General Plumbing • Solar Installations • Renewable Energy • Gas Servicing • Bathroom Installations • Heating & Hot Water Installations • Underfloor HeatingHeat and hot water from wood fuelled stoves and boilers:
Wood fuelled heating systems generally burn wood pellets, chips or logs to power central heating and hot water boilers or to provide warmth in a single room.
- How do wood fuelled heating systems work?
- The benefits of wood fuel heating
- Is a wood fuelled heating system suitable for my home?
- Costs and savings
- Find out more
How do wood fuelled heating systems work?
There are two main ways of using wood to heat you home:
- A standalone stove burning logs or pellets to heat a single room. Some can also be fitted with a back boiler to provide water heating as well.
Log burning stoves and boilers have to be filled with wood by hand. Some pellet and chip burners use automatic fuel feeders which refill them at regular intervals from fuel storage units called hoppers.
A biomass boiler could save you around £470 a year on heating bills.The benefits of wood fuel heating
- A carbon neutral option: although burning wood releases CO2, it is the same amount as was absorbed while the wood was growing. If a new tree is planted for each one burned, there are no overall carbon emissions.
- A good use for waste wood: burning wood can be a convenient means of disposing of waste that might otherwise be sent to a landfill site.
Is a wood fuelled heating system suitable for my home?
To tell if wood fuelled heating is right for you, there are a few key questions to consider:
- Do you have enough space? You'll need a large dry area close to the boiler to store your wood. Ideally this should be close to where the wood is delivered to your home to minimise the distance you have to carry it.
- Do you have a suitable flue? You need a vent which is specifically designed for wood fuel appliances, with sufficient air movement for proper operation of the stove. Your existing chimney can be fitted with a lined flue, which is relatively inexpensive.
- Can you comply with safety and building regulations? If you live in an old or unusual home this may be an issue. For more information, see Part L of the Building Regulations
- Do you need planning permission? You need to talk to your local authority if your flue will extend 1m or more above the height of your roof, or your home is in a Conservation Area or World Heritage Site and you plan to install a flue on the principal elevation visible from a road.
Savings in CO2 emissions are significant - up to 9.6 tonnes per year when a wood boiler replaces a solid fuel heating system.
Fuel savings are less significant, and if you replace a gas heating system with a wood burning system you may end up paying more for your fuel. But if you replace electricity you could save around £470 per year.
Wood costs often depend on the distance from your home to a wood supplier and whether you can buy and store wood in large quantities. If you have your own supply of wood fuel then this can significantly reduce your costs.
For a list of wood fuel suppliers in your area, visit the log pile website
To reduce your home's CO2 emissions further, consider installing solar electricity or some other form of renewable electricity generating system.
Ground Source Heat Pump
Heat water for your home with pipes buried in the garden.Ground source heat pumps use pipes buried in the garden to extract heat from the ground. This is usually used to warm water for radiators or underfloor heating systems. It can also be used to pre-heat water before it goes into a more conventional boiler.
Beneath the surface, the ground stays at a constant temperature, so a ground source heat pump can be used throughout the year - even in the middle of winter.
How does a ground source heat pump work?
A ground source heat pump circulates a mixture of water and antifreeze around a loop of pipe - called a ground loop -, which is buried in the garden. When the liquid travels around the loop it absorbs heat from the ground - used to heat radiators, underfloor heating systems and even hot water.
The length of the ground loop depends on the size of your home and the amount of heat you need - longer loops can draw more heat from the ground. Normally the loop is laid flat, or coiled in trenches about two metres deep, but if there is not enough space in your garden you can install a vertical loop to a depth of up to 100 metres.
The efficiency of a ground source heat pump is measured by a coefficient of performance (CoP) - the amount of heat it produces compared to the amount of electricity needed to run it. A typical CoP for a ground source heat pump is around 4-4.5 without any reductions for the type of distribution system.
The benefits of ground source heat pumps
Reduce your CO2 emissions: on average a ground source heat pump could save around 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year when replacing an oil boiler.
Eliminate your fuel bills: ground source heat pumps run on electricity, so there's no need to pay for gas, oil or solid fuels to heat your home.
Cut down on wasted electricity: heating your home with a ground source heat pump is much more efficient than using electric radiators.
Is a ground source heat pump suitable for my home? To tell if a ground source heat pump is right for you, there are a few key questions to consider:
Is your garden suitable for a ground loop? It doesn't have to be particularly large, but the ground needs to be suitable for digging a trench or a borehole and accessible to digging machinery.
Is your home well insulated? Since ground source heat pumps produce a lower temperature heat than traditional boilers, it's essential that your home is insulated and draught proofed well for the heating system to be effective. It could also make the system cheaper and smaller.
What fuel will you be replacing? If you're replacing an electric, oil, Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) or coal heating system, a ground source heating system will pay for itself quite quickly. If you're replacing a new, more efficient heating system, your savings will be smaller.
What type of heating system do you want? Underfloor heating systems or warm air heating will work much better than radiator-based systems.
Is the system intended for a new development? Combining the installation with other building work can reduce the cost of installing the system.
Savings can be considerable - up to 1.8 tonnes of CO2 and £750 if you're replacing an oil-fired central heating system.
To reduce your home's CO2 emissions further, consider installing solar electricity or some other form of renewable electricity generating system to power the compressor and pump.
Fuel Displaced
£ Saving per year
CO2 saving per year
Gas
£410
1.2 tonnes
Electricity
£1000
7 tonnes
Oil
£750
1.8 tonnes
Solid
£350
6.5 tonnes
Savings above assume ground source heat pump installed in a detached property which provides 100% of space heating and up to 50% of domestic hot water, the additional 50% is met through an electric heater.
Air and water source heat pumps
These systems use similar principles to ground source heat pumps to extract heat from air or water instead of the ground.Air Source Heat Pump
Heat your home with energy absorbed from the air around you.
Air source heat pumps absorb heat from the outside air. This heat can then be used to warm water for radiators or underfloor heating systems, or to warm the air in your home.
How do air source heat pumps work?
An air source heat pump extracts heat from the outside air in the same way that a fridge extracts heat from its inside. It can extract heat from the air even when the outside temperature is as low as minus 15° C.There are two main types:
An air-to-water system uses the heat to warm water. Heat pumps heat water to a lower temperature than a standard boiler system would, so they are more suitable for underfloor heating systems than radiator systems.
An air-to-air system produces warm air which is circulated by fans to heat your home. The efficiency of air source heat pump systems is measured by a coefficient of performance (CoP) - the amount of heat they produce compared to the amount of electricity needed to run them. A typical CoP for an air source heat pump is around 2.5.
The benefits of air source heat pumps;
Reduce your fuel bills: air source heat pumps run on electricity, so there's no need to pay for gas, oil or solid fuels to heat your home.
Cut down on wasted electricity: heating your home with an air source heat pump is much more efficient than using electric radiators.
Save space: an air source heat pump system is compact, and requires no storage space for fuel.Is an air source heat pump suitable for my home?
To tell if an air source heat pump is right for you, there are a few key questions to consider:Do you have somewhere to put it? You'll need a place outside your house where a unit can be fitted to a wall or placed on the ground. It will need plenty of space around it to get a good flow of air.
Is your home well insulated? Since air source heat pumps produce less heat than traditional boilers, it's essential that your home is insulated and draught proofed well for the heating system to be effective.
What fuel will you be replacing? The system will pay for itself much more quickly if it's replacing an electricity, Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) or coal heating system than a gas one.
What type of heating system do you want? Air source heat pumps are much better at powering underfloor heating systems or warm air heating than radiator-based systems.
Is the system intended for a new development? Combining the installation with other building work can reduce the cost of installing the system.
Savings can be considerable - up to 6 tonnes of CO2 and £870 per year for a system that replaces an electric heating system.
Fuel Displaced
£ Saving per year
CO2 saving per year
Gas
£300
830 kg
Electricity
£870
6 tonnes
Oil
£580
1.3 tonnes
Solid
£280
5 tonnes
All savings are approximate and are based on an air source heat pump providing 100% of space heating in a detached property.
To reduce your home's CO2 emissions further, consider installing solar electricity or some other form of renewable electricity generating system to power the compressor and pump.
At Barry Framptons we are trained in the Daikin Altherma air source heat pump
What is Daikin Altherma?
Daikin Altherma is an air source heat pump. It provides a year round complete solution to home heating & hot water and is a cost effective alternative to a fossil fuel boiler.
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