In the Beginning
The seeds of this project were sown at a local energy show in the summer of 2010. Concern at the rapidly increasing cost of LPG and the environmental impact of burning large amounts of the stuff annually led me into discussions with various exhibitors as to the merits of their systems.
Ground source looked to be a good solution but the impact on our garden would be quite severe so I ruled that out. With air source my concern was will it heat up the house when the air outside is -9 or below? What impact will there be on the surrounding air temperature? Will there be any saving if I have to use more electricity? There seemed to be no certainty about this.
It was easy to see how Biomass would work. Replace one source of fire with another. The potential for savings seemed good based on the cost of pellets against the cost of LPG at that time. The bonus was the possibility of Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments but i did not factor these into my calculations.
Biomass technology was becomming popular in Ireland and was already the well established in Scandinavia.
A quote was obtained from an installer and advice given regarding available grants and loans to be able to realise this. Application was made to Energy Saving Trust and a visit from an assessor was made to check suitability.
Getting Underway
Luckily we were able to qualify for a goverment grant and loan to fund the entire project. The job had to be installed and commisioned by 25th March 2011 to be able to take advantage of this.
After a major issue with the original contractor and with a lot of help from FDT we were able to start the ball rolling late February 2011 with the deadline looming fast. The original heating system was an ageing LPG boiler feeding radiators in the house. The plan was to replace this with a wood pellet boiler located in the garage with a hopper feeding pellets automatically to the burner unit. The hopper would be topped up from bagged pellets. It was relatively simple to connect into the existing system via a trench from the garage to the house.
After a couple of nervous weeks when not a lot seemed to be happening the project was completed on the 25th March just in time for the deadline.
