Thedreamer

I've heard of many wind turbines which are now being taken down despite the turbines working efficiently, as they are now being replaced with even larger ones, for the simple reason of making more money for investors. A lot of turbine blades still go to the landfill. https://www.vestas.com/en/media/company-news/2023/vestas-unveils-circularity-solution-to-end-landfill-for-c3710818 Depends where you are, if you are in the middle of London, not so good, when you commute for 15 miles and often see no cars on the way to work, it does not matter.

Just glad I built my home when I did! Been heating with just home grown wood since the summer of 2020. I have spent less than a tenner on heating since then. All the wood burned has been grown meters from our door. Every tree removed has been replanted and more, with lots of coppicing. An added benefit is that I have used the by products from this way of life to transform my garden soil (chips, leaves, biochar) this is now rich and being enjoyed by all on my property from woodcutter to worm! A unique situation, but works just fine. Everybody is in good health. I am still unsold on some other forms of renewable energy, (what happens to solar panels when they decrease in efficiency? where do wind turbine blades go likewise?, where do batteries come from, is it sustainable? My supply chain is simple, the technology is simple.

@flanagaj the cladding is batten and then attached to the timber frame kit.

Looks the same as my c4.

I have been heating the house with just a stove, three 1/2 years in now, and, an electricity bill for heating of £10 since June 2020. Just needs the right house design and the right location.

I'm coming to the end of my original fix after moving from the self-build product at the end of 2020. I have a range of choices from my lender but my question is whether when you agree on a new product are you able to make an overpayment between the old product ending and the new one starting? My aim is to be mortgage free as soon as possible after turning 40.

Some folk like me have control over the fuel. I have my wood burner on tonight and if you monitored the air outside any PM would not be to a level that would be classed as causing any damage to your health.

I agree with all of these points and in the vast majority of locations in the UK they would be cause for concern. But my area in the Highlands, it's very remote and PMs in the external air will not cause any negative effects outside. On the CO2 emissions, there were no trees here and now there are many. One spruce tree, after using the trunk for firewood still has a lot of carbon remaining. The branches and small parts can be either chipped or made into biochar both to be incorporated into the soil. New trees are planted or regrown via coppicing. I'm probably adding more carbon into the soil then the majority of UK residents.

In a sparsely populated area, where I have close home-grown wood. Why is a WBS not suitable in this setting for my self-build? I can understand that you feel solar would be a more efficient option, but on the topic of WBS why is this not the right setting?

There are plenty of projects on buildhub where they work well. Like mine. The purpose of this forum is for individual self-builders and renovators to exchange ideas. Most of the time those with wood burners share practical advice on how these can work well in the right setting.

I don't have this one, but an earlier Joule model called an Aero. Just does our hot water and acts as an MEV system. Works well for us, it was significantly cheaper than that price.

This would not work for me as the solar panel energy would not be sufficient in the winter to heat the house when I need it. Those energy storage methods would not keep the heat long enough. I'm not a big fan of batteries as I don't understand the supply chain. With wood, I can store energy more easily. I don't view the trees as a crop. It shame when one comes down or needs to be removed to allow others to thrive. When they do come down every part is utilized, if fire wood is not possible, branches too big to be chipped or made into biochar, smaller sticks, and leaves are made into mulch. No trees existed here or maybe one or two. There are now probably a thousand trees. How is that not carbon stored? When they come down new ones are already a few years old and are planted. ? Combustion can't be recycled but I can plant another and repeat the cycle. I agree, but it's not practical here. I've never seen more than a few panels on a roof. No need, per my comment earlier. I will do this. True it costs a bit for a good quality wood stove. Investing in a good wood stove is worthwhile in terms of efficiency and lifespan. It does not however compare with the cost of installing underfloor heating, plumbing, hot water storage, and panels. Plus I have quite a bit of south-facing glazing on my roof space which provides free solar energy in the summer to heat the house and does enough when I need it.

I can grow a plant from seed for free. I can't grow a solar panel. The installation is nice and easy, you can plant a lot of trees very quickly. I can dig a hole but I can't wire or installed electric/solar panels. I can store energy more easily with a tree. I can't do that with just a solar panel. 100 years seems a long time for harvesting trees. Conifers can grow to a large size in thirty years. We harvested alder trees a few years ago and by coppicing, this could be done again in ten years. Trees capture carbon, solar panels do not. My limited understanding is that solar panels become less efficient over time. How would a thirty-year old panel or in hundred years perform? Where do old panels go, can they be recycled? My energy supply chain is easy to understand with trees. No idea where the panels have come from. Why have a resource come all the way from China or Korea, thousands of miles when I can control the energy I use, meters away from my house? Trees provide a place for wildlife to thrive. If I put down just panels nothing would benefit from this but me. You can buy significantly more land in some areas of the UK than in others. We have at least 100 times the space of an average garden. There are more resources than just firewood from trees, branches, and leaves provides a great resource to the garden. In my location, it is probably more efficient to have a few wind farms which would provide my electricity energy rather than having loads of land for domestic individual solar production. Just to say, I am not anti-solar panels and I would consider them in the future (assuming I can understand where they have come from and how they can be recycled). It was 2 celsius outside when I left the office at 7ish, the house was 18.5 celsius when I came in and I have burned this evening a single round of spruce and probably a single smallest branch from an alder tree. I have heated the house to 22 celsius with this. It's cost me nothing. A big external heat pump would probably have cost me a couple of quid at least to heat the house this evening.

Heating exclusively with wood is working just fine for me. I finished our self-build in 2020. Solar panels are going to be more cost-effective in say Kent compared to my location in the Hebrides. Growing trees for biomass heating is going to be more cost-effective in the Highlands than in Kent. Building regulations should allow flexibility for buildings to be designed to suit the environment in which they are going to be located. Blanket bans are a terrible idea. I burn a small trug of logs in the winter evenings mostly from wind-blown trees or from coppicing. In the summer my south-facing glazing is my heating source. With the rebate of £400 and a further one of £200 expected from being off the grid from gas, I will have free energy for 8 or 9 months.

Is that the Bosch AX25? I picked up that model a couple of months ago for £100 on a local facebook page. I am using it to make various paths in the garden. There is plenty of good resources associated with home cut firewood.

We are a slightly higher building reg self build on Skye. Nothing fancy, just a modest three bedroom 138m2 completed in 2020. Our installation consists of three extraction points in our en-suite, bathroom and utility this goes into a metal ducting into a mini air source heat pump on top of a cylinder. It takes that air and heats our domestic water (not heating) and blows cold air outside. It also extracts moisture through a pipe to the outside to help with humidity. It was quite cheap to install and is cheap to run. It's very consistent in the energy usage as it's not trying to take cold winter air outside like an external heat pump therefore always achieves a very higher cop. Points to consider: sound proofing - our sits in a cupboard in the utility room. No noise in the house, but when working its slightly louder than a fridge freezer. We have it on anti vibration mat. We also used flexible ducting just before it goes into the unit. Get one with a good quality tank, some have anodes which require maintenance. A better quality one, such as a Joule cylinder does not. Mostly importantly, as its sucking internal air into the system and this will pull cold air from outside. We manage this by having lots of south facing glazing which heats the house for about six months of the year and allows for a bit of this free energy to be sucked up into the system. In the winter we rely on a centrally placed wood burner. Having access to free wood means that I can heat the house, with a few sticks and also the heat from the stove goes into the system. I am in an unique situation and if I did not have endless wood it might not be so attractive. That's not say it can't work efficiently in other circumstances. With the £400 rebate and further expected £200 rebate as a non gas customer, we will have no energy bills for ten months. I don't have any solar panels at the moment, but might get some fitted in the future. Here's my blog if you want to see pictures of the set-up.

@Gill Happy to answer any questions about our exhaust heat pump setup.

No, that's wrong. Turnover threshold for micro entity, £632,000.

As a settlement, no. But from the angle of the photo it looks like a lots of houses are clustered together. With the hill behind it's not a good place for burning wood. On a calm cold day it would be unpleasant and bad for your health. However there are locations like mine that are fine for wood burning stoves.

If smoke is visible than the stove/open fires is not being used correctly. An urban environment like that is not an appropriate setting for a stove. In the direction of the prevailing wind I have no neighbours for 100 kilometres. In the right location they work.

The amazon has an eco system to cope with breaking down timber quickly. And the small areas that were cultivated by local people adopted a similar approach of building soil to what I mentioned earlier using organic matter and charcoal. In the UK our natural eco system has gone, with the removal of forested area. The UK has lost most of the rich humus that existed in the soil. The small patch around my house is being replaced to what may have existed previously.

Very little pollution when burned efficiently. Actually burning trees in a sustainable way is fine. I don't collect my logs from a petrol station in a plastic netted bag of logs and burn in an irresponsible way. The logs and branches have been grown here and heat my family. No part of this process is wasted. The biochar/compost I have created as a side effect is being enjoyed by all. The sub soil is now full of activity, birds are loving the richness that I have created. It wouldn't really serve a purposes, but smoking outside in the beer garden would be fine.

Do you not have access to cheap mains gas? I live in a rural environment off grid for gas and heat the house exclusively with wood (home grown trees). It works for me as it's very cheap (with UK government rebates my total electricity account is expected to be in credit by March). I have the set-up for doing this efficiently, tools and storage area. As it sounds like you will be burning very rarely I would block up your fireplace and put a decorative item there. If the electricity fails (and you don't have mains gas) my advice would be to wrap up warm and wait for it to be reconnected if you are in a urban area, then this is prioritised so should only be a short term disconnection.

It consists of three extraction points, one in our ensuite, bathroom and utility these then run into the heat pump/fan on top of the cylinder it then has an outlet from the tank to blow cold air to the outside. Overall the COP is quite efficient and consistent in turning the air from the house into hot water. I admit it must be taking energy from the envelope of my house, but I have never found the temperature to drop much. Whatever is disappearing up the duct into the system is being replaced by either solar gains on good days or the trug of home grown logs and sticks I burn in the evening in the winter. Not sure how much energy is in a seasoned split spruce log or a branch from a birch/alder tree but been doing this now for three winters and I have spent no more than £5 to £10 on heating the house since June 2020.

Not sure why more people don't use these systems. All I can say it works for us. My energy bills all in with the £400 rebate will be a couple of quid from October to March.