Pellet stove for the workshop?

[brewdexta]

It's coming up to the time I have to winterise the workshop by smearing the lathe and mills with thick oil to stop condensation. No point using a dehumidifier as I would be dehumidifying Yorkshire, the workshop is too big and its not completely air tight.

The workshop has heaps of insulation and my heating engineer mate pointed me to a pellet stove that is automatic, fan driven and can be programmed for time, temp etc. The one he pointed to was a Nemaxx, currently out of stock in the smaller size I want. I just want to take the edge of the chill so I don't get the condensation and I don't go blue when I work in it in winter.

I have since found a similar stove from Germany, probably of Chinese extraction still. The main issue is the size of pellet store, only enough for a day or so, I want one that will last at least 4 days, preferably a week. I will be using pellets for the house so sourcing pellets isn't an issue.

So does anybody have one similar and if so do you think a bigger hopper could be fabbed? Ideally gravity fed into existing store so the pellet feed control is not changed.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Shox Dr]

There's one in the house....

It's called the misses


Joking apart, just make the hopper bigger

 

[brewdexta]

That's plan A but before I bought one I thought I would ask around in case somebody has one and can see a problem. That's the problem with t'internet shopping, can't have a proper look before you buy. I'm hoping just to stick a bigger hopper on top.

 

[eSCHEn]

Your main worry will be making sure the mass of pellets above doesn't make the feed mechanism stick. As long as it's not a daft shape you should be fine.

If the stove's got a worm feed then that'll be harder to block.

 

[brewdexta]

it says electric auger on the pellet tank so sounds promising. I've sent the seller a message to see if there is something you can buy that does this, that will kind of prove the theory.

 

[500e]

So basically it burns cat litter
How do they self ignite ?
Pellets about £200 a ton

Harworth Heating Ltd
Blyth Road
Harworth
Doncaster
South Yorkshire
DN11 8NE
Tel:01302 742520
sales@thermorossi.co.u

 

[eSCHEn]

Compressed wood pellets, less than 8% moisture content. They're a constant bed running usually but also a firing mechanism (not sure on the wee ones like this though).

But yeah, you can use them as kitty litter as well

They make very good bedding for animals. Nice under hoof apparently. Then they biodegrade to make awesome compost. Trouble is they're far too expensive to use for bedding lol!

 

[brewdexta]

Horsey people who use it as bedding usually state they have a pellet boiler to get the lower VAT

 

[Shox Dr]

Horsey people who use it as bedding usually state they have a pellet boiler to get the lower VAT

Tightwads. If you can afford 4legs AND use wood pellets, they should be paying full fat vat

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

Your main worry will be making sure the mass of pellets above doesn't make the feed mechanism stick. As long as it's not a daft shape you should be fine...... If the stove's got a worm feed then that'll be harder to block.

+1
Need to be careful when choosing the supplier of pellets. Any that are slightly damp, or with a tendency to disintegrate into sawdust, may cause “bridging” in the hopper.

It would be a good idea to include some provision for stirring. Perhaps a simple hand-operated agitator in the base of your extended hopper, or even just a little opening so that you can push in a stick and waggle it around to get the pellets flowing again.

If you are looking for a system that is absolutely guaranteed to feed the stove reliably for a week without any attention, and ensure that the workshop is already nice and warm whenever you go in on a winter morning, you might need to spend quite a bit of money on equipment, and buy top-quality pellets.

 

[roofman]

You need a couple of storage heaters on to keep it just above dew point....PM incoming

 

[brewdexta]

This is an inside view of the Nemaxx pellet store, you can see the covered auger on the left

 

[brewdexta]

Getting close to having a toasty warm workshop. Just a bit of work on the controls and a bit of pipe insulation and it's done. This is in the barn underneath the workshop. Second hand Windhager Biowin Exclusiv pellet boiler bought from a nice chap in Scotland who frequents another forum and transported courtesy of @fizzy

I have a fan coil unit at either end of the workshop, and they kick out some serious heat

The boiler came with a small hot water tank, so I will also have hot water, how lardy dah! Will be very useful for the brewery.

I'm looking forward to getting it finished so I can tidy up the workshop and barn, can't move at the moment. I have 20 sheets of plywood coming next week to make kitchen cabinets so want to get ready.

Stage II is digging a trench for some insulated pipes to the outbuilding next door so we can stick a couple of radiators in thatee. The missus uses that for her sewing room so she'll be happy too.

Cheers
Andy

 

[steviec_lj]

Just seen this. But what the chicken sheds use is a silo, usually a 20t capacity, fed to the boiler with a centre less auger through 90mm tube, paddle switch in the little box above the drop tube so as it doesn’t overfill.

I’ll dig out some pictures of the previous instals I’ve done. Can put you in contact with a company that install the stuff on a regular basis too, if you need further details.

 

[brewdexta]

Thanks Steve

BTW this is pellets not wood chip, chicken sheds tend to use 50kW plus boilers and wood chip is far more economical than pellet at that size. I would like to see the installs

The workshop pellet boiler has about a 100kg hopper and will do me for what I want. The box that says Windhager on it is the hopper, the boiler is to the right. Given I haven't had it running other than testing yet, I'm not sure how long 100kg will last but the intention is just to keep the edge off unless I'm working in the barn, so keep it at say 8 to 10c most of the time, mainly to stop my tools from rusting through condensation and make it a pleasure to work in. The workshop is reasonably insulated, 80mm kingspan metalclad panels for roof and sides so I'm hoping to get at least 5 days from 100kg at around 8 to 10c.

I have another pellet boiler around the back of the house to heat the house, that has a 200kg hopper and lasts about a week in the coldest months. I have plumbed that ready for a big vacuum feed silo if I want to but so far I'm fine emptying a few 15kg bags into the hopper every week. This is the house pellet boiler

Looking at the price of blown pellets versus bags, it would take a long time to get the dosh back for the pellet store and I'm happy filling them up for now which is good as I have other priorities at the moment. I will be wearing my testicles around my neck if I don't get the kitchen refurbished this year!

The workshop boiler is next to the brewery so I can have a pint of home-brew while filling it up

Cheers
Andy

 

[slim_boy_fat]

The workshop boiler is next to the brewery so I can have a pint of home-brew while filling it up

The best of all worlds

 

[brewdexta]

Its been on for a while now. Here's the last few days as the outside temp has dropped from a tropical 8c at night to about 1.5c.

Observations so far.

• I haven't got the pump relays in yet so 70c water is being pumped around about 50m of insulated plastic pipe to the fan coil units constantly. This will definitely influence workshop temp and pellet consumption.
• Consumption is about 15kg of pellets per 24 hours, or was, I haven't tried to quantify the consumption since the outside temp drops but it doesn't look much more.
• Cheap thermostats are just about OK for night time control but not very accurate in terms of trying to set a temperature and have too much hysterisis for controlling the temp while working in the shop if you just want to up it a couple of degrees.
• Overall well pleased, it stops condensation on the big lumps of iron and makes it more pleasant to work in it, it heats up really quickly when you want it to.

Next steps are to install the pump relay so hot water is only being pumped when there is heat demand and to replace the thermostats with my one wire temp sensors and home grown heating controls. I have some bits on order, will probably be a couple of weeks before they arrive. I also need to add a humidity sensor and look at water saturation, dew point etc. and see if I can make the overnight temperature vary according to the likelihood of condensation. I need to read up more but if relative humidity is 90% then the temp would need to drop 3F before the air becomes saturated and condensation inevitable. Not sure if this applies to rooms with big lumps of cold iron though. So far the temp is being maintained at an average of 8.5c at nightime and no issues with condensation so far. If I can go down a bit further then it will cost less, if I can use RH and temp to predict condensation then add a couple of degree tolerance then I should save money.

Cheers
Andy

 

[brewdexta]

Bloody typical, I shouldn't have tempted fate! This morning I noticed that the heating cycles were getting weaker/more frequent from the graphs and sure enough when I went into the workshop not much heat coming from the fan coil units. So I went downstairs into the barn and the heating was relying on residual heat in the heat store, the boiler had stopped an hour or so before, probably around 8:00. No lights on, power to the boiler is present. Nothing to reset or obvious faults, checked all the usual, looks like a boiler issue. I'll take the lid off tomorrow and have a closer look. Although it has been going for about 3 to 4 weeks none-stop, it is only the last couple of days that have given it a testing as the temperature has dropped.

Tomorrow and Sunday are the only proper workshop days that I will have for another week, looks like its back to lots of layers and fingerless gloves