Biomass Spoiler

It was meant to be the epitome of our new way of life at Rowan Farm.

The Eco pivot on which we balanced our attempts to reduce our carbon footprint and live more sustainably.

Our plans for a state of the art biomass boiler would efficiently heat our home and water.

What’s more, all the fuel it needed was already on site in the twigs and logs provided by the maintenance our trees require.

It was about as green as it’s possible to get.

But last week our biomass ambitions went up in smoke.

We got the final estimate.

And it’s more than three times what we had budgeted.

We simply cannot afford it.

The bad news comes at a tricky time.

The last couple of months of a project are always a bit manic.

Budgets start to get squeezed; time marches on; husbands/project managers fall really ill with Lyme Disease from a tick…

We’ve been marching on regardless with interiors and external finishing touches.

But with the boiler, we’ve hit a bit of a dead end.

In many ways we are victims of our own success.

We have insulated the house so well that the heat a biomass boiler churns out now massively exceeds our demands.

And all the relevant green government grants that might help us are based on use rather than initial outlay for a boiler.

Here’s the maths:

A regular boiler would set you back about £1k.

We had decided to cough up for around £12k in order to have biomass.

But the bill turns out to be more like £36k.

If we’re lucky, we might get a few hundred quid from the government to help.

It just ain’t enough.

Even with the incredible generosity of our financial support system (aka my dad), we can’t make it work.

So in true first world problem style: we’ve panicked. I’ve (nearly) cried. And we’ve called on our usual Eco big wig consultant (aka Oli’s dad).

As luck would have it, Peter is the Professor for Engineering for Sustainable Development at Cambridge University.

Which is handy.

With a bit of head scratching we’ve come up with a compromise.

We can do some clever things to make a normal boiler super efficient including reducing the demands on it and generating our own electricity to power it.

But I’m still sad about the loss of the biomass boiler.

It was so out there, so innovative, so earthy.

So Rowan.

But maybe in the dead of winter when I’m not having to hand feed logs into a boiler that cost more than anything else on the build just to have a hot shower…

I might feel slightly differently.

UPDATE…

All is not lost folks. 

Thank you very much to everyone who has got in touch with suggestions for burners, solar, crowd funding… 

I so appreciate all your enthusiasm and help. 

Just to keep you all in the loop: 

Biomass is back on. 

Kevin from Eco Engineering has come to our rescue. 

It looks like we can do a log boiler after all with fewer frills and a major solar element. 

For a lot less wonga. 

As big Kev said, it would be daft not to do biomass given our glut of wood offcuts on site and from our business. 

This version will be more affordable and he can help us access government assistance. 

We’re meeting him on site next week to go through it all. 

How does one go about recommending someone for knighthood?