subject: Advantages Of Wood Chip Boilers [print this page] Good heating systems are essential to small farms. It helps them to keep building like barns and greenhouses safe from the harsh cold of the winter. It also helps them to provide hot water. However, many farms are still using aging boilers that are way behind in technology. Worse still, such wood burning boilers are extremely expensive to operate and maintain. They are also harmful for the environment.
Wood log boilers, the boon of the modern technology, are ideal options for small farms. They are known to save both your time and money. These wood log boilers came as perfect solution for providing hot water and heating to small farms. For example, wood chip boilers, a form of biomass boiler, uses renewable energy resources to provide a lot of heat. You can use these biomass boilers to heat water as well as to power central heating systems. Such wood burning boilers are ideal for commercial installations and larger buildings.
Wood chip boilers burn woods to produce heat. Generally, such heating devices use relatively small wood chips, which are up to 2" in length. However, there are no fixed rules and the size of the wood chips may vary. In fact, you may even use bigger twiglets and other materials on wood chip boilers. Such fuels tend to have rather high water content. The wood chips and twiglets directly sourced from forest usually have higher water content varying between 40 and 60 percent; whereas, woods sourced from sawmills usually have less water content, which is around 30%.
Like other wood burning boilers, wood chip boilers have their own pros and cons.
Wood chip boilers come with various benefits. To begin with, they are ideal option for eco-friendly habitat. These heating devices are carbon neutral, have lower fuel costs and are highly efficient. Though wood chip boilers produce carbon while giving out heat, it is of very low levels. Since such wood burning boilers are usually used in eco-friendly habitat, the trees absorb the carbon as they grow. Larger facilities can reduce the hundreds of tonnes of carbon that they produce every year by opting for wood chip boilers. The waste products of these wood burning boilers are reused as fertilizer.
Wood chip boilers are said to be 90% more efficient, though the figure may vary from product to product. In fact, they are more efficient because these heating devices need far less preparation than the other types of wood fuel used available in the market. However, the method of harvesting is usually a time-consuming factor. Also, cutting of large areas is dire for the forestry ecosystems though it may sound cheaper in short term. Again, rotational harvesting will be expensive in the short time, but it is beneficial for forestry ecosystems.
Also, consider the fact that wood chip boilers will emit a lot of smoke, which will contain other pollutants as well. Using paper or source of wood products will only increase the risk of contaminants. Thus, it is recommended to use just the properly sourced wood fuels for wood chip boilers.
