Guy Fawkes

Our new wood pellet central heating system now all set up except for the 50 mm flexible hoses that will automatically feed the 'day hopper', on the right-hand side with sufficient pellets for the day from a 6,000 kg (=3,000 litres of heating oil) pellet bunker being built just to the left.

On the left a 300 litre hot water tank that could also accept solar heating pipes and/or an electric immersion heater. We have been told that rooftop solar water heating makes no sense whatsoever for us. In 2017, we did get to find a great use of the electric immersion heater when we got PV panels on the house roof. The purple bit in the middle is the actual burner.

A bit difficult to give an exact comparison of costs comparing oil and wood pellets as we had to do extension alterations to the pipework as we are moving the central heating from the cellar to the first floor, However, the pellets' system costs probably twice as much as an oil system. We paid about €16,000 for everything but got some money back from the government for using renewable energy system plus a very cheap 10-year mortgage from the government's bank set up to encourage such things.

We are told we will save 50% of fuel costs while doing something positive for the environment. Gives a good feel.

The unit is built/remodelled/rebranded by a local company who work closely with the original manufacturer, Hargassner in Austria. Our company has been big on other forms of wood heating and have a technology sharing deal with the Austrians.