Biomass boiler & solar thermal cut fuel bills by 1/3
| Client | Roy and Anne, Hall Barn, Nottinghamshire |
| We installed... | Grant Spira 9-36 Kw biomass boiler with a Grant Duo Wave tank, Honeywell wireless controller and Grant Sahara solar thermal panels. |
| Annual fuel saving | £1,088.76 (oil vs. pellets) |
| Annual RHI income | £4,750 |
Retired business owners Roy and Anne needed to replace their ageing oil thirsty boiler. Having already fitted a photovoltaic system to help with electricity costs, and in receipt of good tariff payments, they decided to look into the government tariffs connected to home heating. Realising that very generous payments were made for installing either a heat pump or wood fuelled boiler they contacted Lime-Circle for some free no obligation advice.
We carried out a detailed investigation into their requirements including an in-depth calculation of the heat loss in the building. Due to the age and stone construction of the barn conversion and its low insulation values, a heat pump system was ruled out. The property lent itself readily to a wood burning boiler installation, but the occupants were at first worried by the cleaning and loading aspect of this sort of boiler. However, when presented with the option of a wood pellet boiler which only requires the ash pan to be emptied once a year and has automated fuel loading, they decided this was the way forward – especially when we told them that, based on their current use, they’d receive government tariff payment in the region of £4,750 a year for 20 years…
Their biomass boiler more or less takes care of itself
The boiler itself was installed in an outhouse with a government installation grant of £950. The pipe work to feed the heating system was buried under the garden and discreetly enters the house. The boiler is controlled from the house and the internal system was re-zoned with wireless controllers giving total control to the owners. The fuel to the boiler is delivered once a year into a bulk hopper, which feeds the boiler automatically, the only engagement the owners have with the boiler and fuel is the checking of the wood pellets level once or twice a year.
Solar thermal panels part-heat their water, saving energy
Continuing on their quest to be less reliant on unpredictable fossil fuel prices, Roy and Anne decided to have two solar thermal panels installed to help heat their hot water. During the spring months, the panels have already heated the hot water tank to 45 degrees Celsius, which means the boiler only has to raise the temperature in the tank a further 10 degrees, rather than the usual 55 degrees that a system without solar thermal panels would demand. The solar thermal system comes with a government installation grant of £350 and a Feed in Tariff payment in the region of £500 per year -and, of course, results in obvious big savings on their bills