|
Wood chip or pellet boilers offer the warmth and comfort of wood heating while being highly efficient, clean burning and totally automatic, saving you time and money.
Chip or Pellet boilers are lit automatically and continue to operate without manual intervention. Automatic fuel supply and thermostat means you can relax and enjoy the comfort of chip/pellet heating at the switch of a button. Automatic ignition means that lighting the boiler is convenient and easy. The ash pan needs to be emptied bi-weekly, or less frequently, depending on boilers.
These systems must comprise the main heating system of the house and can be run on wood chips and/or wood pellets.
What is biomass?
Biomass is carbon based and is composed of a mixture of organic molecules containing hydrogen, usually including atoms of oxygen, often nitrogen and also small quantities of other atoms, including alkali, alkaline earth and heavy metals. These metals are often found in functional molecules such as the porphyries, which include chlorophyll, which contains magnesium
Bulk Fuel Storage:
All biomass boiler installations shall require the provision of bulk storage. Bulk storage capacity shall be able to store a minimum of 3 tonnes of wood pellets (80% of a typical houses’ requirement for one year).
Buffer Heat Store:
It is a recommendation that a buffer or accumulator tank be incorporated as part of domestic wood pellet / chip boiler system installations where appropriate. A buffer or accumulator cylinder in a domestic biomass heating installation is a primary heat storage/distribution cylinder, which is heated by the boiler to a set temperature and can store the resulting high temperature water for long system standstill periods, until heating or hot water is required. A buffer / accumulator reduces the on/off cycling of wood boilers by “smoothing” the heat output to the dwelling.
The use of a buffer / accumulator is noteworthy in the following situations:
- Where the boiler does not have full modulation capabilities: the use of a buffer will smooth the heat output to the dwelling.
- In situations where the boiler is not capable of supplying the full heat demand of the house, a buffer tank will allow the boiler to run for longer at optimum efficiency extracting maximum potential from the boiler and fuel.
The difference between biomass and fossil fuels?
The vital difference between biomass and fossil fuels is one of time scale.
Biomass takes carbon out of the atmosphere while it is growing, and returns it as it is burned. If it is managed on a sustainable basis, biomass is harvested as part of a constantly replenished crop. This is either during woodland or arboricultural management or coppicing or as part of a continuous programme of replanting with the new growth taking up CO2 from the atmosphere at the same time as it is released by combustion of the previous harvest.
This maintains a closed carbon cycle with no net increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. |
