Stoves on Canal Boats (Narrowboats)

I've been working for a HETAS (www.hetas.co.uk) registered heating company for over 21 years now. HETAS are the regulatory body who govern, monitor and promote the installation and servicing of solid fuel appliances.
As with CORGI for gas, ALL solid fuel appliances installed within residential or business addresses within the UK, must be notified to the relevant authority (usually your local council) or certified as safe via a qualified engineer (HETAS engineer).
In previous blogs you will have seen that I have been bestowing their virtues of Green Dragon Fuels; a biomass fuel made from the co-products of biodiesel product. Completely green, completely renewable energy. Green Dragon Fuel is currently undergoing HETAS testing for their approval. We have tested it on a multitude of appliances and today we have fired and tested on an installation that really shouldn't work (More of this later).
Now, my Dad owns a Narrowboat. He loves his Narrowboat and having talked to a lot of "boaters", they all do! And I can't say I blame them. The ardent boaters, like my Dad, are out on their boats, rain or shine, wind or hail. Some may think them mad! I personally think it's a completely different lifestyle. You see parts of the world that motorways and dual carriageways thankfully haven't destroyed and at a leisurely 3-4 miles an hour travelling speed you have plenty of time to see the world gracefully pass by.
Many of these boats have heating stoves on board, fired by solid fuel, be-it wood or smokeless fuel.Which got me thinking, since we supply Green Dragon Fuel here, would it be a good idea to see if I can introduce it through chandelries throughout the UK to the inland waterway users?
This I have done, having had several very productive meetings with chandelries around ourselves, we have also contacted chandelries throughout Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire. If you happen to be reading this, and are a proud owner of a Narrowboat or any inland waterway craft that has a solid fuel stove, ask your local chandelry for Green Dragon Fuels. It will save you the postage costs and you'll be helping the environment.
But I digress, the point of this blog was to be stoves and Narrowboats.
To install a stove to regulation requirements usually requires a flue (chimney) of at least 4 mtrs high from the top of the stove to the terminal. The flue, where at all possible, if made of metal, should also be insulated.
There is every chance that if these factors aren't met, then the flue will "downdraught" i.e. smoke will come into the area where the stove is fitted.
All narrowboats that I have seen have an effective flue height of only 1.7mtr! More to the point they are uninsulated metallic flues as well.
In theory these flues will be problematic to say the least.
Yet, every narrowboat with solid fuel seems to work quite adequately.
So, I wondered how a stove would perform with reduced flue height and burn Green Dragon Fuel.
The video below shows this simply, "Heath Robinson" installation. It by no way complies with any regulations and was set up and monitored by qualified professional people. In other words DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!

You can see, not only is the flame picture wonderful with the Green Dragon Fuel, it is not smoking back through the door and more to the point, the flue terminal shows a lovely clean burn.

(I aplogise for the quality of the video, Mr. Spielberg I am not!)

So, although the installation does not comply with current HETAS residential regulations, it does work! More over, it works very well with Green Dragon Fuels.

Give it a try, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!!

Green Dragon fuel vs smokeless fuel vs hardwood logs

For those who don't know, Green Dragon fuel is a "bio" solid fuel, formed from the byproducts of rapeseed (RS) oil production. (Why, oh why can't we have a better name for this plant?!?)

The stems, ie. the left over bits, have a calorific value (they burn). When crushed and compressed they are formed into "logs".

Since RS is grown throughout the UK and is, by all accounts, a rapidly growing plant, the byproduct fuel; bio log, is a truely renewable fuel. Unlike traditional timber, it does not take years to form. Trees require at least 10 years (hardwood) before they reach harvestable girth. Most readily available pre-bagged logs are either too wet to burn correctly due to little knowledge on the forecourt of how to store them or of so poor a quality that they do not burn efficiently.

The best true timber will always come from a good tree surgeon; one who knows how to season and store timber. Even so, the seasoning process takes 18 months minimum.

The next commonly available fuel is prepacked smokeless fuel. The process to form smokeless fuel is basically processing coal; burning it under pressure. This removes the deposits and dirt and a lot of heavy carbon, but where does this "dirt" go to? The hint is in burning. Sometimes a chemical process may be used. But chemicals will eventually need disposing.

Thus, is processed smokeless fuel "good" for the environment?

So, we now have the question regarding what's best to burn, smokeless fuel, hardwood or Green Dragon Fuel.

I know what I burn regularly. One thing is sure, humans want to stay warm. Use an earth resource such as smokeless fuel formed from coal, hardwood which takes a long time to grow or a fuel that has its source effectively replenished within months; not years?

You can find full details of Green Dragon Fuels here, or email me and I'll willingly take you through it.

Better still, BUY SOME here. Try it, believe it, help save our precious planet and money!