Farmers with good supplies of fresh or waste timber on their land should definitely consider a timber boiler, be it a small stove in the house or a larger-scale model.
I recently visited Terence O’Connor in Castleisland, Co Kerry, who specialises in importing solid fuel boilers. He sells them direct to customers nationwide ready for a plumber to install in existing or new systems.
Terence showed me a Lekea-Dantrim boiler he installed in a house in Kerry. The owner of the house is a builder and had access to good quantities of waste timber. The owner decided to install a solid fuel boiler because he was using a lot of oil every day to heat the 30 radiators in his large home. He rarely uses the oil boiler now to heat his home.
Picture One
This is the large-scale 48kW boiler installed. The combustion chamber is made of 8mm steel plate. There are 10 inches of insulation on the rear and sides of the boiler.
The owner added extra fibreglass insulation to the front of the boiler to further reduce the amount of heat escaping. It is a considerable size, measuring 1.7x1.1x1.7m and is housed in a shed. The boiler can take timber, turf, straw and other solid fuels.
Pictures two and three
The owner usually burns waste timber from building sites and logs from fallen trees. He built this shed especially for storing the boiler and timber.
Terence says the key to burning timber is making sure the moisture levels are below 20%. “There is no point trying to burn water – if the timber is too wet, a tar will develop on the chamber walls and heat transfer will be reduced.”
The shed pictured is ideal for storing timber because not only is the lumber covered, it also has a chance to dry out because the gaps in the wall cladding allow air in. Terence says the way the timber is stacked also promotes drying allowing air to circulate.
The chimney outside is insulated and is 5m high.
According to Terence, a good chimney is crucial for the boiler to work efficiently.
“If the chimney isn’t insulated or if it is not high enough, the draft will not be sufficient for the system to work correctly,” he says. The main signs that the chimney isn’t working well are evidence of a big quantities of tar build-up at the top of the chimney stack or smoke around the house.
Pictures four and five
Usually, during the winter months, the owner starts the fire at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The boiler takes timber up to a metre in length and because of its size it can accommodate awkward cuts.
To start the fire from cold, the boiler is filled with timber to just under a quarter of the way up (see picture four). If the boiler is over-filled, it will get too hot and hot water will just be wasted in expansion tanks.
The fire is started with matches, paper and firelighters, just as you would start an ordinary fire, and it takes approximately one hour for the radiators to heat up once it is switched on.
The special biometal control (picture five) regulates the amount of air entering the boiler. As the fire takes off and the temperature increases, the damper closes. When the boiler reaches a temperature of 80°c, it closes off fully.
With this amount of timber added at the start, there is usually no need to add any more until 8 o’clock in the evening (four hours later). There is 750 litres of hot water storage capacity in the boiler, so when the fire goes out this hot water maintains heat in the radiators until evening time the next day.
Terence says fuel consumption varies and it really depends on the size of the house and the amount of radiators that are feeding off it. Once a week, the ashes are taken out of the chamber and a special brush is used to clean out the smoke channels.
Figure 1: How it works
Cold water flows into the boiler from the 80-gallon tank as required.The timber burning in the boiler chamber heats the water and it is pumped to the heat exchanger at a temperature of 80°c to 85°c. The idea behind the heat exchanger is that hot water from the boiler never comes in direct contact with the water going to the radiators, which can slow down heat build-up dramatically. The loop also means when the fire gets going the hot water is being injected back to the boiler straight away at a high temperature, allowing the heat to build up far quicker. The water returns to the boiler at a temperature of 75°c to be heated again. The fact that there is only a 10°c difference between the heat at the top and bottom helps the longevity of the boiler.Heat is transferred to the radiator pipes in the exchanger through a series of small conductive plates. The four-way mixing valve means the temperature of the water is being regulated at whatever temperature the household requires and there is less hot water being drawn off from the start. Cost
The Lekea-Dantrim boiler with a 15-year gaurantee cost €6,000. The insulated 5m high chimney cost €1,500, pipe work and mixing valves came in at €2,000, and the plumber charged €1,000 to install the boiler in combination with the existing oil system. All prices exclude VAT. It doesn’t require servicing once installed.
Terence says if the homeowner was depending on oil, he would spend approximatively €1,500 a year heating his home. He says the payback period is very much dependent on the oil price – the higher the oil price, the quicker the payback period.
The fact that he has access to free fuel in terms of waste timber makes having a large scale timber boiler an attractive option for him. Terence’s main customers for these larger boilers are farmers with homes of 2,500 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft.
Farmers with good supplies of fresh or waste timber on their land should definitely consider a timber boiler, be it a small stove in the house or a larger-scale model.
I recently visited Terence O’Connor in Castleisland, Co Kerry, who specialises in importing solid fuel boilers. He sells them direct to customers nationwide ready for a plumber to install in existing or new systems.
Terence showed me a Lekea-Dantrim boiler he installed in a house in Kerry. The owner of the house is a builder and had access to good quantities of waste timber. The owner decided to install a solid fuel boiler because he was using a lot of oil every day to heat the 30 radiators in his large home. He rarely uses the oil boiler now to heat his home.
Picture One
This is the large-scale 48kW boiler installed. The combustion chamber is made of 8mm steel plate. There are 10 inches of insulation on the rear and sides of the boiler.
The owner added extra fibreglass insulation to the front of the boiler to further reduce the amount of heat escaping. It is a considerable size, measuring 1.7x1.1x1.7m and is housed in a shed. The boiler can take timber, turf, straw and other solid fuels.
Pictures two and three
The owner usually burns waste timber from building sites and logs from fallen trees. He built this shed especially for storing the boiler and timber.
Terence says the key to burning timber is making sure the moisture levels are below 20%. “There is no point trying to burn water – if the timber is too wet, a tar will develop on the chamber walls and heat transfer will be reduced.”
The shed pictured is ideal for storing timber because not only is the lumber covered, it also has a chance to dry out because the gaps in the wall cladding allow air in. Terence says the way the timber is stacked also promotes drying allowing air to circulate.
The chimney outside is insulated and is 5m high.
According to Terence, a good chimney is crucial for the boiler to work efficiently.
“If the chimney isn’t insulated or if it is not high enough, the draft will not be sufficient for the system to work correctly,” he says. The main signs that the chimney isn’t working well are evidence of a big quantities of tar build-up at the top of the chimney stack or smoke around the house.
Pictures four and five
Usually, during the winter months, the owner starts the fire at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The boiler takes timber up to a metre in length and because of its size it can accommodate awkward cuts.
To start the fire from cold, the boiler is filled with timber to just under a quarter of the way up (see picture four). If the boiler is over-filled, it will get too hot and hot water will just be wasted in expansion tanks.
The fire is started with matches, paper and firelighters, just as you would start an ordinary fire, and it takes approximately one hour for the radiators to heat up once it is switched on.
The special biometal control (picture five) regulates the amount of air entering the boiler. As the fire takes off and the temperature increases, the damper closes. When the boiler reaches a temperature of 80°c, it closes off fully.
With this amount of timber added at the start, there is usually no need to add any more until 8 o’clock in the evening (four hours later). There is 750 litres of hot water storage capacity in the boiler, so when the fire goes out this hot water maintains heat in the radiators until evening time the next day.
Terence says fuel consumption varies and it really depends on the size of the house and the amount of radiators that are feeding off it. Once a week, the ashes are taken out of the chamber and a special brush is used to clean out the smoke channels.
Figure 1: How it works
Cold water flows into the boiler from the 80-gallon tank as required.The timber burning in the boiler chamber heats the water and it is pumped to the heat exchanger at a temperature of 80°c to 85°c. The idea behind the heat exchanger is that hot water from the boiler never comes in direct contact with the water going to the radiators, which can slow down heat build-up dramatically. The loop also means when the fire gets going the hot water is being injected back to the boiler straight away at a high temperature, allowing the heat to build up far quicker. The water returns to the boiler at a temperature of 75°c to be heated again. The fact that there is only a 10°c difference between the heat at the top and bottom helps the longevity of the boiler.Heat is transferred to the radiator pipes in the exchanger through a series of small conductive plates. The four-way mixing valve means the temperature of the water is being regulated at whatever temperature the household requires and there is less hot water being drawn off from the start. Cost
The Lekea-Dantrim boiler with a 15-year gaurantee cost €6,000. The insulated 5m high chimney cost €1,500, pipe work and mixing valves came in at €2,000, and the plumber charged €1,000 to install the boiler in combination with the existing oil system. All prices exclude VAT. It doesn’t require servicing once installed.
Terence says if the homeowner was depending on oil, he would spend approximatively €1,500 a year heating his home. He says the payback period is very much dependent on the oil price – the higher the oil price, the quicker the payback period.
The fact that he has access to free fuel in terms of waste timber makes having a large scale timber boiler an attractive option for him. Terence’s main customers for these larger boilers are farmers with homes of 2,500 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft.
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