# Bought a wood chipper - burning green chips



## Nofossil (Apr 7, 2013)

I finally broke down and bought a 3-point hitch chipper to deal with the brush piles. I originally figured we'd use the chips for mulch and compost and trail cover, but I found myself looking at this big pile of biomass, and one thing led to another.....

My chips aren't really green - they're a mix of green, dry, and way past dry into punky. There's a Christmas tree in there somewhere, poplar branches, white and red cedar, white pine, buckthorn, and anything else that looked chippable (honey, where's the cat?)

Bottom line: I'm amazed at how well they work. You have to have a *good* bed of coals, but they burn hot and clean with *no* puffing. I wish I could figure out a reasonable way to store and handle them.


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## iceguy4 (Apr 7, 2013)

I wounder if a harman will burn them?


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## ewdudley (Apr 7, 2013)

Nofossil said:


> Bottom line: I'm amazed at how well they work. You have to have a *good* bed of coals, but they burn hot and clean with *no* puffing. I wish I could figure out a reasonable way to store and handle them.


On a residential scale I can't seem to come up with a practical solution. I was thinking something along the lines of taking a forage wagon split lengthwise, or the whole thing, with an air-flowing floor, fill on one end, run solar heated air though it from time to time, and get dried chips out the other end.  Don't know how I'd make it all fit in very well anywhere near the house.


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## infinitymike (Apr 7, 2013)

They will also make a great fuel source for a syngas generator that you can run tractor, car, electric generator and any other internal combustion engine.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0302hsted/fema.woodgas.pdf


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## infinitymike (Apr 7, 2013)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=CN5GEBbaf7Y&list=PL577F1A86C81F2989


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## JP11 (Apr 7, 2013)

There is no bigger "impact" implement I own than my hydraulic feed chipper.  Makes land look so much cleaner and nicer in just a small amount of time.  I have been opting for blowing the chips into my roads.. and just using them to level the low spots.  too much labor to collect the chips IMHO.  your labor would go a lot further cutting trees.   BUT.. if you're doing it for science.. why not.


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## maple1 (Apr 7, 2013)

Could you make crates out of pallets, maybe put it on a small trailer, & just direct the outfeed into that? Then move the crate to where it needs to park with combined FEL & pallet jack? Or something like that?

Once you start feeding the chips onto an established coal bed - will they maintain the coal bed on their own? Or would you need to alternate with wood? When I load in 'hog fuel' off my floor, it burns real good on top of coals but doesn't leave much behind.


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## JP11 (Apr 7, 2013)

I had about a 6 yard dump body on my F650..  I tried to blow the chips into that.  I couldn't blow them DOWN into it. It was more horizontal, with the bed tipped up a bit.  It didn't work well.. as many bounced out as ended up in the bed.

I think you'd have better luck blowing them ONTO a tarp.  But still going to be awful labor intensive.  A big trailer made for silage would work.  you need something tall to deflect them down.

JP


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## rkusek (Apr 8, 2013)

ewdudley said:


> On a residential scale I can't seem to come up with a practical solution. I was thinking something along the lines of taking a forage wagon split lengthwise, or the whole thing, with an air-flowing floor, fill on one end, run solar heated air though it from time to time, and get dried chips out the other end. Don't know how I'd make it all fit in very well anywhere near the house.


 
How about a grain bin?


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## arngnick (Apr 8, 2013)

My old boiler was supposed to burn chips so I have a bin full of them in my basement. Sine I am not hauling them out I burn them in my new boiler...they work great! They fill all the voids between other wood and burn up before the wood burns completely so they do not fall through my nozzle! I rented the chipper and blew the chips directly into the basement when I did it.


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## jebatty (Apr 8, 2013)

nofo, as you mentioned, "I wish I could figure out a reasonable way to store and handle them." Add to that "transport, possibly dry and compact them." I guess that is why there are pellets: easily stored, handled, compacted, dried and transported. A local ethanol plant was constructed with a gasifer that used wood chips. Dump them into large hopper, where the chips then were fed into a combustion area at a controlled rate which by the heat of combustion first boiled off the moisture and then combusted them, with the gas into a lower chamber for final combustion and heat to drive the distilling process. Very expensive, and as best I heard resulted in a gummed up mess and very sticky litigation.

What you have could be solved a little short of rocket science, so go for it. A residential scale chip burner would be great. I'm not sure the labor, storing and handling to the burner site would end up much less than handling round wood though.


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## willyswagon (Apr 8, 2013)

Growing up Dad would always get a pick up load of wood chips(Hog Fuel) from one of the local suppliers. It was terriable to deal with. Shovelling chips into the basement sucked!
We used them as kindling, and they were great for that. I would sooner throw in the 8 cords we burn every year rather than handle the chips.


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## Nofossil (Apr 8, 2013)

Yeah, I really can't see a reasonable approach that makes sense in terms of labor and equipment. I just had to experiment, though. At one time I contemplated buying a batch of ten pound mesh bags (the ones that onions come in) and using those to bag, store transport, and finally burn. Still too much work per BTU, though.

In my boiler you need to have enough wood to maintain a coal bed, but one of the nice effects is that with chips you're absolutely only burning on the bottom. That seems to eliminate any tendency for puffing. Perhaps one good use (as argnick suggests) is to extend the load by filling all the voids between logs with chips. Since I have a small firebox that would be nice on cold nights especially.


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## jebatty (Apr 8, 2013)

> In my boiler you need to have enough wood to maintain a coal bed, but one of the nice effects is that with chips you're absolutely only burning on the bottom.


 
Might this be the clue to a solution: use the wood coal bed as a starter, then load the chips above, which then would superheat a ceramic "coal bed," which then could be driven only by loading chips above, with the combusting chips continuing to maintain the superheated ceramic coal bed?


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## Nofossil (Apr 8, 2013)

jebatty said:


> Might this be the clue to a solution: use the wood coal bed as a starter, then load the chips above, which then would superheat a ceramic "coal bed," which then could be driven only by loading chips above, with the combusting chips continuing to maintain the superheated ceramic coal bed?


 
I've thought of throwing in some of the 'lava rocks' that they use for barbeque grills. Might clog the nozzle, but might actually work. As long as they stayed hot enough. Maybe if I added some firebrick to give me an angled floor in my combustion chamber so everything ends up at the nozzle....


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## scooby074 (Apr 8, 2013)

I really like the idea of going with chips for my next place. Mechanical fuel handling FTW!

Has anybody tried out or investigated the new Portage and Main chip boiler? Looks to be an interesting unit. Performing well on green chips in the video and I like the attached chip storage




I posted this in another thread that has since been locked! Its from Scotland. This guy has the complete setup. He's in a historic home, and used to spend over $60k to heat with oil.. He's saving thousands by using biomass.


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## jebatty (Apr 8, 2013)

I like that stack of chips. Looks like he compressed the chips into round logs for easy outside storage. What a great idea!

Clogging of the nozzle, with or without lava rocks, would be an issue. I also thought of a slow moving screen, back and forth, or something like that, to keep the nozzle from clogging.


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## Karl_northwind (Apr 8, 2013)

I saw the P&M chip burner at last year's Heating The Midwest with biomass conference.  the guy who was demoing it is a friend, and may have it there this year.  outside Duluth MN.

karl


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## Mushroom Man (Apr 8, 2013)

I found that commercial apple crates (4'x4'x2' high) work great with rear forks on the tractor for transporting split wood, kindling and biomass to the boiler room (attached garage, in my case). Apple farmers will sell old apple boxes cheap. I think those boxes would work well for chips too. Slightly damaged plastic ones would be ideal because they have great ventilation; but the wood ones hold up pretty well to the elements and burn well eventually.

I like the idea of burning chips with cord wood and other biomass like my mushroom substrate (mostly straw). Cleaning up the fence rows could yield a lot of biomass and chipping branch material may make red cedars worth the effort of processing. I have 35 acres of red cedar bush

I have successfully burned the biomass with a good coal base and have also burned chips with a good coal base. I tried lava rocks but most fell through my over-sized nozzles which need repair. With some kind of grate to keep the lava rocks in the right chamber, that idea might work well with chips and other fine biomass.

If I see a cheap used PTO driven chipper, I'm gonna jump on it like white on rice.


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## scooby074 (Apr 8, 2013)

Karl_northwind said:


> I saw the P&M chip burner at last year's Heating The Midwest with biomass conference. the guy who was demoing it is a friend, and may have it there this year. outside Duluth MN.
> 
> karl


 
I understand it is a relatively new machine. Have you heard any positive or negative comments on it yet? P+M are usually good machines, but you never know.


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## Karl_northwind (Apr 9, 2013)

scooby074 said:


> I understand it is a relatively new machine. Have you heard any positive or negative comments on it yet? P+M are usually good machines, but you never know.


 
I saw it a year ago.  I'll see him at the conference in a couple weeks and ask him how it's been running.  the Irony is that his place (strawbale, super insulated, passive and active solar, and such), is efficient enough that he has no need for an OWB or any boiler for that matter.  I make a point of poking him on that when I can.


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## 711mhw (Apr 9, 2013)

nofo, sounds like you have the tractor......... have you ever seen those pallet sized sacks that have loops in the top to hang from forklift forks? I think that they are a drawstring type top and have a funnel shaped bottom with another drawstring there. They support themselves and as long as they didn't freeze to the ground you could maybe make a rack to hang one from (for use) at the "wood entrance" at wheel barrow height for final transport. I've seen them used for about $15.


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## nate379 (Apr 9, 2013)

Why spend the money on equipment and workers to chips all those nice logs?  Wouldn't firewood be cheaper?  I'm not getting it!



scooby074 said:


> I
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> ...


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## PassionForFire&Water (Apr 10, 2013)

nate379 said:


> Why spend the money on equipment and workers to chips all those nice logs? Wouldn't firewood be cheaper? I'm not getting it!


 
I think it's all about automation.
I personally would not like to fill cord wood in any wood boiler over 200,000 BTU/hr (60 kW)
With a wood chip boiler, you can fill your storage for 1 or 2 weeks at a time and still be able to "enjoy" life
This picture is a Heizomat (Germany) wood chip installation.


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## scooby074 (Apr 10, 2013)

PassionForFire&Water said:


> I think it's all about automation.
> I personally would not like to fill cord wood in any wood boiler over 200,000 BTU/hr (60 kW)
> With a wood chip boiler, you can fill your storage for 1 or 2 weeks at a time and still be able to "enjoy" life
> This picture is a Heizomat (Germany) wood chip installation.


 
This is it in a nutshell.

The convenience of pellets in a greener form (chips require less energy input). Plus its a form you can make reliably yourself. Logs, yard waste, general forrest biomass.. all goes into the chipper.

Think "mechanical" firewood.


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## BoilerBob (Apr 10, 2013)

Nofossil said:


> I finally broke down and bought a 3-point hitch chipper


 
NoFo, you must have heard the rumor also!!

Residential size wood chip boiler (Imported), will be on display at the NE Forest Expo in Bangor Me. May 17,18


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## blades (Apr 10, 2013)

There have been several commercial chip burning units installed overseas, none have worked out so far.  To be fair what they call chips are small compressed pucks.  Supply issues and cost have been the down fall on most. A fairly high rate of maintenance has not helped either as well as the requirement of two firemen in attendance at all times( what they call a person with a boiler lic.)


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## scooby074 (Apr 10, 2013)

blades said:


> There have been several commercial chip burning units installed overseas, none have worked out so far. To be fair what they call chips are small compressed pucks. Supply issues and cost have been the down fall on most. A fairly high rate of maintenance has not helped either as well as the requirement of two firemen in attendance at all times( what they call a person with a boiler lic.)


 
What?

There are all kinds of chip boilers out there, without stationary engineers running them.  The video of the place in Scotland that I posted earlier for example.


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## mikefrommaine (Apr 10, 2013)

PassionForFire&Water said:


> I think it's all about automation.
> I personally would not like to fill cord wood in any wood boiler over 200,000 BTU/hr (60 kW)
> With a wood chip boiler, you can fill your storage for 1 or 2 weeks at a time and still be able to "enjoy" life
> This picture is a Heizomat (Germany) wood chip installation.


That's a nice looking setup but can you explain exactly what we are looking at?  The Heizomat is the red one? And it has an auto feed system? What is the black box on the right -- it looks like it has an auger of some sort?

Anyone wanting to try wood chips in their boiler should call a few tree companies. I get all the chips I want dropped off for free. I use them as mulch. And have tried throwing some in the boiler occasionally but for most of the winter they are in a frozen pile since I have no way to store/dry them.


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## scooby074 (Apr 10, 2013)

mikefrommaine said:


> That's a nice looking setup but can you explain exactly what we are looking at? The Heizomat is the red one? And it has an auto feed system? What is the black box on the right -- it looks like it has an auger of some sort?
> .


 
Red thing is the boiler. Heizomat.
Chips on the LH side in the bunker are the feed.
Black box and auger are for ash removal.

At least that is what it looks like to me.


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## Ashful (Apr 10, 2013)

Nofossil said:


> I finally broke down and bought a 3-point hitch chipper to deal with the brush piles.


 
What make and model?  Inquiring minds, and all...


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## Woodsrover (Apr 10, 2013)

Joful said:


> What make and model? Inquiring minds, and all...


 
I'd like to know too.  I bought a Salsco 824 years ago.  I love it.


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## JustWood (Apr 10, 2013)

My dad burns some chips in his OWB. I have a wood dump that tree trimmers use. They bring mixed loads of wood/chips to get rid of and I use a grapple on a loader to sort out the wood. Some times the chips don't all drop out the bottom of the grapple and are mixed with the wood when it is dumped into storage bin. When theres enough chips at the front of the bin for a load he lays in a few layers of slabwoob crisscrossing the slabs and then shovels in chips/bark etc on top. Works well and lots of heat. These chips are pretty dry as the bin gets loaded through the spring and summer with plenty of time to dry. Green chips may not work as well.


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## PassionForFire&Water (Apr 10, 2013)

Woodsrover said:


> I'd like to know too. I bought a Salsco 824 years ago. I love it.


 
Guys, I don't want to hijack this posting.

I will create a new posting just on the Heizomat wood chip boilers, with a link to a you tube video that explains all operational aspects.


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## Ashful (Apr 10, 2013)

PassionForFire&Water said:


> Guys, I don't want to hijack this posting.
> 
> I will create a new posting just on the Heizomat wood chip boilers, with a link to a you tube video that explains all operational aspects.


 
Sounds good, but my question had nothing to do with Heizomat wood chip boilers.  I wanted to know what brand and model chipper the OP bought.


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## S.Whiplash (Apr 10, 2013)

I looked in great detail at the Portage and Main chip burner and the Bio-Burner 100 and I went with the Bio-Burner.  It's like comparing a Maserati to a Yugo. The P+M unit looked like a weekend reno. job strapped to their OWB and I guess that's what it is.   The Bio-Burner is designed specifically to burn anything from powdered sawdust right up to wood chips, includes grain, corn, shavings and about anything else that is dry enough and can be ground down to size.  The controls are quite sophisticated and are adjustable to the different fuels and moisture content.  I am very pleased with my unit.  I think Fuel Farmer has posted some threads about the bigger version of the Bio-Burner on this site.  

One thing about waste biomass is no need to make your own as there's lot's of it out there and for the most part it's FREE for the taking.  I get a combo of shavings and sawdust from a local wood window and door factory.  Just look for any industry that has a big dust vacuum silo attached to a building and you'll find dry biomass.  Another good supplier is feedmills if you can get their waste feed before it gets rained on they're happy you spared them the expense of hauling it to the landfill.

I'll try and post some pictures of my setup later if I can figure out how to do that.


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## Nofossil (Apr 10, 2013)

Joful said:


> What make and model? Inquiring minds, and all...


It's an 8" hydraulic feed model sold by WoodMax. It's a Chinese model that they upgrade a bit. I don't ever need to chip anything anywhere near 8", but the larger opening and hydraulic feed means it can inhale all sorts of twisty branches (and our Christmas tree).


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## peakbagger (Apr 11, 2013)

When DIck Hill was building his gasifier at University of Maine, Norm Smith from the ag engineering department was building a wood chip boiler. It worked fine but the density of the chips made storage a major issue. Not many folks wanted a silo next to their building. The reason why pellet boilers are somewhat successful is the BTU content of the pellets is much higher per cubic foot than chips. Uniformity of the chips helps. Unfortunately many folks think of chips as uniform square pieces of wood, the reality is that the low grade forest residual chips are mostly chopoed and shredded twigs mixed with irregular chunks. Many of the school chip boilers in VT were designed for the nice uniform chips (referred to as bole tree chips) or sawmil residual chips and when thsoe supplies eithe ran out of got too expensive, they switched to forest residual chips and the boilers ended up requiring constant tending due to the chip clogs.  BERC in vermont has some excellent free studies that cover wood chip heating http://www.biomasscenter.org/resources/publications.html


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## JP11 (Apr 11, 2013)

lots of bark in chips.  do we fill our boilers with bark on purpose?  same idea.  Not saying there's not energy there.  But, much like the 1" limbs on the stuff you're felling..  You cutting and stacking up the little stuff?  No.  The labor isn't worth the output. 

Now... you're heating hundreds of thousands of square feet... chips get appealing.

My B.I.L. installed and maintains a HUGE boiler for his job.  Live floor for the loading of the boiler was into the MILLIONS of dollars, just for the floor.  Works for them.

Most of us only WISH we were full time boiler tenders.  We need to balance equipment needs with storage space and tending time.  I don't think chips is it for the heat output most of us need.  Now... a farmer with many buildings and need for huge amounts of DHW.... guy's around the farm already.. May work for them

JP


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## Nofossil (Apr 11, 2013)

If I had an outside boiler room/shed with a chip bin that I could load from outside with the tractor and unload from inside with a shovel, I'd probably do it. As it is, i might burn the occasional bucket for fun.


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## jebatty (Apr 12, 2013)

I suppose I burn some chips without ever thinking about it. All the scraps after splitting, bark, etc., I gather up and spread out on the concrete floor for a couple of days. They dry fast, then I throw them into a container. When I burn and as a wood load burns down, I throw a shovel full or so on top from time to time until all the scraps are burned up. Burn hot and fast. Goal has been to clean-up and eliminate waste, not thinking that I'm burning chips.


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## Mushroom Man (Apr 13, 2013)

With storage burning hot and fast does not (at first look) present a problem.In fact it is precisely what we want.

However maintaining a bed of coals to facilitate that is difficult. The chips themselves burn very completely into ash but then you have to start all over and create a bed of coals. Nofossil mentioned lava rocks here.   I read someone suggesting that years ago. So, a few years back, I got some and tried that technique, as I said earlier in this thread.

The lava rocks fell through the nozzles so I tried a few other things. First I got some barbeque grate and placed the lava rocks over the nozzles. I don't think that I accomplished gasification. The ash collected around the lava rocks/ grate and effectively blocked air from entering the secondary chamber.

In a second attempt with lava rocks, I draped chain down into the nozzles, added lava rocks, and burned biomass (straw) above. Again the ash blocked the air to the secondary.

In retrospect, I should have been careful to create a great coal bed above the lava rocks to ensure that the lava rocks got as hot as possible and then added biomass. My theory being that If the lava rocks stayed really really HOT, the process might be sustained by just keeping the biomass gases coming and the need to recreate a hot coal bed continually could be eliminated as the lava rocks would effectively become the coal bed.

Being stubborn, I am willing to try again to accomplish finding an effective means of maintaining a coal bed (even if it is artificial) while burning chips or straw. The payoff would be more BTUs from the same tree OR more BTUs from my waste substrate.

My friend, a smart fella with lots of engineering knowledge and experience, says it doesn't work because the lava rocks don't burn; they just absorb the heat from the materials burning above (in this case) and spread it evenly where they are collected. I contend that the gasification occurs when the gases pass through the hot coals (or lava rocks) whether they are burning or not provided the heat is sufficient to ignite the gases.

I remember seeing a Youtube video once where sawdust was burning in a gasifier with no visible flame in the primary chamber but the secondary was gasing like no tomorrow. I wish I knew how they ignited those gases as they entered the secondary 

I would appreciate hearing experiences of others who have tried lava rocks with chips or other biomass.


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