts. I am sure you have thought it through better than I did when I agreed to dh's plan though

[FlingonTheValiant]

PMSL no, we don't have our own woodland! We do have quite a lot of wood available, but we'll have to buy some too.

The problem is that our only other options are electricity or oil, both of which I predict to become immensely expensive fairly soon.I like that it's basically carbon neutral too.

It's the time consuming bit that worries me, but it seems the best option. Well, unless we install a geothermal system, but I'm not completely convinced by them.

I think an accumulator tank makes it a bit easier/less wasteful, but I'm hoping someone knows more.

Thanks again, 'tis food for thought!

[Dumbledoresgirl]

Yes, I liked the carbon neutral part of the equation too. And we also looked into geo-thermal heating but I think it was too expensive to set up.

I am not trying to put you off at all. It does sound like a good option for you. We initially intended that the wooodburner would provide us with most of our heating and the gas would supplement, but the time and commitment that goes into keeping a woodburner going has meant that it is now the other way around. But then, we were lucky to have the gas option.

If you want to know if it is possible to heat a house with one stove, the answer is emphatically yes.

Now I'll leave you to get your answers about hot water and accumulator tanks from someone more knowledgeable.

[inthesticks]

I have a multi fuel stove which burns wood and /or coal. It has a boiler which will heat the water and radiators, but I also have an oil boiler.
The stove is great for providing lots of hot water but no way would it heat a 4 bedroomed house. On it's own the rads would be lukewarm. It's 8kw (I think).
Wood alone gives out less heat than coal and I remember reading that for a large wood stove it needs so much feeding that you need a large family to line up with logs......

Also if you don't have your own woodlands and chainsaw it's quite expensive to buy. Many people have bought woodburners in the last few years and demand for logs has rocketed.
I paid £50 for a trailer load last year and now it is £85.
The stove definately reduces my oil consumption but I'm not sure it is actually cheaper.

[FlingonTheValiant]

Ok, well one website I looked on claims that buying wood pre-seasoned/chopped etc still works out cheaper than oil and electricity.

I think the difference between a stove and lets say a 30kw boiler is that some of the boiler models come with a loading section, so you stick in a day's worth of wood and leave it too it. Which is nothing like constantly feeding a stove. So I may look into that.

we're also in a position where we could plant a lot more trees, which would be great in 10+ years say.

I might have to see if there's anything we can do for summer hot water...

[FlingonTheValiant]

Aargh, it's so hard trying to balance convenience, cost and carbon footprints!

[GrendelsMum]

Our neighbour runs his house off a wood pellet boiler, which seems to be little more hassle than running off oil. I was interested, so asked him about it in detail.

It has a couple of major downsides The first is storage. The fuel pellets take up enough space that he has to have a very large shed on the side of his house to house the boiler and pellets.

The second issue is that because fuel pellets aren't very widely used or available, he's having difficulties getting them at a good price. Those of us on oil have a choice of suppliers, and band together as a collective to get greater bargaining power.

The storage issue applies to wood for a wood burner too - I just took down a couple of small trees at the weekend, which we'll burn for fuel. However, they need to be seasoned for at least a year year, which means that we have to keep them somewhere dry for a year. We just run a wood burner, and buy in seasoned logs and keep them for a year ourselves - the space it takes up is huge, and they need to be kept out of the rain. If you work, you can be out of the house while it's light all day in winter, so you need to have at least a small woodstore close enough to the house that you can pick up a day's logs every day, without having to walk through a pitch black garden to your woodstore. For us (and this is just a small stove heating one room), a full day's worth of fuel would probably involve a wheelbarrow load up to the house, which then has to be carried through the house. The wood pellets get round this very nicely, but with the disadvantages above.

[GrendelsMum]

D you have a friend with a wood burner? You could perhaps try cutting down a tree, preparing it for burning, and feeding a stove to get a rough idea of whether it's something that would suit you?

[FlingonTheValiant]

Thanks for all that GrendelsMum.

My parents have a wood stove, so I'm used to that, but it's a smaller one and isn't linked to radiators or water tanks (although it could be). I also know the hassle that goes with chopping and fetching. But only on a small scale, nothing like a proper boiler system.

The storage space isn't a problem, it really is the work that worries me. But if your neighbour thinks it's not so bad then that's looking better.

It really would be me doing all the work for it, DH isn't really in to manual labour which is why I'm so interested in that part of it!

Thanks again.

[elsiemarley]

We used to have one at home when I was a teenager, it ran the radiators and to be fair gallons of water as hot as you wanted. The only huge pain that I remember was being 1st up and downstairs to a cold house when no one had brought wood in from the shed the night before. One you fired the thing up after it was left simmering over night you were as warm as can be in no time.

I seem to remember a lot of work going on (that I actively avoided), a trailer load of logs is pretty immense when you know it has to be chopped and stored. I reckon I'd spend a morning chopping logs first to see how I found it!

[FlingonTheValiant]

I've done the trailer loads of logs with Dad before, it's not much fun I agree.

I think I still prefer the idea of that to digging up the whole garden and relaying floors for geothermal heating.

Gosh it's tricky to decide!

[WithManyTots]

We heat our house using a wood stove. The house is open plan, so no need for radiators. We get through about 3 cubic metres of logs a year. We just buy pre-seasoned and split logs from the local dealer, so 3 cubic meters costs about £225 per year. This seems to save us about 1000 litres of heating oil, about £450 - £700 depending when you buy it. So there is a saving, but to be honest it will never repay the cost of installing the stove (one of those designer ones so quite expensive).

When you see what 3 m^3 of wood looks like all stacked up it's huge. I think you'd need a big forest of your own, and a lot of time if you wanted to do it all yourself.

The plus side is I'm sitting in front of a nice glow to write this.

Tonight I have put 3 logs on it since I lit it at 6pm. In December it a basket full every few hours!

[GrendelsMum]

Wood pellets are no hassle at all, if you've got the storage space - so that might be a option for you.

My in laws have just put in in a geothermal heat pump, and so far their feeling is positive.

[KatyMac]

Summer hot water = solar panels (water not PV)

[BlackBag]

We have a 12 kw stove with a back boiler which heats up the water in a big store tank. The tank also has an electric coil (immersion heater) and an input from the hot water solar tubes.

We run two radiators off it that are not working properly due to small pipes, wrong valves, don't ask.

The stove a multifuel woodwarm is great. Keeps in over night, easy to clean, nice to look at.

The solar tubes provide hot water in the spring & summer when you don't want to light the fire. The electric coil provides a hot water boost on the rare occasion you need alot of water or are to ill.

The system works well 80% of the time. This is a good time to ask because we're just coming out of a long cold spell which quite frankly I've had enough of.

The fire's not lit now, the house is jumper wearing warm, I'll probably light it around 4ish and throw a medium sized basket of logs on.

We have woodland but cutting, splitting, hauling take a long time. Lots of people now have wood burners and prices have gone up and no one seems to give it away now. Pallets are good to slice up, but you need a chainsaw and are n't a pretty sight in your store.

Storage is essential and logs do take up a large space. You need to think ahead.

By next winter we're going to look at blocking up more draughts and fitting another radiator else where.

[BlackBag]

We DIYed all of this including the evacuated hot water solar tubes, watch out there's a lot of plumbers/salesman who talk the talk but have actual very little experience of fitting systems.

[bunjies]

We have a wood burning central heating system. We have one of [http://kotly.com/product_info.php?cPath=39&products_id=456 these]. We use a 1000l accumulator. It will eventually feed 15 radiators. As it burns very hot we can use all sorts of bio fuel, even soft wood chippings if we want. However, the best burn comes from hard wood logs which tend to be oak & chestnut where we are.
As mentioned above calculate your heating needs then choose the boiler that will accommodate this. Buy the biggest accumulator you can as this will enable you to keep the heating going overnight. Make sure you have a thermostat connected so that the system only kicks in when the returning water temp is below a certain amount. Otherwise you will find all your accumulated water being used up straight away and so you will boiling hot radiators for the first couple of hours then nothing for the rest of the night.
Good wood management is important. If you want to save money buy green wood and store it for a couple of years before using. As a general rule of thumb it takes one year to season one inch. So if you have 3 inch logs then it will take 1.5 years to season from outside to middle. Then you can always buy your wood in advance and save loads of money as seasoned wood is much more expensive. We have calculated that 4m3 last anything between 3-6 weeks depending on how cold it is. Agree cutting, splitting & carrying the wood is a time consuming and hard job.
We do not have under floor heating as I prefer things to be more flexible as it takes a long time to get to temperature so effects are instant.
We also have a wood burning stove with back boiler in the family room/kitchen which we use on its own for when the weather is milder but still has a chill in the air. We find this means we can be more economical with the wood as it will still feed the accumulator but the temps won?t be as high.
We do not run domestic hot water off it but have an immersion heater. However we did future proof our accumulator by buying one with an extra solar hot water coil if we decide to go that route.

I love knowing our heating is carbon neutral but it is time consuming and if we want to sell there is the risk that no one will want to be bothered with it.

[bunjies]

Oh yes, and dh installed it all himself. He is not a plumber or heating engineer. All the info is out there.

[jamaisjedors]

My parents had a system like this, all our heating and hot water ran off the "range" - aga-like thing which took wood/coal and anthracite.

It is a lot of work, and ime only works if one of you is at home full-time.

My parents ultimately converted back to gas, once my mum had gone back to work full-time.

I remember the misery of waiting a couple of hours for things to warm up (no hot water either) when I got home from school.

I am also rubbish at lighting fires so it was a lot of effort (a friend has recently put one in in her house and finds lighting the fire and cleaning it out a real chore).

And then there are all the trips out in the cold to get fuel, and the time spent stacking the logs which are dumped in your garden after delivery...

DH suggested putting something similar in our house, and I was totally anti because we both work fulltime outside the home and have enough on our plates with 2 young DS too.

He also looked at the pellets, but as mentioned upthread, there are several disadvantages.

We have an oil-based heating system which we don't like (environmentally speaking) but on the other hand, we calculated that it would be madness financially to replace our existing system which works with a new one - we would never get the money back.

We are waiting til our current system breaks down and then hopefully things will have moved on with the wood pellets thing - but they are hideously expensive at the moment.