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Posted By oneill
Hi,
I am looking for information on the regulations governing the storage of wood pellets, they are used in wood pellet burners for central heating of houses.
Can they be stored in sturdy plastic containers?
All info greatly appreciated.
Cheers
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Posted By Merv Newman
A bit late perhaps. But combustible materials should either be stored in non combustible containers or at least 15 meters (50 feet) from a building.
This is not a legal requirement, just best practice. So your old pallets, or new pellets, should be on the other side of the yard.
Congratulations on going green.
Burning wood pellets is almost a zero-sum carbon foot-print type thing.
Merv
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Posted By Bennie
Re - Burning wood pellets is almost a zero-sum carbon foot-print type thing.
Sorry Merv - how can this be possible? Wood is carbon in any form and burning wood emits carbon dioxide - green house gas - resource depletion and global warming.
Don't mean to be cheeky, but do you know something about wood pellets that I don't?
Bennie
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Bennie
They are zero sum because they only emit the carbon they have already absorbed from the atmosphere. If they were positive sum they would emit less than they have absorbed and negative sum if they emitted more than they absorbed. Or vice versa I can never remember which on a Monday morning.:-)
oneill
Treat the pellets as you would other solid fuels such as coal and coke as Merv has outlined. The other problem you will avoid is the dust. Do remember though that wood is easier to ignite that coal so you may find it a little more vulnerable to vandalism but this should not be a major issue.
Bob
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Posted By Merv Newman
Bennie,
Bob got it right. Growing trees and other plants absorb CO2 and give off oxygen. Which is why the tropical forests are so important to the the ecology of the world.
When you burn them (remember the fire triangle) they absorb oxygen, turn into ash and give off the absorbed C02. Which should go up the chimney. Otherwise you die. (ash goes on the garden as a source of potash)
So burning wood is carbon-zero and can help the tomatoes.
For the last 20 years our central heating has been wood. 10 cubic meters of wood does us for about a year at a cost of £200. And the cherry-tomatoes last year were great.
The local town council generated steam for heating an estate of flats by burning collected household rubbish.
Recently they have gone heavily into recycling which means that there is much less waste to burn. So they have built a 5MWatt wood chip burning furnace. Cheap saw-mill waste.
Go green
Merv
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Posted By Andy Montgomery If you have been using oil in the past and have a large oil container then it's possible to convert the oil tank into a pellet container. Of course, the main issue is using a 'clean' tank which is free from oil so as not to damage your pellets (although, that should be least of your worries). I opted for building a new wooden container because it looked better than my old steel tank and I figured I would have to climb inside it now and again - the old tank had a lot of sharp edges as well (not child friendly). Taking out the oil tank was quite a large job and I had to rid the tank of its contents before cutting it open, otherwise I would have blown myself up. Alternatively, you can construct a large wooden box, strong enough to hold at least 1000 kilos of pellets - that's if you're using an automated system. Here's a diagram of ""one I built earlier". http://www.canmoremedia....nstruct-pellet-tank.htmlWe have the pellet box in the cellar, stone walls, stone floor and not another single item in the room - i.e. anything that's flammable. There's also a fire extuinguisher and a cold water tap close by. The room has to be dry, as you'll probably know that wooden pellets just convert to a light brown mush when wet and are totally useless - (well, apart from putting on your garage floor). The only main issue for me is the dust, especially when they're being delivered! I've now acquired a dust mask for the delivery and cleaning out of the burner. But, I've saved a load of cash, contributed to reducing our family carbon footprint and able to use the potash in the garden - great for bushes! Pelletman
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Posted By Ian Blenkharn
"Growing trees and other plants absorb CO2 and give off oxygen. Which is why the tropical forests are so important to the the ecology of the world.
When you burn them (remember the fire triangle) they absorb oxygen, turn into ash and give off the absorbed C02. Which should go up the chimney. Otherwise you die. (ash goes on the garden as a source of potash)
So burning wood is carbon-zero and can help the tomatoes."
Wow, thats a good one - burning wood sends CO2 up the chimney, and that is carbon neutral?!?!
Burn coal, or oil, petrol too - they are all derived from wood in ancient forests so on this logic the same must hold true??
Unless the alchemist's dream has recently come true - sorry if I missed it - the amount of carbon in this world is static. Carbon cannot be created or destroyed, merely changed from one form to another. That is the problem, increases in the proportion of gaseous carbon, as carbon dioxide, adversely affects atmospheic conditions that causes so many knock-on problems. Much of the fixed carbon is present as wood, soil and animal tissues - I had a breakfast of toast, from grain that grew in fields and fixed some CO2, toasted using electricity from a coal-fired power station so I guess I'm now carbon neutral too!
Burn anything, perhaps wood, or just a few calories having a belly laugh at some of these theories, and you release CO2. Plant a tree to fix some of that CO2 and you may approach a state of neutrality. You can even chop down trees and leave the wood as a carbon-sink, but don't burn it. It releases previously fixed carbon as CO2, that goes up the chimney, and .....that's where we came in!
Burning wood isn't carbon neutral unless. Fixing an equivalent amount of gaseous CO2, effectively removing it from the atmosphere, redresses the balance. Planting trees is the obvious way.
Or just plant a few conkers!
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Posted By Descarte
Haha get of your soap box think about it a sec,
The trees are grown specifically for the purpose. (dont know if you didnt know this)
Trees planted - absorb CO2
Trees burned - release CO2
Therefore all which was absorbed was released again, no magic effect of producing more CO2 occured, hence it is NEUTRAL.
Obviously coal and oil is different as that was prviously stored CO2 and not in the current carbon cycle.
So planting trees and burning them ensuring more are planting again to burn next time is neutral introducing no new CO2 in to the cycle.
Burning oil/coal is introducing new CO2 in to the cycle.
Planting more trees than you burn is obviously removing CO2 out of the system.
This is the whole principle of bio-fuels as well, growing crops to burn be it grasses, trees or maizes.
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Posted By Ian Blenkharn
Correct, that's the carbon cycle
But 'Burn wood, it's carbon neutral 'cos the CO2 goes up the chimney' certainly isn't
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Posted By Andy Montgomery
I see your point about CO2 goin back into the atmosphere - but wouldn't it be fair to say that its previous state before going up the chimney would be negative - since it has absorbed CO2 and therefore when it is burned actually brings it back to zero?
What a ridiculous conversation - hahahaaha!
PelletMan
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Posted By Descarte
Yes, exactly, the wood has to come from a "sustainable" source
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