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Did wood pellet systems never catch on?

NIMAN

I know a few people who have installed the slack burners in their garages, and they are happy with them. Always having the house at a constant temperature and hot water too.

I was tempted by one in the past, but I don't think that coal has a future as a heat source, and it will either be taxed out of use, or banned in the coming years.

I did a quick search here, and there seems to be a lack of threads on wood pellet systems.

Did they never catch on? I remember reading that they were expensive to run, but surely they should have a market for them for domestic heating?

Anyone on here got one?

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mrjohntobin

I installed a wood pellet boiler in 2008 and I'm going to replace it with air to water. Why?
- Filling pellets is easy, just press the button once or twice a week. Scrape out the residue in the combustion chamber once a week.
- Ash builds up throughout the boiler and it needs to be turned off, mostly disassembled, and cleaned 3-4 times per year. This is about 4 hours work each time now that I'm practiced and have tools.
- Ash builds up, so the flow of air decreases, so pellets don't burn properly and leave more ash => downward spiral. The boiler goes from OK to choked and not heating the house in about 2 weeks.
- The pellet store needs to be cleaned out once per year because pellet dust builds up around the auger and eventually the auger isn't feeding pellets, it's just spinning dust. It takes about 3 hours to clean now that I'm practiced and have an ash vac and other tools. You need the store to be completely empty to clean it, so there's stress about timing the order so that you don't run out of pellets. I have a large store for >3 tons and a smaller intermediate store for 0.5 tons, so I have that much to burn when the large store is empty.
- No supplier wants to deliver less than 3 tons, so you're always waiting until you've nearly run out to order.
- My garage is covered in soot and ash. If you put it in your garage, build an enclosure around it, but leave enough space all around for yourself to hunker down and work on it.
- My well-insulated-for-2008 house needs 5 tons of pellets per year, and pellets are around 350 euro per ton from the suppliers who will deliver to me.
- Pellets change if you change suppliers and sometimes between deliveries from the same supplier. Then you're trying to adjust your boiler to burn cleanly, not have too much ash, not have unburnt pellet stubs, ... it's painful. The documentation I have just says "adjust the air and feed of pellets"

- There's one person in the country who services my boiler, so if anything goes wrong that I can't deal with - like a firebrick breaking - I can be waiting several days. In the winter. In a cold house.

The only reason I haven't replaced it with oil is that I care about the environment, so I'm holding out for air to water.

NIMAN

TheBoyConor wrote: »

I'm telling you lad. Air to water head pump will slot in instead of your boiler and maybe upgrade your radiators and insulation and you will be away with it.

Thanks for the feedback.

You got an A2W pump yourself?

What sort of money are you talking to install such a system in a house of 2200sq ft? (appreciate that insulation might need redoing as well).

TheBoyConor

Good quality pellets are stupidly expensive. And a lot of the pellets available are poor quality dusty rubbish. But people buy the cheap stuff and it causes problems with the boiler. Then they get a bad reputation for reliability.

And they need tending because you have to remove ash periodically. Then you have to top up the pellets every few days. It is mot terribly onerous but still, people have better things to be doing that fluting around with ashes and pellets.

Basically they are not worth the hassle.

I'm telling you lad. Air to water head pump will slot in instead of your boiler and maybe upgrade your radiators and insulation and you will be away with it.

unkel

Pretty brutal from an emissions point of view to heat your house by burning wood. Almost as bad as coal or turf.

NIMAN

How do they compare money wise?

Why would a wood pellet burner require tending? What about a hopper to hold several days worth of fuel? And surely burning pellets leaves very little ash or waste?

TheBoyConor

Too expensive, troublesome and need too much tending.

Get an air to water heat pump system instead and once it's in you'll never have to even think about it again all going well.