[Stoves] Don't waste the heat, grow red wigglers and glorious greens

[ajheggie at gmail.com]

On Sunday 16 October 2011 03:22:44 Gerrie Baker wrote:
> Thanks for your input.  The boiler supplies a closed loop radiant floor
> Kytec pipe heat distribution system filled with food grade glychol.

The antifreeze is necessary because outside temperatures are so low in 
winter? What concentration? Hydronic systems in UK usually just have 
antioxidants but solar thermal systems also use propylene glycol.


> A 
> conveyor lifts wood waste into a hopper and three multistage augers
> transfer the biomass chips into the furnace where the fuel is
> concentrated and fans blow in air and the fire reaches high
> temperatures heating the steel plates and water circulating pipes. 

So it's a sophisticated chip stoker, I had missed that and thought we were 
considering a proposal to use TLUD combustion in combination with a high 
thermal mass, in this case water.



> It 
> is inside the boiler chamber (second stage of the furnace) that large
> logs are converted to biochar when the air is shut off. 

This bit worries me, what happens to the offgas from this pyrolysis of 
solid wood once the air supply is shut off? 

We've moved away a bit from relevance to cook stoves but the principals 
remain the same.