Heating the house with homemade pellets. Real cost example
The article Heating the house with free pellets. My version of their production I described the scheme when the purchased equipment is installed next to some kind of lumber production (or on its territory) and pellets are produced from sawdust. This is the most convenient solid fuel and the most environmentally friendly (ash is poured into the garden). But you need an automatic pellet boiler in the heating system.
If there are no difficulties and you are on friendly terms with the owner of the sawmill, then yes, at least you will provide yourself with pellets for the winter. And maybe you will even earn something in this business. But without friendly ties there is a risk that sooner or later your production will be asked to leave, and the flow of customers will be taken over.
You can produce pellets on your own territory. But then there are additional costs for the delivery of sawdust. One of the readers solved this question like this:
The comments themselves on this link
Why such a high cost of the author of the comment - did not ask. When a 5 kW electric motor is operating, more than 150 rubles should not go out per shift. And during this time on homemade equipment, I think, you can produce up to 200 kg of pellets. Those. the cost price with free sawdust should not be higher than 1000 rubles / t.
For a small house of 100-120 m2, the consumption of pellets is on average 30 kg / day (more in cold weather, in a thaw - a few kilograms). Let it be 1 ton / month. You will need 6-7 tons of pellets per season. In KAMAZ we will consider 10 m3 of sawdust or 2 tons. During production, the mass of pellets from sawdust decreases slightly. Those. for the winter you need at least five cars with sawdust. And you will need to pay at least 2000 rubles. for delivery or give 1 ton of pellets at a price of 2000-2500 rubles / ton - exactly half of the delivered volume. Then either the volume of processed sawdust doubles, or the cost rises to 3000 rubles / ton. It is still 2-2.5 times lower than the cost of buying and shipping pellets.
But will you be able to process up to ten KAMAZ vehicles a year? Let's say you do this work on weekends four times a month. And make 1 ton of pellets per month. Then you will have to do this almost all year or when paying the driver in cash - 6 months of the year. Production costs will be from 7 to 21 thousand. rub. for the heating season. And plus your time and work every weekend.
Does this make sense if firewood with delivery costs 1500-2500 rubles / m3. But it will not work to heat an automatic boiler with them. Only a long burning boiler or oven.
In addition, you need to build a room where you will be engaged in this production. This amount is approximately 50 thousand. rub. And the pellet mill itself for the production of pellets has a cost of 50 thousand. rub.:
If you have hands, a room and a tool, then the granulator can be assembled by yourself, as the author of the commentary did. An example of assembly on video from other craftsmen:
Making a granulator with your own hands will cut costs in half. But it will take your time and equipment debugging.
The ideal condition for this pellet making process is that you have your own truck. This will allow the cost of pellets to be 1000 rubles / ton, provided that the sawdust is given free of charge by self-pickup. One more question: after retirement age it will not be so easy to do this. But not everyone looks that far.
P.S. This theme has a continuation. You can still reduce the cost of wood fuel for the boiler. If heated with wood chips. But in this case, other boilers are used and certain conditions are met. And we'll talk about them in the next article. Subscribe to the channel so as not to miss ...
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