Whether you are building a new house or looking to replace an existing oil or gas boiler – we have fitted our boilers into all kinds of places.

A good sized utility room is ideal for the Ökofen, but equally a garage or a shed can be just as good, and even if it is a distance from your house we can run heat main pipe under the ground to deliver the heat.

We have shoehorned an Ökofen into the boilerhouse of a 16th century castle and built bespoke sheds for boilers and pellet stores; finding a solution to the ‘where will it go’ problem is our speciality!

If you have a preference for wood chip or need a greater output than the Okofen system can provide then we have the KSM Multistoker range from Denmark.

Although not sporting the same sleek good looks as the Okofen, the KSM Multistoker is a robust and adaptable choice for the businesses with access to good quality and/or home grown fuel – which can mean massive cost savings.

We have installed these boilers on farms, at hotels and community halls.

The KSM-Multistokers Automatic range, as standard, is designed for use with wood pellets, grain and similar biofuel types. If coarser material, such as wood chip is to be burned, then the KSM-Multistokers ‘F’ Automatic range feature a larger feed screw suitable for this type of material.

As is the case with all KSM boilers it is possible to supplement these fuel types with firewood.

The boilers are available in outputs from 35kW right up to the massive XXL range which can be sized up to 990kW.

There is a choice of fuel feed mechanism – the rotary spring feeder – suitable for smaller boilers – or the walking floor which can be tailor made to suit any size of fuel store. Containerised versions, housing both fuel store and boiler, can be bespoke built at the factory in Denmark and shipped to your site – ready to run.

The KSM-Multistoker boiler units have efficiencies of 92%, making them market leaders, and all KSM boilers are fully tested at the Aarhus Technological Institute in Denmark.

Supplied with a fire damper, filling indicator and control for external feed screw,these units satisfy the rigorous fire protection requirements of the Danish authorities.

The KSM-Multistoker Automatic range of boilers is supplied complete with fully modulating oxygen control and automatic de-ash. Please note that if grain is to be used then the units need to be fitted with a moving floor burn head.

Read about the differences between wood chip and wood pellet fuel in the blog. Perthshire Biofuels can help you make the right choice of fuel and boiler for your business – just give us a call on 01350 723 313 or contact us here

The ÖkoFEN Pellematic is an award-winning Austrian wood pellet boiler.  With more than 15 years experience ÖkoFEN is the market leader in the field of wood pellet heating.

The ÖkoFEN Pellematic comes complete with a choice of large scale pellet stores, with capacities suitable to hold a year’s supply of fuel, and a fully automated feed system direct to the boiler – either auger or vacuum.

Efficient technology

The Pellematic comes in a variety of models to suit different sizes of buildings – from the 8kW – specially designed for low energy buildings – to the 56kW. For larger installations the boilers can be installed in tandem or threes or fours (total output of 224kW) giving great flexibility in response to heat demand.

Key features and benefits

• Underfed, recirculation burner
• Stainless steel combustion chamber
• Compact heating controller
• Electronic ignition
• Automatic cleaning de-ashing mechanism
• Automatic ash compression

The Ökofen Energy Box is the ideal solution for buildings without a garage or cellar, and other applications where indoor space for a boiler room and pellet store is limited.

It is also suitable for temporary buildings or short term leaseholds – the entire heating unit can easily be relocated to another site with minimal work.

Every Energy Box is supplied ready for connection and following delivery can be ready to use in a matter of hours.

A new environmentally friendly heating system in five easy steps:

• Concrete plinth or foundation is laid and connections prepared beforehand (heating flow and return, and electrical supply)
• Delivery of the Energy Box
• Connection to the heating system and electrics
• Delivery of wood pellets
• Start up

The Energy Box is available in 5 types and is offered in a large variety of sizes – we will advise you on the correct system for your project.

Based around a durable timber construction and manufactured from 42mm triple laminated sections, the Energy Box is available in a variety of colours and bespoke finishes allowing you to tailor the design to suit your needs.

With a nominal capacity ranging from 8 to 224kW the Energy Box is equally suited to a small office or a large commercial installation.

If you chose an Ökofen boiler it comes with a bulk fuel store made from steel reinforced fabric on a sustainable wooden frame, into which the delivery lorry blows the pellets.

This style of store has a number of advantages…

Namely, it acts as its own dust filter when the pellets are delivered; it can be sized to suit the space available and it protects the pellets from damp floors and walls.

It is best to get a store which holds at least 5 tonnes, as the usual minimum delivery of blown pellets is 4 tonnes.

If your system uses bagged pellet fuel, these are normally delivered by the tonne, 100 x 10kg bags. These can be stored in any shed or garage, as long as the bags are protected from the weather. We supply bagged pellets to most of Scotland – just give us a call.

It never ceases to amaze me that my home can be heated by a handful of continuous burning wood pellets!

Super compressed sawdust is all that they are – with the natural lignin in the wood acting as a glue to stick them together. Because they are small and uniform in size (6mm diameter and up to 3cm long) they are easy to move around. Augers or vacuum systems take them from store to boiler whenever the boiler needs fuel.

They are also the most compact form of wood fuel – a store measuring 3m x 3m x 2.4m can hold enough fuel to keep most homes warm for a whole year.

They even smell nice!

They can also be blown along a pipe – so can be delivered just like your oil or gas supply.

You can find out more about the facts and figures of biomass fuels on the Biomass Energy Website or by making a comment below.

A factor with wood chips which needs careful consideration is your storage capacity.

There are three important questions you will need to ask yourself before committing yourself to choosing this type of biofuel for your biomass heating system.

• How much space do you have for a store?
• How much energy will that store contain?
• and how long will that store go between refills?

How much space do I need?

Wood chip fuel is fairly bulky, 250kg per cubic metre.  So for every tonne of wood chip you are going to need up to 4 cubic metres of storage space.

To help you visualise – A typical 20 foot container has an internal volume of 30 cubic metres, space for around 7.5 tonnes of wood chips.

How much ‘Energy’ can fit into a certain space?

As discussed in one of my previous posts, the energy content of a tonne of wood chip is dependent on its moisture content (mc).

The dryer the chip the more energy it contains.  Typically…

• A tonne of wood chip at 30% mc has an energy content of 3,500kWh.
• Therefore your 20 foot container will hold 26,250kWh of energy.

Storage Capacity and your biomass boiler

Matching your storage capacity to your boiler is very important.  If your fuel store is too small you will need frequent deliveries.  Our example of a 20 foot container sized store would last a 50kW boiler for 525 hours (22 days) at full output, whereas the same sized store for a 100kW boiler, running at full output, would need refuelling every 11 days.

In reality of course the refuelling period will be less as you don’t want to be running your store down to almost empty before getting a refill.

Needless to say, I welcome any questions you may have and would love to help you out – please drop in a comment below or call on 01350 723 313.

Although for most homes we would recommend wood pellet fuel – simply because it is the most convenient and reliable of biomass fuels – there are times when wood chip fuel might fit the bill!

Wood chips are more bulky than wood pellets and need bigger equipment to move it around.

Farms and large estates can find wood chips an economical fuel to use, as they generally have the space to store large quantities of wood chip, have the right machinery to move it around and the skills required for a more ‘hands on’ boiler.

Wood chips vary in their energy content depending on their moisture content – the wetter they are the less energy there is in a tonne.

Wood chips can also come in a variety of shapes and sizes – quality chip is nice and regular and chunky, with no long slivers to get stuck in the augers.

You can find out more about the facts and figures of biomass fuels on the Biomass Energy Website or by making a comment below.

A huge part of your home’s carbon footprint comes from the energy used to heat it. The average home can reduce its carbon footprint by 6 tonnes when switching from oil to wood pellets. And if you are keen to maximise your carbon savings then biomass is the right option.

Converting from gas to biomass gives an impressive 86% reduction in carbon emissions, compared to a Ground Source Heat Pump which only reduce your emissions by 30%.

Biomass fuel is a sustainable way of heating your home because it is not only renewable but it also is carbon neutral or carbon lean. This is because the carbon that it releases into the atmosphere when it is burnt is part of today’s natural carbon cycle.

In contrast the carbon released by fossil fuels, like oil, was stored millions of years ago. It is this release of ancient carbon into our atmosphere today is what is causing the unbalancing of the earth’s system.

On the face of it, looking at price per tonne, wood chips appear to win hands down.

A tonne of wood chip at 30% moisture content will set you back £80-£90, while a tonne of wood pellets will be around £195 per tonne.

However, a tonne of wood pellets contains more energy than a tonne of chips.

The key figure to look at is the price per kWh of heat…

When you do that the differential is reduced – with 30%mc wood chips at £90 per tonne giving heat at 2.6p per kWh, while pellets at £195 per tonne provide heat at 4p per kWh.

But significant savings can be made regardless of which biomass fuel you choose and the basic fuel cost should not be the key deciding factor; for more guidance see the related posts section below or head over to this blog’s categories homepage.

To see how chips and pellets compare to oil, gas and electricity check out the Biomass Energy Centre.