Plans for permanent living at what was originally purchased as the retreat are now in full swing. We’re in the process of completing on the sale of our city apartment, and for the first time in the many hundreds of years that its withstood the elements, our little dwelling is about to get central heating.
After much weighing up of our requirements, not least for grid-down power independence, we have at last found a solution. It’s a 25Kw solid-fuel and bio-mass boiler with an appetite for diverse fuel sources. It can auto feed wood pellets, pea coal and raw coal, but will take manually fed logs and bulk coal as well. Its quite efficient, with certified efficiency of greater than 90%. Of course all this capability is derived from electric controls, and therein lies its achillies heel. Being able to manually feed it overcomes part of this, but there are still the pumps to circulate water around the radiator circuit. (
https://issuu.com/bio-nordic/docs/produc...2_25#embed )
So, of course we’ll be keeping the existing pair of multi-fuel stoves that have looked after us so well during the extended bug-in trial that we are just completing. These are very frugal fuel wise and run happily on locally harvested soft wood, of which we have a growing stock-pile. Coal will be the main fuel for the new boiler, so if there is any disruption to its supply and availability (or excessive taxing) the old stoves will be our fall-back.
Actually not only the fall-back as we’ve come to enjoy the different quality of heat the stoves radiate, ( high temperature IR) and even more so to enjoy food cooked on them, which we are convinced has a different taste to meals coked in the conventional kitchen.
We think we’re making a sensible choice. Is there anyone else on here who is living with a boiler like this who could share experience and advice with us?
Search
Calendar
Help
