The Lemon Fool

Hi all,

I have natural gas for heating and domestic hot water, a gas fire and gas cooker. The only things electric are the various pumps, motors, lighting and fridges. The main boiler (which is a floor-standing unit in the cellar) will need replacing soon. I have researched and decided against ASHP and am now mulling over replacing the gas boiler with a (cellar-based) pellet burner and separate sizeable feed-hopper. This could (as the gas boiler is currently plumbed to) also heat the domestic tank, or I could replace that with an electric immersion heater unit. With the gas fire remaining in situ, that would give me the “redundancy” of three different systems.

What does the panel think?

GrahamPlatt wrote:...am now mulling over replacing the gas boiler with a (cellar-based) pellet burner and separate sizeable feed-hopper.

A merit of the pellet burner is that it chucks off a lot of heat, and heats the room in which its situate. But not in your case.

Why does the gas boiler need replacing? If it's working, it will surely continue to do so indefinitely? I appreciate that modern boilers are overly complex and have (unnecessary) electronics to go wrong, but??

The pellet stove will need weekly attention. The gas boiler needs... nothing.
I would stick with gas.
It's not going to vanish.
Keep it simple.

V8

This is a typical " I read it on the Internet somewhere." comment.

Actually I think the source was the "Green Building Forum".

My mangulated paraphrase . . . . . .
>> There's trend to have these removed & replaced with other types of heating, by the users, due to a significant problem with getting replacement parts when things break down . . . and because there are a lot of mechanical components they tend to break down "quite a lot". <<

I hope that your research can reveal a more positive outlook for pellet stoves.

malakoffee wrote:This is a typical " I read it on the Internet somewhere." comment.

Actually I think the source was the "Green Building Forum".

My mangulated paraphrase . . . . . .
>> There's trend to have these removed & replaced with other types of heating, by the users, due to a significant problem with getting replacement parts when things break down . . . and because there are a lot of mechanical components they tend to break down "quite a lot". <<

I hope that your research can reveal a more positive outlook for pellet stoves.

Oh that old chestnut.

I make a very comfortable living from mending gas boilers between 15 and 35 years old and although there is the odd problem with parts, by and large most commonly failing parts can be still be bought over the counter in the local boiler spares merchant.

The fairy tale about 'parts are hard to get for this one luv" is more often than not, just that. A fairy tale made up to suit the interests of the person telling you. I cannot believe how many people fall for it!

If the idea is to be green, you could buy the pellets and bury them in a big hole in your garden and then continue with gas. That is just as 'sustainable'

Come to think of it that is what Drax should do. Just pay the yanks to bury all the wood chippings at source and avoid the cost and CO2 of shipping them all across the Atlantic. Then burn gas here

scrumpyjack wrote:If the idea is to be green, you could buy the pellets and bury them in a big hole in your garden and then continue with gas. That is just as 'sustainable'

Come to think of it that is what Drax should do. Just pay the yanks to bury all the wood chippings at source and avoid the cost and CO2 of shipping them all across the Atlantic. Then burn gas here

Quite.

It strikes me that pellets are only 'sustainable' while so few people are burning them. Fit 30m pellet burners into UK homes and demand for the pellets will be utterly unsustainable, no matter how many ships are engaged in shipping them over from the USA.

Mike4 wrote:

malakoffee wrote:My mangulated paraphrase . . . . . .
>> There's trend to have these removed & replaced with other types of heating, by the users, due to a significant problem with getting replacement parts when things break down . . . and because there are a lot of mechanical components they tend to break down "quite a lot". <<

Oh that old chestnut.
The fairy tale about 'parts are hard to get for this one luv" is more often than not, just that. A fairy tale made up to suit the interests of the person telling you.

I read that to mean that pellet burners break down rather than gas boilers... ?

V8

88V8 wrote:[I read that to mean that pellet burners break down rather than gas boilers... ?
V8

Pellet burner market VS gas boiler market have VERY different characteristics. . . . . .