Pellet burners

We started using pellet burners here in Portugal some 10 years ago. We had a wood burner which not only didn’t throw enough heat out but made my husband ill as he has COPD and is prone to chest infections. The smoke really added to this. The pellet burner gives no smoke into the room therefore works really well for us. We have had three over the time. We have sold two and really didn’t make a loss on them as they have become more and more popular over here. We use A+++ pellets. I like to choose my pellets as the bags with high shine on the pellets and little dust are the best. Funnily enough, when driving through Spain, we passed a pellet bagging factory in the middle of nowhere just fields around.

I think they sound great! Like I say, two years too late for me though.

suppliers like this are all over the uk. I used only the equivalent of platinum enplus A1 pellets.

www.whitehorseenergy.co.uk/wood-pellets

oh yes they are electricity-dependent, same as all central heating systems. If there was no electricity then they would be an automatic safety cut off. These stoves can also be controlled from a remote app, I was never that clever. We did have a short power cut sometimes but the house was so well insulated that candles would do to keep a room warm enough

You do have to bear in mind the maintenance cost and finding someone qualified to do it. Our man was like gold, we had him do all the services and flue cleaning at the same time. You do have to take storage into account and lifting eg a 15kg bag started to feel a bit heavy for me at my age. Many power stations use pellets, especially in europe

gonegirl there is an auger, a screw, that lets in the trickle needed. Using a tonne a month means that the house is not well insulated and good insulation should come before attempting heat savings via a pellet stove. In fact good insulation is key to energy saving and less pollution generally

Yes gonegirl there is only a whiff of smoke at first automatic lighting on a cold morning in winter, the flue heats up very quickly and that is when efficiency becomes high. Each property owner where I lived used to have the same system and we would each get that tonne induring late summer and we would help each other. One tonne stored nicely on one pallet. I only ever got more bags if I needed them eg if heavy cold was forcast in late februsry, then I would go to the local farmers store and they would load up my boot for me. If the weather was going to be dire then I would store a reserve of bags inside the utility and hall, which would bring them up to temperature anyway

The 1.2 tonne I spoke about was used during 2010 and we all know what that winter was like. Last year I think I used 3/4 tonne if that

Perhaps this country is not really cold enough for long enough.

I've been reading about them and they do seem quite miraculous! Can't quite get my head round how the room temperature is controlled. I think it means only letting a small amount of pellets dribble through which would cause more smoke.

they need electricity to run so if you did have a power cut that would a disadvantage, but that's a small point.

I wonder why more people don't have them. Why does everyone opt for the woodburner? Can you have them in a smoke controlled area like you can a Cleanburn woodburner?

It's very interesting. Two years too late for me though!

Someone with a fairly recent-ish installation will be getting it removed and replaced - inconvenience of monthly pallet deliveries to inconvenient location, time and effort needed to manually move the monthly delivery into storage area, and daily need to move pellets from storage to area of use.

no cooliac, a multi fuel burner is just a fire in a box with only air controls.

A sophisticated pellet stove is bells and whistles, it produces heat output according to what is needed in each room. There are room thermostats and no room gets too hot. My pellet stove was installed in an eco house as part of an energy saving trust consultation.There are no incentives to install multi fuel stoves. You need to do your research

I won`t say any more now.

I am not aware what a multi fuel fire is?

At present I have a 13kw pellet burner just for heating. Gonegirl is correct, it gets extremely warm in the room so we keep doors open to heat the rest of the villa which it does quite effectively, we do not have central heating as gas is very expensive.

I am interested in this multi fuel burner and if the government gives incentives to install?

I believe pellets are also bought into the UK as per Namsnanny. I recall seeing a programme where an industry has grown in the northeast packaging pellets.

I did read the post re Izabella which is really alarming however, it appears out of sync with other thinking which says this is a green fuel.

just to clarify for you, the mcz 15 has a maximum output of 15kw and is variable from about 4kw depending on the heat requirement

Ah, multi-fuel. That makes a difference.

Sorry to intrude on your and Coolio's thread.

oh dear gonegirl, I actually know about these pellet burners, I have used one for quite a long time. I now have a very modern and expensive stovax multi fuel fire so am well qualified to compare the two. I empty my multifuel ashcan every time I re-fuel it and it simply belts out the heat for one room. The pellet stove heated the whole house plus all the water at a cost of around £320 a year and I had 420 pa back via rhi payments. The pellet stove was designed to cycle on and off in response to when heat was needed. My posts have been in reply to the question from coolioc

Have you read Izabellas link?

Empty the ash every week? ? our woodburner goes easily a month.

15 kw would be extremely hot in a living room. 5 is usually enough for your average sized room, and then you have to open a door.

A modern day Cleanburn woodburner is not a crude device.

oh yes namsnanny, there are dozens of pellet suppliers in the uk. Around £260 a tonne in bags. Its a nice clean fuel, its not a wood burner which is a crude device. The pellet burner is a completely different and sophisticated piece of engineering. There is a sensor in the stove which is constantly regulated resulting in lower consumption and lower emissions. So little ash is produced that they only need removing once a week

Specflue are the main stove suppliers
www.specflue.com/stoves-and-renewables/pellet_stoves/mcz/musa/

We had 15kw capacity, which was ample for our 4 bedroomed/3 reception house, bearing in mind that insulation was the best it could be as in triple glazing etc

Are there any British suppliers of pellets?

I thought they all came in from abroad.

I rarely light our wood burner these days. We had it installed two years ago because I have always fancied one but, to be honest it's so much easier to just switch on my electric convection heater. Just cba with fetching in logs anymore, and emptying the ash every six weeks or so.

I worry about emissions into the atmosphere too, and the link shows pellet burners are worse than wood burners.

We had one for 9 years, top of the range mcz musa hydro. It was extremely efficient. We bought bags of pellets, cheaper by the tonne on a pallet. Our home was energy efficient and 4 beds only took 1.20 tonnes a year, for both central heating and winter hot water. Pellets are easily obtainable, bag weight is 15kg although 10kg bags can be had

It is a extremely efficient method of heating, something over 90%. No fumes and only a small handful of ash at each clean. It works very well as an inclusive in eco systems ie solar hot water, AV electricity etc

I am now widowed and have moved to underfloor gas ch and in all honesty, the downside of pellets became the storage and the sheer weight of lifting each bag into the hopper in the stove. The stove was very automated with timers and programmers and very reliable. You need to get a specialist service once a year and the cost of that ranges upwards from £160, if you can find someone who is a specialist

I now have a log fire plus gas, definitely not as efficient as the musa but so much easier for me

Yes we have just had one installed. Much more convenient and easier to manage than our wood burner. It doesn't have a back boiler we use it for room heating only. We estimate it costs about 5 Euros per day although at the moment it doesn't go on until about 4pm.
Pellets are easily obtainable from supermarkets and DIY stores here in France.

woodsmokepollution.org/pellet-stoves.html