The story so far: three years ago Mike Pepler, our UK Awards Manager, and his wife Tracy, bought an eight-acre wood. This year they bought a house. Now they are going to heat the house with the logs from the wood.
It was, he says, "quite an involved job". What it involved, exactly, was:
- removing the gas boiler
- connecting up the wood stove
- running the pipes from the wood stove to the connection to the hot water cylinder and the radiators (the gas boiler was on the other side of the house...)
- replacing the cold water tank and the feed and expansion tank in the loft (they were very old)
- and replacing the hot water cylinder for one that could take solar input as well as the wood stove.
Tonight our Senior Advisor, Anne Wheldon, gives a talk titled Stoking up a cookstove revolution: The secret weapon against poverty and climate change.
It's not hard to see the link between the two.
A significant driver of deforestation is the amount of trees cut down for open fire cooking. This leads to loss of habitat for animals, loss of native plants and soil erosion that increases risk of flooding.
The issues of biodiversity, poverty, renewable energy and climate change are all bound up in the idea of sustainability. What's fascinating about hearing this debate at the British Museum is seeing sustainability treated - quite rightly - as both an environmental and a cultural issue.
Last night's discussion, part of the South Africa Landscape events programme (a joint venture with Kew), was chaired by the BBC's Andrew Marr.
Next month officials from 193 countries are meeting in Nagoya, Japan for the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. They will be taking vital decisions about the future of biodiversity in the world.
He added, "Up till now this issue hasn't had its Al Gore."
Three years ago Mike Pepler, our UK Awards Manager, and his wife Tracy, bought an eight-acre wood. This year they bought a house. Now they are going to heat the house with the logs from the wood.
Below, Mike explains how he and Tracy plan to be almost entirely self-sufficient in space and water heating.
"Tracy and I bought our eight-acre woodland in 2007, as it seemed like a good investment with energy prices rising, and the property price bubble had put us off buying a house at that point. Since then we've been managing the woodland to produce logs and have been selling them to friends, but now we've finally bought our own house, the first priority was to make changes so we could heat it using our own logs.
Our goals in doing this are two-fold: becoming more self-sufficient in the energy we use at home, and reducing CO2 emissions. Supplying some of our own energy needs is important to us, as we believe energy prices will continue to rise over the coming years as supplies struggle to meet demand, and the UK's energy security cannot be taken for granted. Reducing CO2 emissions is also important, as the threat of climate change affects everyone.
Achieving these two goals is not just about installing a wood stove though. Demand must be tackled first, which is why we're insulating the cavity walls and upgrading the loft insulation; the windows are already double-glazed. All the lights in the house are low energy, and we buy our electricity from Ashden Award winner Ecotricity. Because we've removed the gas boiler, we also needed an alternative for water heating in the summer, when it's too warm to light the wood stove. Rather than use the immersion heater, we're installing solar water heating to deal with this.
The end result will hopefully be that we are entirely self-sufficient in space and water heating, apart from the small amount of electricity for running water pumps, and that the only CO2 emissions will be the fuel used in our chainsaws and the vehicle to bring logs back from the wood, which is only five miles away. We'll be monitoring our savings on gas and electricity, and also the amount of wood we burn, so there'll be some results to report over the coming year."
coming soon: - plumbing and commissioning the stove; - solar water heating
Last Friday I went to a Forestry Commission workshop called "Woodfuel: Fuel for the future?". It was held at the Bentley Woodfair (also know as the Weald Woodfair), which meant there was a lot of interesting stuff going on. I'll come on to to what the workshop speakers said shortly, but first let's have a look at some pictures and videos of the practical demonstrations that were included.
The first stop on the tour of demonstrations was a tractor fitted with what's know as a "harvesting head", which is able to grab hold of a tree, cut through it near the base, remove the branches and cut the tree to a set length. It even has computerised sensors to automatically measure the volume of wood produced! Here's the harvesting head on the ground: and stowed for driving on the road: It extends from the back of the tractor on a hydraulically powered crane: Here's a short video of it in action, although sadly the operator couldn't fell a tree while we were there due to safety restrictions
One of the handy things about it is that while processing the tree it causes a lot of damage to the bark, which then helps the log dry out quickly - ideal for producing woodfuel! The point of seeing it was that harvesting heads such as this are normally fitted to very large vehicles, more than twice the size of this tractor. By fitting it to a tractor (which required some special fixings to be produced) a much more manoeuvrable system is produced, allowing it to work efficiently on woods where thinning is being carried out, as the trees being left must not be damaged. There was plenty of opportunity for us to ask the vehicle owner questions about how the system works and what it's pros and cons are: Personally, I'd prefer to see this kind of work done in what's known as "motor manual" style, which is basically people on the ground with chainsaws, and a small tractor for extracting the logs, but I can see that this doesn't work for everyone, so if this system means that woodfuel can be produced from woodland that would otherwise be left unmanaged, then that's good.
After the harvesting tractor, the next stop was machinery for processing the wood into logs for use in woodburners. There were various large hydraulic splitters that could run from the PTO (Power Take-Off) on a tractor: The split logs can then be cross-cut by a PTO-driven circular saw: Alternatively, it is possible to use a single machine which cross-cuts a log and automatically triggers a hydraulic ram to split the section that's been cut off: The split pieces of wood are then carried up a conveyer belt to be dropped into a waiting truck: Of course, lighting a woodburner doesn't just need logs, you need kindling too, and we saw a machine for making that as well. Kindling is a higher-value product for a woodland owner to produce - converting logs into kindling can add up to 50% to their value. Finally, we went to see a large and a small machine producing woodchip, which can be used in automated boilers. Here's a video of the larger chipper in action:
Anyway, that was the afternoon, but in the morning I went to a series of short lectures. Here's the details:
Sally Marsh, Director of the High Weald AONB, opened the session by explaining that the region has 30% woodland cover, and could sustainably meet 15% of local heating needs. She also mentioned the woodland archaeology and biodiversity, which must always be considered in any woodland management plan.
"Dark smoke" is prohibited by the Clear Air Act, and specific smoke control areas where measures are in place can be looked up at www.uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk
Wood is not a smokeless fuel, but it can be burned if an exempt appliance is used - a list of these is available
Any installation which uses more than 45.4kg/hr of fuel (about 130kW output) will need "chimney height approval" from the local authority
In most cases planning permission is not required for use of biomass heating; exceptions may include unusually tall flues, new buildings and work in a listed building or conservation area
A further piece of legislation to be aware of is Air Quality Management areas, which can be checked at www.airquality.co.uk
James Noble, of Esus Forestry and Woodlands, spoke to us about bringing neglected woodland back into sustainable management. A management plan must always start with clear goals, which could include sustainability, biomass fuel production, conservation and safety. Two key factors dictate the management options: what is possible with the woodland, and what is possible with the owner! Lack of management will gradually reduce the options available over time. The challenges facing owners wanting to manage woodland sustainably are:
Shortage of good contractors, and the increasing average age of contractors - the work is hard and not well-paid, so it is difficult to attract new people into the profession.
As a result, there has been a trend towards using large machinery (as it requires fewer staff), but the woodland conditions are not always suitable for this, and woodland soils can be damaged by heavy vehicles. Owners need to be ready to accept a lower price for the wood they sell to allow contractors to avoid the use of large machinery.
Access to woodlands is getting more difficult, as the individual woodlands get smaller and the machinery gets bigger.
Squirrels are having a serious destructive impact on plantations of native trees, and deer can also have an impact. Control methods must be included in a management plan.
Gillian Alker and Jane Hull, from the Forestry Commission, discussed the different grants that are available for producers and users of biomass fuel:
Julian Morgan-Jones, of South East Wood Fuels Ltd, explained some of the critical considerations for supplying fuel to end users. The key points were:
Woodfuel is still a new, immature market, and customers don't always know what they want.
There is still a lack of infrastructure - biomass boilers do require more attention than a gas or oil boiler.
The design of the fuel store is often the most critical issue, as a badly deisgned store makes delivery difficult, and therefore expensive for the end user.
The areas for the industry to work on are: confidence, fuel store design, delivery vehicles, fuel quality, advance ordering of fuel, and managing expectations.
Well, that sums up the workshop, but there was also a lot of other wood-related stuff at the fair, such as mobile sawmills: chainsaw sculpture: arrays of machinery: traditional crafts: and crowds of people: For more information on organisations producing and using woodfuel, visit the Ashden Awards website.
On 27th January 2009 Regen SW is running a biomass district heating demonstration at Park 25, a site installed by Wood Energy. Details of the event are here.
Wood Energy won an Ashden Award in 2008 for their work installing biomass boilers and starting wood-fuel supply chains across the the UK. Information on the whole range of district heating schemes they have installed is available on their website.
champion practical, local energy solutions. What do Ashden winners do? They cut carbon, protect the environment, and reduce poverty. That way, they help improve people's lives - in the UK and the developing world.
