# replacing  pellet boiler with more efficient system - need advice



## gerwalsh66 (22 Nov 2013)

We installed a wood pellet boiler system in our newly renovated home in 2005. We have under-floor heating down stairs and radiators upstairs. (The house is approx. 100 years old) with thick stone walls throughout. The external walls upstairs have been dry- lined with insulated board. From the start, the wood pellet boiler has proven uneconomical.(900 euro for 3 -4 months of pellets), not to mention the hard labour involved. It has come to the point now that the pellets keep clogging the Augier and it constantly shuts down. We are at our wits end and need to put in a system that will be more efficient and cost effective and a lot less labour intensive. Could someone please advise as we honestly do not know what to do.


----------



## Dirac (22 Nov 2013)

Hi
I'm going on my own experience here of our house which is a new build might not be relevant to you, but we have UFH down and rads upstairs. 
Started with oil and again it was very costly to run as UFH only works semi-efficiently when it is on all the time and controlled by room stats. No point at all having it on in the morning and evening as you would with rads.
Anyways, we added a boiler stove into the system last winter and it has saved us a fortune in oil while also adding a nice feature in the lounge.
Mind you it is messy and needs to be cleaned out regularly. Advice would be to get several plumbers in, explain the issues and see what advice they come up with and go from there


----------



## gerwalsh66 (22 Nov 2013)

Thanks, we'll do that. Anyone else have any suggestions?


----------



## gerwalsh66 (23 Nov 2013)

Ok, so i have spoken to two plumbers - one saying to go with a second hand traditional oil boiler and see how it goes regarding burning oil with the underfloor heating which will get us through this winter and then think about it when the season over. The other guy recommends ignoring the underfloor and installing rads downstairs. He didn't specify whether we would be better going for a traditional boiler or condenser. Anybody have any suggestions or advice on what would be the most cost-effective and efficient way to improve our current system? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.


----------



## Optimistic (23 Nov 2013)

*Re. Pellet boiler*

This is so disappointing. We have a pellet boiler, Windhager, fully automated, no work on our behalf, just empty the ash once a year, and have been very, very happy with it since it was installed and commissioned 6 years ago. The only problem was an ignition lighter, once. I know my brother who has the same pellet boiler did have burning/combustion difficulties where the burning pot filled up with clinker (think this is the name for part burned pellets) when he got pellets from one company. I have always used Balcas and have never had any problems. This sounds like the problem with the auger blocking, poor quality pellets. Just a thought.

Can you or are you happy to say what make of pellet boiler you have? Our house is 2300 sq feet, there is someone in the house 24/7 so heating is never left drop during the day and it takes 3.5 ton per year to heat our house incl hot water. I am happy with this.

Have you any come back on the guy who sold/fitted the pellet boiler initially.This is so disappointing, when pellets are economical and efficient in our experience.



gerwalsh66 said:


> We installed a wood pellet boiler system in our newly renovated home in 2005. We have under-floor heating down stairs and radiators upstairs. (The house is approx. 100 years old) with thick stone walls throughout. The external walls upstairs have been dry- lined with insulated board. From the start, the wood pellet boiler has proven uneconomical.(900 euro for 3 -4 months of pellets), not to mention the hard labour involved. It has come to the point now that the pellets keep clogging the Augier and it constantly shuts down. We are at our wits end and need to put in a system that will be more efficient and cost effective and a lot less labour intensive. Could someone please advise as we honestly do not know what to do.


----------



## lowCO2design (24 Nov 2013)

gerwalsh66 said:


> We installed a wood pellet boiler system in our newly renovated home in 2005. We have under-floor heating down stairs and radiators upstairs. (The house is approx. 100 years old) with thick stone walls throughout. The external walls upstairs have been dry- lined with insulated board. From the start, the wood pellet boiler has proven uneconomical.(900 euro for 3 -4 months of pellets), not to mention the hard labour involved.
> It has come to the point now that the pellets keep clogging the Augier and it constantly shuts down. We are at our wits end and
> need to put in a system that will be more efficient and cost effective and a lot less labour intensive. Could someone please advise as we honestly do not know what to do.




if you installed ufh with 05 insulation standards, into a  100 year old house then that may well be the reason the pellet boiler is uneconomical. ufh need copious amounts of insulation to work efficiently, and wall insulation, including overlapping slab edge insulation
are the pellets kept in a dry storage space? is there any chance that the floor /walls/ roof are letting in moisture through lack of damp proof course etc? is the space where the pellets are kept adequately ventilated? have you gotten it serviced by the person who supplied it or at least knows what they are looking at?
i dont think oil, gas, solar or the various heat pumps with offer you better cost or efficiency (without assessing the above) but they will be less laborious.



> i have spoken to two plumbers -
> 
> 
> one saying to go with a second hand  traditional oil boiler and see how it goes regarding burning oil with  the underfloor heating which will get us through this winter and then  think about it when the season over.
> ...



if its a solution to see you through the winter, then the cost of sticking with pellets v temporary 'second hand' oil boiler + oil: id stick with the pellets and see if you can alter the storage area to keep them dryer and fix the auger situation.
It may be better way of delivering heat to your rooms. id consider getting a heat loss survey (thermal imaging) to see how bad the houses heat loss is.
condenser v traditional? id dont get your meaning here? your decision on the oil/gas is dictated by whether you go with the rads imo (or expect the bills to still be at least the same as they are now)
get a heat loss survey - to decide whether the building fabric is efficient at retaining the ufh's heat, and get a heating engineer (not a plumber) to decide if the ufh (and pellet boiler) are delivering heat efficiently & cost effectively


----------



## Dawn Run (25 Nov 2013)

Installing an oil boiler etc. as a temporary solution would not, in my opinion, be cost effective. Bear in mind that you'll also need an oil tank plus oil etc., I guess the total including labour would be €1,800 + . It would be adviseable to get your pellet boiler sorted for now. €800 worth of pellets should go a long way.
In the longer term I would suggest replacing UFH with rads. and installing a solid fuel stove with boiler (you will need open vent system) I assume that a house that old has a least one chimmney, this my need to be re lined for stove. The stove will heat the kitchen area plus the rads. to a certain point and it's supposed to be great for cooking ...so you'll save on gas/electricity
As a back up to the stove I'd advice a Firebird oil boiler or similar, don't buy secondhand, go for the newer condensing models. Your total annual fuel cost should drop 40%


----------



## gerwalsh66 (25 Nov 2013)

Thanks for your replies. That has been very helpful. We are feeling a bit desperate so inclined to look for a quick fix but that's not the appropriate action either. Yes, Optimistic, We are so disappointed. 

We invested in this system before the grants became available as we thought we were choosing a cost effective and green energy option. It's been anything but!!!! The only thing is though that reading your replies has given me some hope that perhaps we might be able to rectify our system instead of throwing it out!! We have a Viadrus 24kw boiler(cost 6,000) It's our second one (first one was Tattiano kalorina- cost 9,500Euro) and both have been troublesome. 

Our storage is hand-made and inside the garage (cavity block) and we also buy from balcas and have from the start. I think the storage is ok, i know we asked balcas to take a look at it in the past and they said it's alright. pellets look fine when they come out of the storage facility - problem seems to be the actual boiler as the auger keeps blocking. 

Re the house, i think it's a great idea to get a heat engineer to do an analysis. We're in rural mayo/galway though so wonder if anyone could recommend someone? Also is there anyone out there who knows anything about Viadrus boilers? The company we bought off went bust so we're in limbo land. Our local plumber is great, just not familiar with wood pellet boilers so it's hard tofind a solution. Thanks in advance for your help.


----------



## Leo (26 Nov 2013)

I've split your post into paragraphs to make it easier to read.



gerwalsh66 said:


> We're in rural mayo/galway though so wonder if anyone could recommend someone?



Please use [FONT=&quot]the Recommend tradesmen and suppliers forum to seek recommendations.[/FONT]



gerwalsh66 said:


> Our local plumber is great, just not familiar with wood pellet boilers so it's hard tofind a solution. Thanks in advance for your help.



Maybe you'd be better off looking for an expert in wood pellet here? The solution might be obvious to someone in the know.


----------



## john martin (26 Nov 2013)

Grant boilers based in Offaly make a new pellet boiler and say a lot of the pellet issues have been resolved from the early days of their  introduction. It might be worthwhile speaking to one of their engineers even though it is not one of their units. They are quite helpful.


----------



## villa 1 (27 Nov 2013)

lowCO2design said:


> if you installed ufh with 05 insulation standards, into a  100 year old house then that may well be the reason the pellet boiler is uneconomical. ufh need copious amounts of insulation to work efficiently, and wall insulation, including overlapping slab edge insulation
> are the pellets kept in a dry storage space? is there any chance that the floor /walls/ roof are letting in moisture through lack of damp proof course etc? is the space where the pellets are kept adequately ventilated? have you gotten it serviced by the person who supplied it or at least knows what they are looking at?
> i dont think oil, gas, solar or the various heat pumps with offer you better cost or efficiency (without assessing the above) but they will be less laborious.
> 
> ...


Is there such a a person as a heating engineer in this country? To the best of my knowledge there is no course available in a college/university in this country that provides programs for the training of "Heating Engineers". A experienced suitably qualified plumbing/heating contractor should be well up to speed on heating system design and components


----------



## john martin (27 Nov 2013)

The engineers in Grants design and manufacture the boilers. They are well qualified in these units. (I have no connection to them)


----------



## lowCO2design (27 Nov 2013)

villa 1 said:


> Is there such a a person as a heating engineer in this country?


 heating engineer


----------



## villa 1 (27 Nov 2013)

Having been involved in building/mechanical services education for the past 30 years I can definitely say that building service graduates/engineers would have little or no experience of domestic heating systems. It simply is not on the schedule of training whilst they are in college. Plumbing apprentices are given the appropriate training whilst serving their apprenticeship whether it be on the job or off it. Just my thoughts!!


----------



## lowCO2design (27 Nov 2013)

villa 1 said:


> Having been involved in building/mechanical services education for the past 30 years I can definitely say that building service graduates/engineers would have little or no experience of domestic heating systems. It simply is not on the schedule of training whilst they are in college. Plumbing apprentices are given the appropriate training whilst serving their apprenticeship whether it be on the job or off it. Just my thoughts!!


i wouldn't employ anyone out of college that I wasn't directly supervising. 

my personnel experience is that many plumbers are 


not update with the more complicated systems and their general integration with renewable technologies.
the last house I worked on the plumber did not pass the seai grant audit! (btw on the same house - a SVP/ARV was forgotten!)
ive inspected plenty of homes where the wrong boiler systems were installed with (for example) UFH or solar systems were not connected correctly
i find plumbers are either still using a 90's rule thumb calc for sizing rads & boilers OR the opposite extreme - because they've Qualified as a BER assessor feel comfortable to tell the client not to bother with a stove back-boiler because on paper the house is a B1 and 'they wont use it' or  'its not need to comply with the regs' (when the provisional BER states it does!)
none of the above are isolate instances And i do appreciate im generalising (and definitely ranting)


 in fairness to the trade, these types of issues are widespread across the construction industry and are caused by a host of reasons including the client taking the cheapest price and us specifiers not knowing what were looking at - ultimately more specialised heating engineers are available and i know my clients have benefited from their expertise.

for example if there is an UFH problem I contact a specialist, if theres a heat-pump not working I'll contact a different specialist, 

if a boiler isn't working then ill call a plumber. 
when it comes to designing a solar system + back boiler heating a thermal store, I wouldn't leave your general plumber design it or sign-off on it unless id worked with s/he previously an knew they were capable.


----------

