How to economically heat solid fuel boilers with wood?

For residents of the private sector, issues related to the operation of an autonomous heating system are not particularly difficult. At first glance, everything is very simple. There is a boiler, there is fuel for it, so you just need to put firewood in the firebox and set it on fire. It may work, but most often in such situations it will be necessary to simultaneously solve several problems at once, each of which threatens to adversely affect the quality of heating. Many years of practical experience that the old-timers have will tell you how to properly heat, how to fill the solid fuel boiler with firewood correctly in order to achieve the best burning effect.

Let’s try to figure it out ourselves. How to heat solid fuel heating units from a scientific and technical point of view, how important it is for the boiler to work with what it is heated and how it is heated.

Main article: heating a house with wood

Why is it not so simple with firewood in the operation of a solid fuel boiler?

The popularity of solid fuel boilers is gaining momentum again today. It is all the fault of intensive housing small-scale construction. Cottages and country houses grow like mushrooms after rain and not always in those places where new houses are being built, the centralized gas supply network. In such a situation, there is no need to wait and people are trying to equip their homes with autonomous solid fuel boilers. How to heat your boiler, everyone chooses for himself, with firewood or coal, pellets or fuel briquettes. The choice in terms of one type of fuel depends on how rich the fuel resource is.

A wood-fired heating boiler for a country house is the most common option, given the relative availability of this type of fuel and price. You can install an autonomous heating system on solid fuel boilers yourself, especially if you always have wood at hand, the situation looks just fine. At first sight.

When it comes to the firebox itself, there are a lot of nuances that should be considered, taken into account and that must be adhered to. Ordinary wood logs used as the main fuel require special attention!

The main aspect to pay attention to is the following: Firewood should always be homogeneous, all belonging to the same type of wood. In other words, if today you heat with pine logs, and tomorrow you throw birch logs into the furnace, the result of the boiler will be completely different. The reason for this is the different calorie content of different types of wood.

The higher the calorific value of wood fuel, the more heat is released during the combustion process. Therefore, the quality of firewood has always been and there are certain requirements that must be met in order to use wood fuel for solid fuel boilers with maximum efficiency.

For example: you received a whole car of firewood, while unloading it right in a pile, in the middle of the yard on a rainy day. Wet wood is the biggest enemy of solid fuel heating equipment. The boiler will burn, but with difficulty. Wet logs during combustion release a huge amount of residual combustion products, including caustic volatile compounds! The boiler will in this situation operate at half its rated power. As a result, the intensity of heating of the coolant will be low, respectively, your heating system will be far from normal.

Recommendations for the selection of firewood and their preparation

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When choosing firewood for yourself, you need to rely on the fact that it will take some time to dry them. The high humidity of fuel wood has an extremely negative effect on the operation of the heater, and the consumption of firewood in a solid fuel boiler increases significantly.

During combustion, moisture accumulates on the walls of the combustion chamber, where, together with carbon monoxide, it forms tar in large quantities. Having worked quite a bit on wet wood, your boiler, hood will be a pitiful sight. It will take a lot of effort to wash the combustion chamber, the chimney from sticky tar. Wood burning boilers need regular cleaning. The performance of the boiler equipment depends on this.

On a note: everything goes into the boiler furnace, both large logs and small wood chips. By correctly spreading the logs, you can significantly increase the intensity of combustion and reduce the formation of acrid smoke to a minimum. In other words, large logs are stacked along the edge, while smaller fragments are stacked in the middle.

Let’s pay attention to the types of wood. In our country, in every region, this or that industrial wood is used for firewood. In the central regions, more emphasis is placed on hardwood varieties, mainly birch. This is the best option, both in terms of price and quality. Less commonly used oak, beech, hornbeam and ash.

There is only one but! If this is legal firewood, then they are very expensive. In general, using oak wood for heating is a luxury. Oak is ideal as a fuel for bakers.

The birch wood-burning boiler is characterized by high performance. Birch burns for a long time and brightly, while releasing a large amount of thermal energy. The only drawback of birch is a large amount of tar compounds that are released during combustion. For residents of the middle lane, alder becomes a frequent guest in the boiler room. This tree not only burns well, but also releases a huge amount of antiseptic components.

The most low-grade type of firewood can be attributed to pine firewood. Due to the high resin content, pine logs burn intensely and emit a lot of heat. The only disadvantage of such fuel is the high speed with which pine logs turn into ash. Heating your house with fuel from pine and spruce, you will certainly encounter excessive fuel consumption.

Solid fuel boilers of various types. How to heat them properly?

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If the theoretical part is a little clear, then in practice the situation looks different. There is no general template for how to fire a solid fuel boiler with wood. Each solid fuel heater has its own specifics and nuances. This applies not only to fundamental differences in the operation of the units, but also to a smoother choice of fuel. We mainly deal with three types of wood-fired boiler equipment. These are the following types of solid fuel boilers:

• pyrolysis units;
• boilers for long burning on wood;
• classic heaters.

In addition to the difference in the principle of operation, many heaters differ in the way they load fuel. There are models with manual loading of firewood, as well as products in which this process is semi-automated.

Consider the situation with firewood for each type of heating device.

pyrolysis boilers. What is the situation with firewood in boilers of this type

The kindling of a pyrolysis-type boiler is based on the principle of operation of the unit. Accordingly, the scheme for supplying fuel to the combustion chamber also emerges from here. This type of heater has two compartments. Materials for kindling are laid in one: paper, wood chips, brown coal. In another compartment, firewood is already stacked directly. Combustion of the main fuel load occurs at a temperature of 450⁰C. To begin with, you can lay an incomplete amount of firewood. After the flame flares up, the remaining logs are laid.

Important! Pyrolysis boilers work only on dry wood. The moisture content of the fuel material should not exceed 7-8%. Otherwise, pyrolysis will not proceed — the main feature of this type of boiler technology.

After the fire has flared up in the kindling chamber, the main work of the heating device begins. The high efficiency of the unit depends on the condition of the chimney. For pyrolysis boilers, it is necessary to have a cleaned and heated chimney.

How does a long-burning heater work on wood?

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Among the model range of heating equipment, a significant place is occupied by long-burning boilers. These are the most efficient and productive devices, specially designed for heating residential buildings. The main feature of such equipment is their huge duration of work. A well-established unit is capable of operating from one load of firewood for a long time in normal operating mode. The intervals between downloads are up to 8-12 hours. On foreign models, you can achieve even better results.

Solid fuel boilers for long burning are not particularly whimsical. You can heat them with ordinary firewood, again dry. For kindling, paper and wood chips are used. Unlike other boilers, where combustion occurs from the bottom up, in these units everything happens the other way around. Fuel is loaded in uniform layers into the upper chamber. After the paper and small chips have flared up, on the topmost layer of logs, we install a press equipped with an air distributor.

The press puts pressure on the wood, causing it to slowly smolder, rather than burn with a bright flame. Due to this, a longer burning time of equipment of this type is achieved.

The sequence of kindling a conventional solid fuel unit is no different. Here, as in the case of newer, modern units, it is important to use dry firewood. Methods for laying firewood are determined by the size of the combustion chamber and directly by the process of burning fuel. An air-type wood-burning boiler is nothing special in terms of fuel loading.

Classic solid fuel boilers are of the least interest, since this type of heating technology is unpopular today.

Important! In no case should you use flammable and flammable substances, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, various chemicals, when kindling solid fuel boilers.

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conclusions

There is nothing complicated about how to heat autonomous solid fuel heating boilers with wood. The design of most products is simple and straightforward. The presence of certain skills, compliance with safety measures will allow the solid fuel boiler to be operated in normal mode.

Firewood in the firebox can be stacked in different ways, orderly and in the form of a well. Such laying methods are commonly used in traditional boilers, in fireplaces and in conventional stoves. For pyrolysis boilers and long-burning units, the stacking of firewood must be done as tightly as possible so that there are no air gaps between the logs. A working boiler must burn almost all the fuel put into it.

Before lighting a fire in the firebox, check for draft. If your match or paper bursts into a white flame, then there is excessive draft in the chimney. If, on the contrary, the flame turns red, the thrust is insufficient. The best option for working traction, when the flame has a yellow tint. All the nuances and subtleties should be taken into account when working with wood-fired boilers. Not only your comfort and coziness, but also the duration of the uninterrupted operation of the heating device depends on how you handle heating equipment.