Grant Wood Pellet Boiler

DJDOO

Hi,

I'm currently heating my home with solid fuel and oil. The waterford stanely stove in the kitchen heats radiators in the sitting room, conservator and hall and the radiators in the bedrooms and bathroom are heated by oil. We're looking to get rid of solid fuel and get a single heat source. The current oil boiler is 20 years old and we're thinking of changing to wood pellet boiler, specifically a grant. I know they have gotten a bit of stick over the years but I think (from what I've read) they've improved massively. We currently spend €700+ on solid feul p/a and maybe €1,300+ on oil.

I'm just looking to get some advice and/or info on these boilers from anyone who may have them installed...purchase/installation costs, annual costs etc. So basically are they cost efficient etc.

Any help/info would be really appreciated...

Thanks!

Wearb

You must have a large or poorly insulated house with those costs, especially with oil prices so low.

A friend of mine has a grant wood-pellet boiler and really loves it. He said it cost about 3 times what it would have cost to put in a grant oil burner. He said it costs very little to run, but then his 2350 sq ft house has an A3 BER.
My daughter has a similar house with a B2 rating. (she could have gotten a B1 if it wasn't for a multi-fuel stove and something else). In any case both well insulated houses, but wood-pellet house better insulated.

Her heating costs are relatively low also, but I find it very difficult to make calculated comparisons. It is a year ago since I tried to make comparisons, so I have forgotten the figures. My memory of it is that the wood pellet was cheaper to run, but with oil prices as they were (even a then), the payback time was considerable.

DJDOO

Wearb wrote: »

You must have a large or poorly insulated house with those costs, especially with oil prices so low.

A friend of mine has a grant wood-pellet boiler and really loves it. He said it cost about 3 times what it would have cost to put in a grant oil burner. He said it costs very little to run, but then his 2350 sq ft house has an A3 BER.
My daughter has a similar house with a B2 rating. (she could have gotten a B1 if it wasn't for a multi-fuel stove and something else). In any case both well insulated houses, but wood-pellet house better insulated.

Her heating costs are relatively low also, but I find it very difficult to make calculated comparisons. It is a year ago since I tried to make comparisons, so I have forgotten the figures. My memory of it is that the wood pellet was cheaper to run, but with oil prices as they were (even a then), the payback time was considerable.

Thanks for that. Do you know would they have their heat on constant with thermostats etc or are they timed? Do they have underfloor heating or radiators?

Thanks for the info, I agree, our heating costs are quite high, it's a four bed bungalow and I think if we had one source of heat costs would come down...

thanks again

Wearb

Unless it is a very large house, your best savings would come from increasing your insulation values.

He has underfloor heating downstairs and rads upstairs. He has individual control over each room. He did mention that there is about a 4 hour time lag in the underfloor areas, but that he has gotten used to that. He dislikes having to open windows to let out the heat (in spring) when day starts off cold, but heats up late morning. Still, he said that he wouldn't change it.

It isn't on constant all the time; only during consistently cold weather. Even then its only the underfloor areas that are on constantly. The upstairs is always controlled as needed, due to the fast heat-up time.

Slutmonkey57b

A pellet boiler is designed to be on all day really. They're very slow to heat up, and switching them off doesn't stop heat being produced for a long time. This means that running thermostats is basically a waste of time. Fuel is stupidly expensive and they're mechanically complicated and unreliable.

The bloke that services ours tells his customers to get rid of them! Ours is going this year and anyone I know who has one either hates the system or had already ditched it.

Dtp1979

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

A pellet boiler is designed to be on all day really. They're very slow to heat up, and switching them off doesn't stop heat being produced for a long time. This means that running thermostats is basically a waste of time. Fuel is stupidly expensive and they're mechanically complicated and unreliable.

The bloke that services ours tells his customers to get rid of them! Ours is going this year and anyone I know who has one either hates the system or had already ditched it.

Don't tar all crap pellet boilers with the same brush. A pellet boiler isn't designed to run all day. Whatever part time postman/handyman/serviceman told you that should stick to their day job. Decent pellet boiler start up quick. The grant will fire in under 5 mins.

DJDOO

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Don't tar all crap pellet boilers with the same brush. A pellet boiler isn't designed to run all day. Whatever part time postman/handyman/serviceman told you that should stick to their day job. Decent pellet boiler start up quick. The grant will fire in under 5 mins.

See this is the problem there is such conflicting opinions on wood pellet boilers. I have been told that Grant are the best out there so that's why I'm looking at them.

Do you have any experience with the Grant wood pellet boilers?

Slutmonkey57b

Pellet boilers have evolved and improved a lot since they were first introduced. The rhetoric about boilers every "generation" that gets released is "oh the old boilers weren't great but these are fine"... And then the current generation gets replaced, suddenly it was always a bad design, the new ones are better... Yes they've improved, no they're still nowhere near as good as a condensing gas boiler.

If you want to go down the route of pellets, the boiler is only one part of it:
1. Fuel is expensive and boilers eat the stuff by the tonne. Don't expect to save money on your daily running cost compared to oil.
2. If you're interested in being eco friendly, take into account you're still burning stuff, the fuel is trucked around in diesel lorries, and it's only carbon neutral on a very long timeframe.
3. There's nothing, NOTHING a wood pellet likes better than getting jammed, trapped or stuck in the auger. That's great fun when you have to disassemble things in the cold. And you'll have hundreds of quid in fuel taunting you all the while you're spending other money getting coal to tide you over.
4. Parts, installers and servicing are harder to find and more expensive. Same could be said for most alternative options though.

Slutmonkey57b

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Don't tar all crap pellet boilers with the same brush. A pellet boiler isn't designed to run all day. Whatever part time postman/handyman/serviceman told you that should stick to their day job. Decent pellet boiler start up quick. The grant will fire in under 5 mins.

This is his day job. Another guy whose full time job is selling pellets leaves his on all day too. Neither are optimistic about the future of pellets.

Dtp1979

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Pellet boilers have evolved and improved a lot since they were first introduced. The rhetoric about boilers every "generation" that gets released is "oh the old boilers weren't great but these are fine"... And then the current generation gets replaced, suddenly it was always a bad design, the new ones are better... Yes they've improved, no they're still nowhere near as good as a condensing gas boiler.

If you want to go down the route of pellets, the boiler is only one part of it:
1. Fuel is expensive and boilers eat the stuff by the tonne. Don't expect to save money on your daily running cost compared to oil.
2. If you're interested in being eco friendly, take into account you're still burning stuff, the fuel is trucked around in diesel lorries, and it's only carbon neutral on a very long timeframe.
3. There's nothing, NOTHING a wood pellet likes better than getting jammed, trapped or stuck in the auger. That's great fun when you have to disassemble things in the cold. And you'll have hundreds of quid in fuel taunting you all the while you're spending other money getting coal to tide you over.
4. Parts, installers and servicing are harder to find and more expensive. Same could be said for most alternative options though.

There are plenty of older versions that are good pellet boilers. People just didn't spend the money and are now complaining about their crap gerkros, Baxi or other bad models.
Again, if people use proper quality pellets then they won't get jammed in the auger. The grant boiler is by the the most intelligent. A lot of good boilers will modulate down to around 5kw so they are efficient. The grant is the worlds only condensing pellet boiler.
I'd say your serviceman is dissolusioned with having to repair bad boilers that are still out there.
I fit both gas and oil boilers, and if I was building in the morning, I'd use grant pellet boiler

Slutmonkey57b

It's an Austrian manufacturer.

There's another statement that doesn't make sense:

"Good quality pellets"

What are they? How do you know the difference? What guarantees do you have? What's the standard?

There's a Canadian company selling pellets in Ireland now, are they the same standard as German ones? What about ones made in the UK? There's a company called Leinster pellets, are they any good? Are they better or worse than balcas?

The answer is, "who knows?" And if you buy the wrong sort, you won't know until you're attempting to burn them and they're turning to ash or clogging your very expensive boiler.

For those interested there is a "standard" that pellets can be certified to. However, that's effectively meaningless because it mostly only relates to the size and moisture content. It doesn't offer any guarantees about the nature of the wood which compromises them.

To give a fantastic example, I was buying top rated, certified manufacturer approved pellets from a reputable distributor. Should be safe, right? I get a delivery in, and within a week the boiler is coated in creosote. "That can happen. You can get batches of wood that happens to have different characteristics. You never know until you burn it" was the response I got. From someone who didn't have a financial interest in fobbing me off.

As to the question of jamming, that's down to mechanics and physics. The auger can't ever have a zero gap between it and the walls of its chamber, therefore it will always be possible for something to jam. Not to mention it's impossible to sell pellets that don't have a quantity of fine sawdust (referred to on the packaging as "fines" if anyone is interested) which is even more prevalent to causing jams. Of course if pellet boilers were properly designed by people who aren't morons then they wouldn't use augers at all, they'd use double baffle gravity fill to modulate pellet entry and ensure a fire break between fuel and flame. Which would not only be more reliable but also significantly reduce mechanical complexity.

Dtp1979

Pellets to standard EN 14961-2 are quality pellets

DJDOO

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

It's an Austrian manufacturer.

There's another statement that doesn't make sense:

"Good quality pellets"

What are they? How do you know the difference? What guarantees do you have? What's the standard?

There's a Canadian company selling pellets in Ireland now, are they the same standard as German ones? What about ones made in the UK? There's a company called Leinster pellets, are they any good? Are they better or worse than balcas?

The answer is, "who knows?" And if you buy the wrong sort, you won't know until you're attempting to burn them and they're turning to ash or clogging your very expensive boiler.

For those interested there is a "standard" that pellets can be certified to. However, that's effectively meaningless because it mostly only relates to the size and moisture content. It doesn't offer any guarantees about the nature of the wood which compromises them.

To give a fantastic example, I was buying top rated, certified manufacturer approved pellets from a reputable distributor. Should be safe, right? I get a delivery in, and within a week the boiler is coated in creosote. "That can happen. You can get batches of wood that happens to have different characteristics. You never know until you burn it" was the response I got. From someone who didn't have a financial interest in fobbing me off.

As to the question of jamming, that's down to mechanics and physics. The auger can't ever have a zero gap between it and the walls of its chamber, therefore it will always be possible for something to jam. Not to mention it's impossible to sell pellets that don't have a quantity of fine sawdust (referred to on the packaging as "fines" if anyone is interested) which is even more prevalent to causing jams. Of course if pellet boilers were properly designed by people who aren't morons then they wouldn't use augers at all, they'd use double baffle gravity fill to modulate pellet entry and ensure a fire break between fuel and flame. Which would not only be more reliable but also significantly reduce mechanical complexity.

Wow that's a lot of info to digest Can I ask do you work with wood pellet boilers or install them or where do you get your knowledge?

DJDOO

Dtp1979 wrote: »

There are plenty of older versions that are good pellet boilers. People just didn't spend the money and are now complaining about their crap gerkros, Baxi or other bad models.
Again, if people use proper quality pellets then they won't get jammed in the auger. The grant boiler is by the the most intelligent. A lot of good boilers will modulate down to around 5kw so they are efficient. The grant is the worlds only condensing pellet boiler.
I'd say your serviceman is dissolusioned with having to repair bad boilers that are still out there.
I fit both gas and oil boilers, and if I was building in the morning, I'd use grant pellet boiler

Hi, thanks for the info, are the Grants efficient? Or have you heard from anyone how much the running costs are etc?

DJDOO

oh and sorry to ask, does anyone know how much the grant is or how it works?

Dtp1979

DJDOO wrote: »

oh and sorry to ask, does anyone know how much the grant is or how it works?

You'd be better off ringing grant and speaking to them direct. They're more than helpful and have a fantastic back up service.

Slutmonkey57b

DJDOO wrote: »

Wow that's a lot of info to digest Can I ask do you work with wood pellet boilers or install them or where do you get your knowledge?

Not by choice. Years of dealing with the vagaries of a wood pellet boiler. A more awfully thought out mechanical device I have not encountered.

For reference to the standard quoted above, I can guarantee that pellets meeting that standard will jam. They may however produce more heat and be less prone to falling apart in the bag. Think of it like this: if petrol was certified as valid for sale based solely on how liquid it was and whether there were any fossilised snails in it, would you consider that a useful standard to judge whether it should go in a car? The standard for top quality wood pellets is about as relevant as that.

Having said all that, are wood pellet boilers totally unviable options? No. If you're prepared to live with the following considerations, then they're workable:
1. You are happy to pay a huge (think double) premium over a gas boiler for a significantly less efficient system.
2. You are happy to have daily running costs which are at least if not more expensive than oil.
3. You don't mind paying up front for pallet loads of fuel, which you have dry storage space for.
3a. In the case that you go to the extra expense of building a hopper to store the pellets, you have *very* dry storage space. And a carbon monoxide alarm. And a ventilation system installed. (Loose pellets produce dangerous gas build-up inside a hopper. Fine if you account for it, not fine if you weren't aware. Never get into a hopper or put your face in one without active ventilation fans)
4. You are happy to have to disassemble the boiler weekly, monthly and yearly to clean it all out. (My system is admittedly worse than others due to the way it was installed, but the design of the boilers and the places which have to be user maintained is surprisingly high)
5. You are happy to put in an "eco friendly" solution which actually isn't much more eco friendly than bottled gas.
6. You like having to trudge outside in the cold to fix recalcitrant badly designed machinery.

Plenty of people have systems they're perfectly happy with, I know the people who installed ours were. On the other hand they were morons.

Water John

Not that much knowledge on pellet burners but your point no 5 saying, wood pellets were only a little more eco friendly than propane/butane gas is just wrong.
You seem evangelically biased.

Slutmonkey57b

Why?

The wood has to be harvested by machinery: that machinery burns fossil fuels. It has to be processed into pellets, that requires industrial production, which is fed off the mains supply, which is still overwhelmingly fossil fuel dependent. It then has to be trucked around the county (or from as far afield as Canada depending on whose pellets you're buying). Then it gets burned, which is inefficient and produces co2 and pollutants.

An eco-friendly solution would be solar powered heat pumps, solar thermal or passive housing. Pellets are neither one thing or the other. And while solar panels etc have an industrial process initial production cost, it's a one off, unlike pellets which is constant. And they're not carbon neutral, nor are they produced using byproducts of other wood industries.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/wood_pellets_green_energy_or_new_source_of_co2_emissions/2840/

You have to remember that pellets are new here but they've been around on the continent for a long time. When their use was first suggested, there was plenty of byproduct wood sources to make pellets from. Now, thanks to the rise of flat pack furniture, and the fact that the mental Germans are running whole power stations on wood pellets, there is no byproduct source available. This means managed forest solutions, which totally change the economics of pellets. Hence it's no cheaper than oil.

DJDOO

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Not by choice. Years of dealing with the vagaries of a wood pellet boiler. A more awfully thought out mechanical device I have not encountered.

For reference to the standard quoted above, I can guarantee that pellets meeting that standard will jam. They may however produce more heat and be less prone to falling apart in the bag. Think of it like this: if petrol was certified as valid for sale based solely on how liquid it was and whether there were any fossilised snails in it, would you consider that a useful standard to judge whether it should go in a car? The standard for top quality wood pellets is about as relevant as that.

Having said all that, are wood pellet boilers totally unviable options? No. If you're prepared to live with the following considerations, then they're workable:
1. You are happy to pay a huge (think double) premium over a gas boiler for a significantly less efficient system.
2. You are happy to have daily running costs which are at least if not more expensive than oil.
3. You don't mind paying up front for pallet loads of fuel, which you have dry storage space for.
3a. In the case that you go to the extra expense of building a hopper to store the pellets, you have *very* dry storage space. And a carbon monoxide alarm. And a ventilation system installed. (Loose pellets produce dangerous gas build-up inside a hopper. Fine if you account for it, not fine if you weren't aware. Never get into a hopper or put your face in one without active ventilation fans)
4. You are happy to have to disassemble the boiler weekly, monthly and yearly to clean it all out. (My system is admittedly worse than others due to the way it was installed, but the design of the boilers and the places which have to be user maintained is surprisingly high)
5. You are happy to put in an "eco friendly" solution which actually isn't much more eco friendly than bottled gas.
6. You like having to trudge outside in the cold to fix recalcitrant badly designed machinery.

Plenty of people have systems they're perfectly happy with, I know the people who installed ours were. On the other hand they were morons.

Hi..just on an aside, you keep mentioning a gas boiler, but we're not on a gas line so that wouldn't really be a possibility for us I don't think

DJDOO

Dtp1979 wrote: »

You'd be better off ringing grant and speaking to them direct. They're more than helpful and have a fantastic back up service.

Thank you for your help, much appreciated. You're hardly affiliated with Grant are you?

Slutmonkey57b

DJDOO wrote: »

Hi..just on an aside, you keep mentioning a gas boiler, but we're not on a gas line so that wouldn't really be a possibility for us I don't think

That's a bummer. On the other hand if you sign up for gas you're handing a geopolitical advantage to the Russians and encouraging Qatar's war in Syria for their gas pipeline. Nothing's perfect.

Dtp1979

DJDOO wrote: »

Thank you for your help, much appreciated. You're hardly affiliated with Grant are you?

Not in any way

DJDOO

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

That's a bummer. On the other hand if you sign up for gas you're handing a geopolitical advantage to the Russians and encouraging Qatar's war in Syria for their gas pipeline. Nothing's perfect.

Are you taking the P1ss???

I'm just concerned with setting up an economical home heating system..

DJDOO

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Not in any way

Just kidding, thank you very much for your help

Slutmonkey57b

DJDOO wrote: »

Are you taking the P1ss???

I'm just concerned with setting up an economical home heating system..

I like to cover all the angles. :-D

Pellets won't save you any money over oil. If you can't get natural gas, then your best bet for reducing bills is spend the money on insulation, I'm afraid.

Mickalus

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

...
Pellets won't save you any money over oil.
...

How much are pellets typically? Around 3 euro - 3.50 a 10k bag sound right?
How much would you burn through in a day for a typical user? Or what would a typical spend be over a winter?

The price of oil has fluctuated so much recently, are you basing that off current oil prices?

Slutmonkey57b

Mickalus wrote: »

How much are pellets typically? Around 3 euro - 3.50 a 10k bag sound right?
How much would you burn through in a day for a typical user? Or what would a typical spend be over a winter?

The price of oil has fluctuated so much recently, are you basing that off current oil prices?

Minimum price is around 3.50 a bag based on a delivery of 100 bags. Has been up around 4.50 a bag. Pellets vary in price just like oil unfortunately.

2-3 bags a day is apparently normal.