March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Bioblast system wins favorable feedback from N.B. farmer

A new greenhouse heating system fueled by wood chips has had a successful first season of operation at Den Hill Farm in Cambridge-Narrows, New Brunswick, a small community south of Fredericton.

Roger Hyatt, owner of Den Hill Farm, is the first New Brunswick producer to use the Canadian-designed Bioblast system.

Almost anything that burns can fuel the Bioblast system. At Den Hill Farm, Hyatt chose to use wood chips and sawdust. The system also will take logs.

Hyatt owns a woodlot which, along with a local sawmill, supplies the wastes needed to fuel the Bioblast system. The farm is therefore self-sufficient for heating its greenhouses.

“The wood from my land is used as firewood,” Hyatt explains. “Trees under 6 or 7 inches in diameter are processed into chips and sawdust, and used in the Bioblast to heat the greenhouses.”

Before the Bioblast system was installed, Den Hill Farm heated its greenhouses with propane. Since the new system was put in, dependence on fossil fuels has dropped almost to nothing, and greenhouse heating costs have fallen as well.

“About $40 worth of wood chips and sawdust will provide heat for the same amount of time as $200 worth of propane,” Hyatt notes.

The Bioblast system is fairly simple. Fuel — in this instance wood chips and sawdust — is kept in a large container and carried by conveyor to a burner. A fan directs the heat generated in the burner toward a boiler. There, it heats water circulating in pipes. The hot water then passes through a system of pipes which heats the greenhouses.

The Bioblast system at Den Hill Farm uses a hot-water boiler, but there are also warm-air furnaces. Hyatt said hot-water heating has advantages that warm-air heating does not offer.

“Personally, I think the water system offers better quality heating and more even heat than an air system,” he said.

The Bioblast system has been in operation at Den Hill Farm since late February of this year. Hyatt says he is satisfied with it so far. He says he saved a great deal of money during the first season of operation, and the second season should be even better.

“The farm is constantly expanding and I would probably have had to buy new propane furnaces as early as next season,” he explains. “With the Bioblast, all I have to do is expand the existing system. That will be less expensive.”

Other New Brunswick producers are interested in acquiring Bioblast systems for their operations. Several have visited Den Hill Farm to inspect the system.


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like