Biomass Stove

The common interpretation of a biomass stove, is a log stove. Burning logs as a source of heat in a living room or open plan living space has been done for hundreds even thousands of years. However, for many years the humble log stove has been seen more as an additional heat source for one room or even a style choice, rather than a complete solution to home heating. There are several reasons for this, firstly a log stove is a lot of work for people with a busy modern lifestyle. The stove will also not generate a lot of useable heat, it may make the living room very warm, but the rest of the property will not benefit from the heat. A modern biomass stove which can meet the users demands must generate more useable heat and at the same time be low maintenance.

Though wood logs are the predominant interpretation of biomass, there are many other forms of biomass which can also be used as biomass fuel. Biomass simply refers to any form of organic matter which can be used as a fuel source. This includes wood logs, but also wood chips and sawdust from wood processing operations. There are other sources of biomass such as agricultural waste such as straw and other waste from food production. This biomass resource is particularly under utilized and has very little value. Most biomass resources however cannot be used as fuel in their raw form. Efficient burning is down to fuel density and fuel moisture content. To process biomass into the most efficient form of solid fuel, the most practical process is to upgrade the biomass into pellets. Pellets have a much higher density, and also have a low moisture content, producing more heat.

The properties of pellets mean they flow well through feed hoppers and can light quite easily and quickly. This means that pellets can easily be used in automatic and sophisticated heating systems. Biomass burners therefore can be controlled via a thermostat the same as any other oil or gas heating system. When the thermostat demands more heat the auger system on the biomass stove will feed more pellets into the fire. If the fire is not lit, then a hot rod igniter will start the fire with a higher fan speed. Once the fire is lit the fan speed will lower to achieve the correct combustion temperature to maximise heat generated while keeping fuel consumption to a minimum. It is these features which makes biomass pellet stoves more of a realistic full heating solution.

The biomass stove can be used to provide heat for a single room, or with a boiler can be used to feed into your existing central heating system. The amount of maintenance required for the pellet stove will depend the features included and the size of the fuel hopper.

Generally the size of pellet fuel hopper on the biomass stove will hold enough fuel for at least a day, which is already much greater than a log stove, which will require fuel loading several times a day. However some biomass pellet stoves can have fuel hopper extensions so the stove can run for a week or even several weeks without the need to refuel. To minimise fuel loading, it is possible to link a biomass stove with an large external fuel hopper which will feed the smaller hopper on the stove. The large external hopper can hold up to year worth of fuel, and be loaded by a pellet fuel tanker which blows in pellets.