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Executive summary

In the BioHousing-project, the aim was to promote and produce systems which enable private house owners to use sustainable bioenergy. Additionally, the aim was to raise awareness that biomass based heating systems are considered as realistic and convenient alternative for heating private houses.

Generally speaking, people are interested to heat their houses by renewable energy resources. However, one barrier in investing in biomass heating systems is that commercial turn-key options are lacking in the market. This was the starting point of the project. Single-family house models do not include RES-based heating options. In prefabricated houses the building area is very carefully planned and the room for technical equipment is pretty small. Solid biomass heating requires more space than other water circulation based heating systems. Boiler and fuel storage require larger floor space, heating and cleaning the boiler require clearance and fuel trucks must have easy access to the storage.

The prefabricated boiler room unit is developed to ease and speed up the house construction work. Especially when considering the biomass (pellet) heating system, the customers have thought that purchasing, installing and starting up the system is difficult. For this demand the prefabricated boiler room unit is the right technical solution.

The BioHousing - project has produced two innovative and user-friendly web-based tools to assist the house builder or renovator by comparing different heating systems and offering information about heating related equipment.

With the multilingual Heating Tool, it is possible to compare the energy and investment costs of the heating forms in several European countries. The user can modify most of the initial calculation data. This makes it possible to estimate the heating costs of different kinds of houses. The calculator estimates also the average CO₂ emissions of the different heating forms. The Heating Tool includes also information (3-D model, videos, animations) about up-to-date technical bioheating solutions. (www.biohousing.eu.com/heatingtool).

The BioHousing catalogue is a user-friendly web tool, allowing multi-criteria search of over more than 3900 products available in five participating countries (Austria, Finland, France, Italy and Spain). At the beginning of the project, partners decided that only efficient heating devices (more than 70% efficiency) will be promoted in this catalogue, in order to follow EU regulations on energy savings and emissions reductions. The web user is invited to choose the language in which the information is displayed: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Finnish. The catalogue is focusing on small scale biomass use, which includes stoves, inserts, burners, boilers and boiler houses, but also equipments for producing fuels (splitters, chippers). The multi-criteria search allows the user to select the type of equipment or the fuel, according to his needs. Equipment data sheets are displaying relevant technical details such as final output, emissions and efficiency, as well as practical information on manufacturers and retailers. (www.biohousing.eu.com/catalogue)

Information material for sustainable biomass heating provides information about efficient and environmentally friendly stove heating. The published material includes theoretical data, practical guidelines and official regulations concerning stove heating in Finland, Austria, France, Italy and Spain. In addition to heating, information material contains information about storing firewood and purchasing firewood. The aim of this material is to activate house owners to use stoves during cold winter time and thus even out the electricity peaks. Additionally the aim is to avoid emissions, to get efficient combustion and comfortable heat. (www.biohousing.eu.com/stoveheating)

During the BioHousing – project more than 1000 boiler installers, maintenance professionals, engineers, teachers, chimney sweepers, adult students, energy consultants, architects, salesmen and construction engineers of house manufacturers etc. have been trained. Via training and provided training material awareness of requirements and needs of solid biomass heating and professional knowledge is increased.

The BioHousing- project has encouraged energy service entrepreneurship and trained potential entrepreneurs as well as produced tools for them to increase their professional skills to service private house owners with their biomass heating system. The aim for the energy entrepreneurship is to help the expansion of solid biomass heating by removing the need of a private house onwer to take care of a heating system by himself.

The main target groups in the BioHousing-project have been

• House builders and house owners
• Biomass and house industry (e.g. construction engineers, architects, retail sales agents of prefabricated houses, boiler manufacturers, heating, plumbing and air conditioning branch professionals)
• Training professionals (e.g. lectures of building sector at polytechnics and vocational schools)
• Entrepreneurs in energy and service sectors (e.g. chimney sweepers, energy consultants)