Commercial Boilers, Heating & Hot Water
Commercial Biomass Boilers
Biomass costs more to service than gas or oil, and there’s a straightforward reason: you’re not just servicing a boiler, you’re cleaning out everything the fuel leaves behind. Ash, tar, a fuel feed, and a flue that fouls faster than any other type.
Robinsons Facilities Services coordinates biomass servicing across Yorkshire and the Humber using HETAS registered biomass specialists, and keeps the service records in the shape your RHI paperwork needs.
- Annual servicing: from £600+VAT per boiler
- Larger systems: typically £900 to £1,500+VAT
- Maintenance contracts: from £750+VAT a year
Get a quote for commercial biomass boiler servicing →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
A commercial biomass boiler burns wood pellet, chip or log to heat buildings off the gas grid. Servicing is more involved than gas or oil because ash, the fuel feed system and the flue all need cleaning down, and installations receiving RHI payments carry ongoing obligations on maintenance and fuel sourcing.
If you’re on the RHI, servicing isn’t optional
The Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive closed to new applicants on 31 March 2021, so this isn’t about getting onto a scheme. It matters because accredited installations receive payments for 20 years, which means a boiler commissioned in 2020 is still generating income into the 2040s, and still carrying obligations the whole time.
Those obligations include keeping the installation properly maintained, submitting meter readings and annual declarations, and using fuel that meets the sustainability criteria, normally by buying from the Biomass Suppliers List. Fuel also has to be compatible with the air quality emissions certificate issued for your boiler, which rules out simply switching to whatever’s cheapest.
The detail worth knowing: Ofgem’s guidance is explicit that where a participant contracts a third party, the obligations stay with the participant. Outsourcing the maintenance doesn’t outsource the responsibility, so the records need to be yours and they need to be complete. Payments can be suspended where they aren’t.
Why biomass servicing costs more
A gas boiler service is largely a test-and-verify job. A biomass service is a strip and clean, and that’s the whole cost difference:
- Ash removal: grate, ash chamber and pan emptied, and disposal arranged where volumes justify it.
- Heat exchanger clean-down: tubes brushed clear of deposits, which is where lost efficiency shows up first.
- Fuel feed system: auger, hopper and stoker checked for wear, blockage and bridging in the fuel store.
- Flue and chimney: biomass flues foul with soot and tar considerably faster than gas, so they’re inspected and swept as part of the service.
- Combustion and controls: lambda probe, air ratios and burn-back protection checked and set.
- Records: service report and fuel log completed to the standard an Ofgem audit expects.
It’s a half or full day on site rather than an hour, which is why a biomass service sits at several times the cost of a gas one. The parts of a service common to every fuel type are covered on our commercial boiler service page.
Where biomass suits, and where it doesn’t
Biomass earns its place on off-grid sites with space, a heat load big enough to justify the plant, and somewhere to put fuel: estates, rural schools, visitor centres, farm buildings and manufacturing sites with a wood waste stream of their own.
It doesn’t suit sites without room for a fuel store or delivery access for a blower lorry, and it’s a poor fit where nobody on site can manage fuel ordering and ash. Where those are the constraints, oil is simpler to run and a heat pump removes fuel handling altogether. Biomass answers a carbon question, and it asks for attention in return.
Systems we work on
Our specialist partners service and repair commercial biomass plant from the manufacturers common on UK sites, including ETA, Fröling, KWB, Windhager and Hargassner, across pellet, chip and log systems.
Biomass flues carry their own inspection and integrity requirements beyond the annual sweep, handled under commercial flue systems.
Pricing
Biomass is priced differently from the rest of our boiler work, and it’s worth being straight about why. It’s specialist subcontracted work, the visit is longer, and the plant varies enormously between a 50kW pellet boiler and a 300kW chip system. What follows is an entry point, not a quote.
Annual service: from £600+VAT per boiler
A full service by a HETAS registered biomass engineer, covering ash clear-down, heat exchanger, fuel feed, flue and combustion setup, with the service report issued for your records.
Get a quote for biomass boiler servicing →
Larger systems: typically £900 to £1,500+VAT
Mid-size and industrial installations, multi-boiler plant rooms and systems with substantial fuel handling take longer and are quoted individually against the plant.
Maintenance contract: from £750+VAT a year
Servicing scheduled and evidenced, with certification held on file and the fuel and maintenance records kept in the format your RHI declarations need. Remedial work is quoted through quoted works.
How we support you
Biomass is specialist work and we don’t pretend otherwise. We coordinate HETAS registered biomass engineers, vet their competence and insurance, schedule the visits and hold the paperwork, so you get one supplier managing biomass alongside the rest of the building rather than a separate specialist you only speak to once a year.
Robinsons Facilities Services is SafeContractor approved, holds UKAS-certified ISO 9001 and is CHAS accredited. Where a site runs biomass alongside gas or oil plant, all of it sits on one contract and one schedule. Biomass forms part of our wider commercial boiler work.
Contract customers also have access to our 24/7/365 out-of-hours call-out facility. This is a separate service, available to PPM contract customers only.
Get a quote for commercial biomass boiler servicing →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
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Commercial Biomass Boiler FAQs
Servicing starts from £600+VAT per boiler, with larger systems typically £900 to £1,500+VAT and maintenance contracts from £750+VAT a year. The figure reflects a visit measured in hours rather than minutes, and a much smaller pool of engineers qualified to carry it out. Send us an enquiry or call us on 01423 226578 for a price against your plant.
Time and specialism. Ash has to be cleared, the heat exchanger brushed, the fuel feed checked and the flue swept, none of which a gas boiler needs. It’s also a smaller pool of qualified engineers, so availability costs more. A cheap biomass service usually means a short one.
HETAS is the certification body for solid fuel and biomass heating in the UK, covering appliances, fuels and the competence of installers and service engineers. It plays the role for biomass that Gas Safe plays for gas and OFTEC plays for oil. The biomass engineers we use are HETAS registered.
Annually as a minimum, and many systems need more. Fouling depends on run hours, fuel quality and how well the boiler is matched to the load, so a hard-worked chip system on variable fuel can need attention two or three times a year. Manufacturer schedules and RHI obligations both point to at least once.
Keeping the installation maintained is one of the ongoing obligations of accreditation, alongside meter readings, annual declarations and sustainable fuel. Ofgem can suspend payments where obligations aren’t met. Given a 20-year tariff, an unserviced boiler risks a lot more than a repair bill.
Fuel has to meet the scheme’s sustainability criteria, which in practice means buying from a supplier on the Biomass Suppliers List or self-reporting if you produce your own. It also has to match the air quality emissions certificate for your appliance, so the cheapest available fuel isn’t automatically an eligible one.
Yes, and most of the biomass plant we look after came that way. Inherited systems usually need a condition assessment first, because service history is patchy and fuel records are often incomplete, which matters if the installation is on the RHI. Send us an enquiry or call us on 01423 226578 to arrange one.
Last updated: 04/09/2026
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