# Ground olive pips as fuel?



## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

As many of you know, we've been restoring a barn into living accommodation and I've recently been researching boiler and central heating options and some of the boilers I'm being offered are apparently able to burn either wood pellets or ground olive pips....... The story I'm getting is they grind the pips to extract every drop of oil from then and then dry them completely and they burn as well as pellets and are cheaper. 

Does anyone know anything more about how reliable/efficient/cheap this fuel source is please?

Having burned olive wood in my old wood burner and then had to spend ages and a fair amount of money getting it clean and working properly again, I'm a tad charry about putting any olive material at all into a brand new and obscenely expensive boiler!


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Why use a product that's hard to source and not readily available, it can only be the byproduct of olive oil process so seasonal at best, we use olive wood as an addition to fire wood not a sole source as it burns longer find that uses a mix of well seasoned various woods fire and chimney stay in good condition.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

I'm told the ground olive pips are readily available from the same wholesaler that sells the wood pellets and are cheaper and to be quite honest, I'm just interested in anything new..... especially if it's cheaper! LOL

Our woodburner isn't large enough to heat both house and barn so it either has to go completely or be replaced with a larger one and as we also have a diesel boiler and electric air con/heat as back ups, I don't reckon a 4th inefficient back up is necessary so I've decided to get rid of it and then clean that room up and use it for another purpose........ actually, Mrs. TM wants it for a gardening room.


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Might need to investigate but we've not been offered them as an alternative, why not use a mixture? so bringing overall cost down


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

I wouldn't mind doing that but want to know as much about the product before I put in my new boiler........ but can't find much about it online.

I was hoping someone here might have either used it or know something about it.


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Quite a lot of information with this search "Olive oil stones as fuel source" they seem to have a +1% calorific value to wood pellets so you should get more heat for your money, we look at the ash content and use a pellet that is between 1-2% olive is 1.62% so within parameter for our system, we can buy pellets below 1% ash but price higher and as one of our major reasons was oil cost like you the cheaper the better.

If you can get manufacturer name you should be able to get background


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

I'll be going to the wholesalers to buy pellets soon so will try to suss it out as much as I can then and maybe pick up a few bags to try


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

We were buying pellets in brico marche at 3.49 per 15 kg bag up until today when prices went up to 3.79. I think the best time to stock up is in summer, which thankfully is what we did.
What wholesaler do you use? How did you get on with your enquiries into olive pips?


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

Lynda

Our Intermarche sells pellets at €3.99 per 15 kg but I'm told there's a wholesaler in the area who is considerably cheaper & I hope to have a friend take me there sometime this week..... I'll post more news as and when I have it.


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
Lynda


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Friend near Spanish border says prices just gone to 4.45€ 15kgs


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

Hi there, that is astronomical. They are 3.99 in Pingo and similar in. Lidl. Bricomarche is definitely the cheapest so far, even with their 30 cent increase.


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## BodgieMcBodge (Mar 8, 2013)

Hi, if you want to run pelleted olive pips as automatic fuel ie residual biomass you willl need to check if your system airflow changes and that the flue liner is well insulated to prevent any condensates being deposited. If your system cycles a lot doing "stop starts" there more likelyhood of


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

Good o know, thanks for that Bodgie.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

OK. 

The wholesaler I went to is JAF which is in the industrial zone in Oleiros which is near Serta and the pellets have the same packaging as the ones in my local Intermarche, so I assume exactly the same product.

The Intermarche sell them for €3.99 per 15 kg bag and the wholesaler sells them for €3.13 per 15 kg bag so a saving of €0.86 per bag or €86 per 100 bags. (obviously minus fuel costs to collect) 

I don't know if one could negotiate a deal for free delivery if a bulk load was ordered but wouldn't be surprised if that were possible.

I did notice they had what appeared to be a darker pellet which I'd guess was made from ground olive pips but I decided I didn't want to take a chance on them.


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

Thank you very much for the information, will check it out.
Lynda


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

I forgot to say those prices all include IVA.


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## lynda s (Mar 31, 2013)

Did you know the best pellets we've tried are pinewell, which were recommended to us when we had the boiler installed. They burn hotter and the powdery ash is finer. However savings like you've shown us have to be taken into account, too. Thanks for information


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

I think there are a few people around here that use olive pips as fuel (let's face it we are surrounded by billions (maybe trillions) of olives and lots are turned into oil so lots of pips. (1.1 million tons of olive oil per annum comes from this province! i.e. over a third of the world's total olive oil production) So one would expect pip burners to be more common, but they aren't. One problem is the oil residues in the pip can become rather rancid and stink so the storage can be smelly. You only have to drive past a mill in the summer to get the idea!

We burn mostly olive wood from the wood (thinnings, etc) that is cut out from trees and this would otherwise be burnt out in the open to prevent the spread of pests and diseases. Being burnt that way gives off lots of smoke particulates. We burn them at much higher temperatures in a log burner and burn the smoke particulates so the exhaust from the flue is much cleaner. We usually pay €100 per tonne delivered into our log store and stacked and we consume about 1½tonne per season. We usually get year old logs delivered in Feb/March and they then sit in our store until the next fire lighting season so are mostly seasoned 1½ - 2 years before being burnt so we get little in the way of creosote problems. Our logs do occasionally have a some cherry and almond wood mixed in (we grow those too!)


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