Comfort of wood heating

Everyone will agree that heating with wood has more than one advantage.
First, it is a renewable energy in full respect for the environment.
Burning wood does not release more carbon dioxide than wood in its construction may fix, it is not a fossil energy.
It does not release greenhouse gases.
Second, using wood encourages respect of forests.
It has repeatedly been shown that to preserve a forest, its purpose can't be only ecologic.
Forest MUST also have an economic value.
Every time we replace the wood with another material, acres of forest are threatened.
But so far, heating with wood required several handling which could put off the user
Now a powerful new technique is fully usable:

CHIPPED WOOD

This method, particularily economic, is based on two complementary and essential equipments ; The automatic wood boiler and the chipper.
The automation, high combustion efficiency and the ability to burn all wood species (even those that are eliminated by the traditional wood-burning) are the three key features of the method.
The considerable reduction of handling throughout the supply chain, and the great "cleanness" of installations, are also advantages.
Totally automatic, the boiler works exactly the same way as a fuel boiler.
With and endless-screw system (the pump for a fuel boiler), the boiler dips his 'fuel' (dry chipped matter) out of a silo (the citern for the fuel boiler) according with the power needed by the heating system.
A ventilation device brings to the fireplace the exact amount of air needed, improving overall efficiency and reducing the production of micro-particles.
A control device warrants the complete automatism and the security of these boilers.
According to its requirements, the boiler will set its speed, stop and start itself, without needing the help of the user.
The only thing the user will have to do is filling the silo. Depending on the silo's volume and the season, filling will be done every three days, weekly, monthly, or only once along the season.
Because of these boilers high combustion efficiency (>92%), the ash removal must be done maximum once a week.
Big or small, the chipper, used by the dry chipped material producer -or by the consumer in case of auto-production-, must respect a very homogeneous quality of the chipped material, free of any big piece which could create troubles into the feeding system of the boiler, like clogging, blocking, early wear of the endless-screw's motor, or overconsumption for its proper working. Chips must be homogeneous in their shape, but also in their wetness -rather dryness- to achieve the best combution possible, avoid risks of bistre and avoid many inconveniences during the storage.

The specific case of the wood pellets

Since many years now, the wood pellets, made of compressed wood dust, are replacing the wood chips for the heating systems. They are known for their appealing advantages, especially their higher energetic density and the minimized risk of blocking the feeding endless-screws. Moreover, they should allow the valorization of sawdusts from sawmills...
Therefore, the wood pellets don't look like a true solution for us : their ratio used energy/produced energy isn't as good as the wood chips' one, due to the necessity of compressing the sawdust, among other causes. Worse, this sawdust is often produced especially to make pellets, then it's not a valorized byproduct and the energy used solely for producing it adds up. This obviously increases the final price of the pellets, way higher than the wood chips' price. Ultimately, the process of producing pellets is complicated enough to make it almost impossible to do without an industrial equipment. Then, one cannot make his own pellets as easily as his own woodchips.
µ Then, why does the pellets' use is developping so much ? Because most of the woodchips produced nowadays don't meet with quality requirements regarding the granulometry, causing a lot of troubles in the feeding process (blocking, breaking, overconsumption) and regarding the wetness, causing other incenveniences.
Our chippers guarantee a perfect granulometry for both drying by fermentation and using without any problem in an automatic woodchips boiler.
You can contact us if you're interested and want more information.

And if you want to discover how you can heat a place with wood but without burning wood, you can discover how Jean PAIN developped the heating by contact with the fermenting mass.