sounds like ThriftyYorkshirelass has cracked the log burner automation problem - a strong determination combined with 4 young men should do it. The only problem I can see is setting up the controler - delicate balance between the whip and cream cakes

Well thankyou kind folks, had a chuckle at the above 2 posts. Im hoping bribery wont play much of a part in this whole rigmarole and that it will be a case of 'needs be' firing the lads into action to sort out the wood process and the thing about sawing wood up is you get warmed up twice - once sawing and then burning it.

Also, my neighbour has just told me that the pet coke and house coal is going up £2/bag in sept. so that news makes me even more determined. She is in the process of acquiring coal bunkers to stockpile the stuff. Bring on the wood!

We have found that burning wood is a lifestyle change, but one that we soon got used to. We installed a Perge Log Boiler and an Akvaterm accumulator tank into our property. We were glad we added the accumulator tank (we were uncertain wether we should spend the extra at the time) It proved extremely useful, especially in the depths of winter!! We went direct to Perge (based somewhere in Staffordshire I think) and they supplied us direct. We got the boiler for just over £2.5k and the tank for just under £2k. We fitted ours on an open gravity system, but have seen a few of you that have expanssion vessels, what are your thoughts on this?

Just received my atmos 25kw boiler from Kotly in poland today. Wonder if anyone has any installed pictures or experiences to share before plumber comes to connect up. I am using it with a 1500 litre accumulator tank with laddomat. Can anyone tell me where the suction fan is installed. Any help or experience would be great.

Hi to jvaughn ... when you say you fired the boiler every other day .... this is something we have been pondering - presumably the boiler burns out and fills the accumulator tank with heat - then it depends on how long it takes you to use the heat in the tank before you refire? Is it OK to let the boiler sit for a day or two without firing up again? Does it affect its effecicecy or do you need to clean well before restarting or any other things like that? We are looking at a log burner - we live in France and the HS/Baxi is looking good at the moment, so is the Franco Belge.
Thanks

Abbaye,
Correct, the boiler burns at full throttle, that way it works most efficently, burning all the gasses emitted from the logs. One fill of the chamber will burn for about 5 hours and heat about 1,000 litres. With a bigger tank you can keep chucking logs in until you get close to charging all the tank up. Not alot happens in the first 1/2 hour of firing up so I think its more efficient to fire up less often, but let it burn for longer periods. No problem letting the boiler sit for days. I clean out the ash every weekend and clean the heat exchangers at the back twice a year.

Has anyone had probs with an Atmos wood boiler? I've got an Atmos 32kw with 2000litre thermal store linked to solar collectors but its getting through loads of logs (four hour burn time) and its only giving a max temp of 14.5c after running for two days solid.
Any advice gratefully accepted. Thanks

Slightlygreen

Do you have a Laddomat charging unit on your boiler/accumulator? We have a Perge Log Boiler (www.perge.co.uk) with Akvaterm Accumulator (www.akvaterm.fi), and have a laddomat (www.termoventiler.se) charging unit on the system. This makes a big difference to the charging time/efficiency. Only firing our boiler every five days at this time of year. Anyone added solar into their accumulator tank?

Borderman, seems like you are leading the way on Vigas, so let us know how it goes.

This is a fascinating thread for me as I seem to have a similar set up to many of you, but I'm currently tearing my hair out as I'm sure it's not performing as it should, or certainly not as I'd expected it to.

We're in a 4 bed self build that we finally moved into in April. As you'd expect, insulation levels are high and we've not really needed to run the underfloor heating yet. This is just as well, bacause at the moment the system we have is struggling to just meet our hot water needs.

We have an atmos DC18S log boiler (18KW) connected through a Laddomat to an Akvaterm 1400l thermal store. We also have two solar panels connected.

Our concern is the number of logs we are going through as it's the middle of summer and the heating isn't even on. Many of you seem to be able to get your tanks a lot hotter than we can, and are feeding logs on a much less regular basis. At the moment we're loading the boiler every day, and apart from a very warm period in May, that's been the case since the start.

The routine is as follows:
17.30 - tank temperatures are top = 45 deg c, bottom 35 deg c
Light the fire & put in a full load of logs
The water starts to be fed into the thermal store when the boiler gets to about 70 degrees c
The boiler then runs for about 2 houres at 75 degrees c
At the end the top of the tank is about 63 degrees, bottom 45 degrees
The next morning the top has dropped to about 57 degrees, bottom 40 degrees
We then have 2 showers in the day and a very shallow bath for the kids
by 17.30 the temp is back below 50 deg and I start again

So, my question is, is there something radically wrong with how I'm running it?
You all seem to get higher temperatures - should my boiler be running hotter? The logs are all seasones to around 15%.
Should I be putting more logs in?

Any help would be very gratefully appreciated. At the moment I'm regretting having the system installed, but I still feel that I'm not far from getting much better performance.

Thanks,

Aled

Doing some rough calculations shows that your burn is putting in about 23kwhrs which looks about right. However you seem to be losing about 9kwhrs over night which seems rather a lot.

Perhaps you should check that the insulation is adequate. Long hot water distribution pipes have the potential to lose a lot of heat.

Thanks very much for the comments - this points me to where the issue is occuring at least. The installer is back on site next week, so the more things we have to investigate the better. I've lit the fire earlier today so that I can see if the drop in the store occurs overnight or as the boiler cools.

Yes, there's definitely something up with the Atmos. I ran two loads yesterday and the max temperature I could get was 78 degrees on the boiler.

This is compounded further by the laddomatt only showing the water getting to it at 70 degrees, so at the moment the hottest I can get the store to is 70.

So it seems I have three problems:
- Atmos not getting up to the required burn temp
- Heat loss between the Atmos and the Laddomat
- Heat loss from the store - I've made progress on this one at least. I switched the boiler and laddomatt off after the burn yesterday and the overnight loss from the store was reduced by 50% - one of the two seems to be thermosyphoning as suggested.

Posted By: TerryBorderman, seems like you are leading the way on Vigas, so let us know how it goes.

Sorry, been away on business followed by vacation - sure, I'll write up my experiences as soon as it's installed.

Ed.

The short answer is that you can't do what you want with logs.

You can run log boilers continuously, but they will need to be fed every few hours. Run like that they will produce significant amounts of pollution and probably have a shortened life.

They recommended system uses an accumulator to store the output of several hours of full blast running. With correctly sized bits you should be able to get away with only running the boiler every couple of days in a normal winter.

The 25kw log boiler that I've just bought weighs 400kg and is about 1.4M tall; compared to a similar output gas boiler that's industrial sized already. When you add on a couple of cubic metres of thermal store and a cubic metre or so for local log storage you aren't going to be able to avoid industrial sizing for biomass heating.

For a relatively higher amount of automation you could look at wood chip or pellet boilers but the sizing will be similarly industrial.

If you use an accumulator you can use alternative heat sources, so you could have an oil boiler for occasional use when you are away, or even use electrical heating.

Unfortunately wood has a low energy density. It's bulky, messy and involves some degree of input from the operator.

I doubt that a professionally installed system would be any cheaper than the GSHP. The main components for my 25kw system are going to cost the best part of £6000; I wouldn't expect much change from £15,000 for a UK sourced, professionally installed, similarly specced wood central heating system.