Did wood pellet systems never catch on?

unkel · 19-09-2019 11:55pm

KCross wrote: »

My well-insulated-for-2008 house needs 5 tons of pellets per year, and pellets are around 350 euro per ton

That's insane. My brutally badly built and very poorly insulated 2000 house costs less than that to heat per year (with gas) and that's including my DHW hot water heating and we have an open fire place with a gas fire in it that herself lights most evenings, even in August!

jmreire · 20-09-2019 12:28am

TheBoyConor wrote: »

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.

Conor, could you give any ideas about cost's, installation etc? How well insulated would the house have to be? Would it be necessary ( for example) to have to dig up floors, to install piping, additional insulation etc? And as for the unit itself... how does it actually work? Is it something that would replace the current oil burner I have in the shed? I mean take out the oil burner, and replace it with the heat unit?

20-09-2019 12:52am

The problem with heat pumps is the massive cost to buy.

Also, People think once they're installed they run forever.

What kind of warranty do you get and if it breaks how long will it take someone to come out and fix it ? parts availability etc ?

I was looking to get quote for water to water HP using the well water, cop 7:1, amazing, but just can't get the galway company to come out and take a look and give opinion as to whether it's worth my while or not.

This would be retrofit , heating existing rads, problem is the Well is on the opposite side of the house to where the oil boiler is now.

Air to Air cheaper but only about 4:1 at best. I have night rate electricity so I don't know , current cost is about 1200 a year in oil not having it on all day, with HP you have it on 24x7 so its going to cost but at least the cost can be offset in the future with solar pv and FIT.

The real issue is getting it installed right and warranty and if it breaks in 10 years and costs too much to fix that's a lot of money !

Del2005 · 20-09-2019 1:07am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

forever.

What kind of warranty do you get and if it breaks how long will it take someone to come out and fix it ? parts availability etc ?

Why are people in this country so transfixed on the warranty a company offers when we have some of the best consumer protection in the world? If it breaks you have the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act(SoGaSoSA) to get it fixed.

Parts are an issue for any product but the SoGaSA means that the company has very few excuses for not rectifying your problem.

20-09-2019 1:45am

The issue is how long the warranty is and how much it will cost to fix if it breaks.

Heat pumps are crazy expensive.

I can't even get the damn company to come out and give me a quote ffs imagine trying to get them to come out and fix it ?

This could be the same if it breaks and no law in the land is worth crap when the house is cold and you're battling for your "consumer protection"

20-09-2019 2:54am

https://www.heliotherm.com/en/

Pick the best HP for retrofit ?

Some of their A2W specs are impressive.

https://www.heliotherm.com/en/products/heat-pumps/groundwater-heat-pump/kategorie/heliotherm-grundwasserwaermepumpe/premium-line-modulation/

Del2005 · 20-09-2019 9:35am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The issue is how long the warranty is and how much it will cost to fix if it breaks.

Heat pumps are crazy expensive.

I can't even get the damn company to come out and give me a quote ffs imagine trying to get them to come out and fix it ?

This could be the same if it breaks and no law in the land is worth crap when the house is cold and you're battling for your "consumer protection"

You can get your money back under consumer protection if the company is as bad as you describe. What do you get with a warranty if the company is as bad as you describe?

ednwireland · 20-09-2019 9:56am

watch the electricity cost of heat pumps the only people i know have electricity bills higher than my oil and electric put together

air · 20-09-2019 10:13am

Plenty of people had heat pumps installed into new builds from the 2000s on.
In very many cases the installers didn't know what they were doing and went bust soon afterwards, leaving customers without any support. Consumer protection legislation isn't of much use then.
Added to this the majority of houses at the time had substandard insulation and air tightness. The prevailing building regulations were awful as was the standard of construction. Furthermore consumers didn't understand how best to utilise their heat pumps, which wasn't surprising when the fly by night installers didn't either.

All these factors combined to give them a bad name in Ireland and indeed caused high running costs in many cases.

Move forward to the current day, insulation & building standards have (thankfully) improved to the point that the total heat demand of new homes is now much lower. As a result it's much harder to justify the increased capital costs of ground source vs air source HPs.

Yes, they are more efficient but you're just not consuming enough units to make back the additional capital cost by the difference between the cost per unit on each system.

Personally if I was doing a new build I would focus on insulation and probably aim from somewhere between current regs and passive standards. A cheap 5kW oil burner and/or resistive heating for the rare occasions when supplementary heat would be required then.

KCross · 20-09-2019 11:31am

air wrote: »

Plenty of people had heat pumps installed into new builds from the 2000s on.
In very many cases the installers didn't know what they were doing and went bust soon afterwards, leaving customers without any support. Consumer protection legislation isn't of much use then.
Added to this the majority of houses at the time had substandard insulation and air tightness. The prevailing building regulations were awful as was the standard of construction. Furthermore consumers didn't understand how best to utilise their heat pumps, which wasn't surprising when the fly by night installers didn't either.

All these factors combined to give them a bad name in Ireland and indeed caused high running costs in many cases.

+1

air wrote: »

Move forward to the current day, insulation & building standards have (thankfully) improved to the point that the total heat demand of new homes is now much lower. As a result it's much harder to justify the increased capital costs of ground source vs air source HPs.

Yes, they are more efficient but you're just not consuming enough units to make back the additional capital cost by the difference between the cost per unit on each system.

Its a reasonable argument but the lifespan of the system has to be taken into account too. All things being equal Ground source will last alot longer than an A2W system. That has value and is usually forgotten about when people are deciding what to put in. They are usually stretched on budget already and opt for the cheaper install. Its short sighted imo but needs must at times.

Also, the very time you need your heat pump to be efficient (very cold outside) is when an A2W system is running at its least efficient so you need to watch those COP figures that are quoted in their literature. Ground source is not effected in the same way.

air wrote: »

Personally if I was doing a new build I would focus on insulation and probably aim from somewhere between current regs and passive standards. A cheap 5kW oil burner and/or resistive heating for the rare occasions when supplementary heat would be required then.

Passive standard (or close to it) is the holy grail but if it was easy then all new houses would have it. I suspect it costs a fortune to do it?

air · 20-09-2019 12:09pm

I'm in almost total agreement with that all of that Kcross.

However the collector in a GSHP should last 100 years plus but the pump itself will still require replacement occasionally.

Obviously it should last a lot longer all things being equal as it's indoors and there are no fragile evaporators being battered by the elements.

Additional insulation is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things and by being pragmatic about the approach good results can be achieved relatively economically.

I will point out that the vast majority of houses being built now still don't meet building regulations from what I see on sites in terms of wall & roof build-up, foundation type etc.
They're much improved from 15 years ago at the same time at least.

Things like insulated foundations are only starting to be seen here now despite being a mature technology. They are cheaper than strip foundations with far superior thermal (& likely structural) performance.

You're correct on the efficiency of ASHP being worst when you need it most which is why I wouldn't fit one (in a new build) I'd build for passive performance down to about 5C and use a low capital cost backup system below that.

I still see very poor installation practices by contractors installing UFH too, pipe spaced too wide and no knowledge of proper pipe layouts.

20-09-2019 9:54pm

The heliotherm pumps are supposed to me one of the best in the world they got a good reputation in Germany I was told.

However a cop of 4:1 etc is meaningless if that's only down to what, maybe 10 Deg C ?

I say the heat pump heater in the Nissan Leaf, consumed little energy until about 5 deg C and from 3 and below the consumption increased considerably, granted, the HP is a car is much smaller but the principle is the same. Lower temp lower efficiency.

I appreciate the efficiency is probably better than it was 10 years ago and the overall quality improved but the problem in Ireland is getting quality installation as with everything here. Ireland is fully of dodgy trades people and this is a real issue no matter what you try to get done.

And if the installer goes out of business you're screwed consumer protection isn't worth a damn thing and consumer protection can't make the installer fix your HP, they can say they have to etc but they can't male them, if you have serious trouble with the company who installed it you're likely looking a going the legal route and where will that get you ?

High energy bills are usually , or so I was told due to the wrong Hp being installed for the job, either too large or too small.

I was told retrofit can indeed work with radiators with the heliotherm ground water pump which can heat to 50+ deg C and if you can get away with lower temp the efficiency can even surpass the quoted cop of 7:1.

Now my thinking about it is if I could get it installed and it consumes at least the same cost in electricity as oil which would be around 1200-1400 depending on oil costs I could live with this because the house would be warm 24x7 and I can add solar PV eventually.

Of course the cheapest thing to do is add insulation in the long rum but we need to upgrade the heating, replace rads , plumbing etc , the boiler is ok. If it were to cost 20 K for hp I wouldn't touch it at that price I would wait until the costs drop significantly. I realise I would not save a lot compared to oil but I would like not to have to use oil even though I know a lot of my electricity comes from Gas some from wind etc at least the more wind and solar we add to the grid can make heating very clean.

20 K for hp, give or take not a lot of saving per year to run and maybe 20 years life, that is a huge cost.

air · 21-09-2019 6:41am

Installation quality is far less of an issue for ASHPs as the units come as a mono block that only requires power plus flow and return pipes to be connected.
Still plenty of scope for a poor overall system design though of course.

There are cheap no name ASHP units sold on eBay UK that have s pretty solid reputation and are likely to perform reasonably close to the higher end units in reality for a fraction of the cost.

Retrofit with radiators is always going to be a challenge economically as without UFH you've no storage buffer that you can charge up cheaply with night rate electricity.
You could install a buffer tank instead but it won't have much thermal storage capacity in practice.

The difference between the max output of your heat pump and the minimum flow temperature you require will be too small.
You're going to be buying a majority of your electricity at peak rates.

UFH with tightly spaced pipes can provide heat with output flow temps in the mid 20s whereas radiators are going to require high 30s to low 40s typically.

I've read that a rule of thumb is that every degree of additional flow temperature costs you 1% in efficiency.

As a result of this (and a few other factors) I think domestic hot water from a (primary space heating) heat pump is a fools errand.

In a retrofit I'd run it through the boiler coil (on a stat when the tank is cooler than flow temps) but bring it up to final temp with an immersion or instant water heater.

If going down the PV + HP route you want it facing due South at a slope of at least 50 degrees slope to optimise for winter production.
You need a good site for this to be viable as shading is much more likely at low winter sun angles.
Even with an optimal PV installation it's not going to be a huge help for the average retrofit type house with no storage and a relatively high heat demand.

listermint · 21-09-2019 7:04am

Insulation can be extremely pricey. Going through a bit of an all the rage thing last 4 years.

If your house is anything other than a classic semi detached 2 story then it's money money money.

My quoted were coming in around 30k plus for detached bungalow circa 3000 sq ft. And the standard that I wanted was questionable.

Most fellas were not entertaining taking out Eve's and going to top of block also I wanted to go below ground around two block's. I wasn't happy with the quotes and wouldn't have been happy with the spec finish for that price.

So did it all myself and got a plasterer to finish. Cost total 12k. All materials , plasterer and my labour. 200mm EPS system.

Would I recommend it to everyone? No you have to be a prick for hard slog and be single minded to the completion destination. Very easy to want to not finish and get someone in. Was there over 20 k labour in what I did not a hope which is where the unhappiness in paying that comes from.

air · 21-09-2019 7:12am

Insulation is expensive to retrofit, it's all the labour as you say. The marginal cost of adding additional insulation in a new build is tiny in comparison though.
Your project sounds excellent and it would be great if you could share photos and /or further details, in a dedicated thread perhaps.

ednwireland · 21-09-2019 7:37am

listermint wrote: »

Insulation can be extremely pricey. Going through a bit of an all the rage thing last 4 years.

If your house is anything other than a classic semi detached 2 story then it's money money money.

try insulating a near 200 year old house with sea sand in the mortar :rolleyes:

had our upstairs ripped out to the rafters last year filled with insulation then insulated board, it has made a huge difference think it cost 6k in the end.

dont think external insulation on 2ft thick stone walls would do much

replacing a patio door that you could see daylight through top and bottom made a huge difference as well as getting a window fitter to check all the windows were closing properly as well.

listermint · 21-09-2019 7:40am

ednwireland wrote: »

try insulating a near 200 year old house with sea sand in the mortar :rolleyes:

had our upstairs ripped out to the rafters last year filled with insulation then insulated board, it has made a huge difference think it cost 6k in the end.

dont think external insulation on 2ft think stone walls would do much

Sure the 2ft would keep ya warm

Alf Veedersane · 21-09-2019 8:13am

BryanF wrote: »

How does the Embodied energy of a wood fueled boiler compare to a heat pump (factoring Irish poor design/BER and primary energy factor) has there been any peer reviewed studies?

Other than inner city urban areas, is timber ‘timber’ nox & Sox, worse than Irish power stations burning a mix of gas/oil/peat for elec generation, some of which runs heat pumps?

The issue with timber is the particulates as opposed to NOx or SOx. Solid fuel heating is the biggest source of particulates in Ireland and that creates a not insignificant air quality issue.

21-09-2019 9:39am

Yeah the country is a rip off, people out to ride as many people as they can for as much as they can.

I've no problem if the hp doesn't save me big money if it's not mad expensive to install and doesn't give a lot of problem, once the hp is the correct output for the job then it doesn't matter if your house isn't extremely well insulated.

As far as I'm aware it's better for the hp to be running more than cycling on and off like an oil or gas boiler.

I would not like underground heating in our climate, it's too changeable. Could be 4 degrees C at 6 am one morning and 15 the next. Not a hope, it would drive me nuts.

Once we get a fit then any exported energy in the Summer can be bought back to power the HP in winter, this is how the in-laws do this in Germany only they're feeding storage heaters and it works brilliantly.

If we can use the groundwater HP it would be much better than a A2W.

KCross · 21-09-2019 1:48pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I would not like underground heating in our climate, it's too changeable. Could be 4 degrees C at 6 am one morning and 15 the next. Not a hope, it would drive me nuts.

Can you explain your logic there because it makes no sense in relation to UFH.

HP's and UFH have weather compensating controls that maintain your house at a constant temp regardless of outside temp.

If it 4°C this morning and 10°C tomorrow morning your house will still be at 20°C (or whatever temp you decide). I think your impression is that the UFH is hot to touch like a rad... its not.... its running at less than body temp so not hot to touch.

Explain your logic anyway as I think you've got the wrong end of the stick in relation to HP's and UFH.

21-09-2019 11:11pm

KCross wrote: »

Can you explain your logic there because it makes no sense in relation to UFH.

HP's and UFH have weather compensating controls that maintain your house at a constant temp regardless of outside temp.

If it 4°C this morning and 10°C tomorrow morning your house will still be at 20°C (or whatever temp you decide). I think your impression is that the UFH is hot to touch like a rad... its not.... its running at less than body temp so not hot to touch.

Explain your logic anyway as I think you've got the wrong end of the stick in relation to HP's and UFH.

Can it really ? how can the floor stop releasing all that energy ? how can the heating know it will be 15 deg C the next day ?

KCross · 21-09-2019 11:33pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Can it really ? how can the floor stop releasing all that energy ? how can the heating know it will be 15 deg C the next day ?

The floor takes hours to heat up and cool down. There is an external thermometer that the HP monitors and it reacts to falling outdoor temps in advance so that by the time your house is getting cold the floor has been heated.

If tomorrow is warmer then it puts less heat into the floor. It’s tried and tested. The house stays at a relatively constant temp.

21-09-2019 11:44pm

KCross wrote: »

The floor takes hours to heat up and cool down. There is an external thermometer that the HP monitors and it reacts to falling outdoor temps in advance so that by the time your house is getting cold the floor has been heated.

If tomorrow is warmer then it puts less heat into the floor. It’s tried and tested. The house stays at a relatively constant temp.

Ok I believe you

n97 mini · 22-09-2019 8:22pm

Del2005 wrote: »

Every unit of renewable is currently backed up by a fossil fuel unit. So while they are buying renewable energy, and they have to buy it before fossil, there's no corresponding reduction in fossil fuel plants output as they have to maintain a spinning reserve to cover the unreliable renewables.

Gas fired power stations are load following, and extremely good at it. Their output is scaled down when there is less demand.

n97 mini · 22-09-2019 8:25pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Can it really ? how can the floor stop releasing all that energy ? how can the heating know it will be 15 deg C the next day ?

A buddy has UFH. The heat is normally off in the guest bedroom, but when someone is coming to stay he has to turn it on two days in advance

unkel · 22-09-2019 11:47pm

n97 mini wrote: »

A buddy has UFH. The heat is normally off in the guest bedroom, but when someone is coming to stay he has to turn it on two days in advance

All of the radiators in the bedrooms in my house are permanently switched off. Who needs heat in their bedroom? Apart from the kids studying at their desk is the only exception I can think of.

On very cold nights we keep the window closed in the master bedroom, but most nights it is open too. We do have the radiators on in the bathrooms first thing in the morning before we get up

theory · 27-09-2019 10:29pm

NIMAN wrote: »

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?

We have a 9Kw pellet stove that was bought from Italy on eBay. Spent about 800 on it, including delivery. It works a treat! We clean the ash residue out about once a week, and use about 4 bags a week (15Kg bag) when it's really cold. One downside was the hassle of finding a qualified installer. We finally found a polish builder who was familiar with pellet stoves. He ordered the flue from Poland. Altogether, the flue and installation cost around 450. The stove can be a bit loud, but it also puts out a serious amount of heat and the noise isn't terrible. I love that I fill it once a day and that it gives mad heat at the push of a button. When time comes to replace it, I'll opt for another pellet stove, but will spend more in order to get more programming features, like remote on/off, or an APP that controls the heat. If the noise is an issue for you, put it in another room. As for maintenance, ours ran perfectly all winter with no bother.

air · 28-09-2019 7:58am

Interesting post theory.
Can you share any further details on the stove? The brand, model, capacity and whether it a boiler stove or room heating only unit would be of interest.

28-09-2019 8:42am

theory wrote: »

We have a 9Kw pellet stove that was bought from Italy on eBay. Spent about 800 on it, including delivery. It works a treat! We clean the ash residue out about once a week, and use about 4 bags a week (15Kg bag) when it's really cold. One downside was the hassle of finding a qualified installer. We finally found a polish builder who was familiar with pellet stoves. He ordered the flue from Poland. Altogether, the flue and installation cost around 450. The stove can be a bit loud, but it also puts out a serious amount of heat and the noise isn't terrible. I love that I fill it once a day and that it gives mad heat at the push of a button. When time comes to replace it, I'll opt for another pellet stove, but will spend more in order to get more programming features, like remote on/off, or an APP that controls the heat. If the noise is an issue for you, put it in another room. As for maintenance, ours ran perfectly all winter with no bother.

Now that's what I like to hear, success on a budget , well done.

Can you post pics ? make/model ?

And where do you get the pellets, how much ? do you buy bulk or bags ?

sorry for all the questions.

shane b · 28-09-2019 8:49am

I'd guess what theory has is a room heating stove. At 9 kw I'd doudt if its a boiler version.
Reason I say this is that i own a 7kw wood pellet stove and it's for room heating. It's used as a back up to primary heating system. Our house is 2500 sq ft dormer bungalow so even 9kw wouldn't be big enough to heat the house.
It's handy to use as a quick boost or colder summer evenings when the main heating system is off.

Did wood pellet systems never catch on?

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