Chris Franklin MD at Ranheat Engineering Ltd – a leading UK manufacturer of wood combustion equipment – continues his series of articles exclusively for Furniture and Joinery Production. This month he remembers, and writes about, one of the pioneers of industrial wood-waste heating systems in the UK, Bob Talbott.
Bob’s first Foray into wood-burning was via he had a wood-burning stove and cooker retail outlet in a village called Eccleshall. Bob was also a serving fireman for 18 years. The stove shop led Bob onto industrial heaters for the wood-working industry.
“I first met Bob in the 80’s Ranheat were mainly boiler-based systems at that time and Talbotts were mainly warm air heaters. So, although we were to some extent competitors, we used to pass each other enquiries. I would pass warm air enquires to Bob and he would pass boiler-based enquiries to me.”
Bob had wonderful tales about his experiences as a fireman, one day he was called to a chimney fire near by. On arrival he recognised the owner as he had sold them a wood burning stove recently. He kept his breathing apparatus on hoping she would not recognise him!!!
We always met up at the “woodmex” exhibitions and over the many years we knew each other we became friends, partly due to our common love of skiing.
Bob was an excellent skier (far better than me) and loved the French Alps.
It was with much sadness that I saw on Linkedin that he had sadly passed away on the 20thJuly this year 2024. At the age of 76.
Bob was passionate about the use of industrial wood-waste to use on site to heat factories within the wood-working industry.
Ranheat’s origins were in Randers a small city in Denmark, where wood was a fuel for Danes as they had no reserves of Coal, Oil or Gas. The Danes could not understand why the UK woodworking industry literally sent tonnes of wood-waste to landfill each year.
Bob had a similar vision, zero wood-waste to landfill. As such warm air space heaters for industrial wood-waste did not exist so Bob Talbott set about designing a range of hand loaded warm air heaters, specifically for the UK wood-working industry.
The original units were manufactured in the village of Eccleshall in Staffordshire. The Talbott T range soon became synonymous with industrial wood-waste heating as Hoovers were to vacuum cleaners.
As the years passed Talbotts moved into boiler-based systems with a link with Farm 2000 owned by Peter Teisen, (Peters’ father was a Dane)
Bob went on to develop his own range of boilers and Ranheat developed a range of warm air heaters, mainly automatically fed rather than hand loaded. It was inevitable that the two companies would overlap, but Bob and I remained friends throughout.
Talbott systems were sold all over the world not just in the UK. I remember Bob towing a T500 warm air heater down to the Ligna exhibition in Germany. His Ford Sierra was struggling to drive up the loading ramp in Dover to get on the ferry. So they waited until everything else was loaded then lifted the ramp to level so Bob could drive onto the ferry!
We would sometimes accidently meet up in Belfast International airport and sit next to each other on the flight home ( no doubt we had both been visiting the same customers in Ireland!
Bob had three children Amy, Ben and Lucie. Amy Talbott ( now Fielding ) is a compliance consultant helping customers with all of the permits and permissions needed to burn industrial wood-waste. Ben is in the Biomass industry working on larger installations and Lucie is a dance instructor.
Sadly, Bob was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease and Talbotts were taken over by the Smiths group based in Leicestershire and became part of Airplants Dust Extraction. The name however remains in Bob’s memory. He was a true Pioneer of the wood burning industry in the UK.
For further information on all types and sizes of Industrial Woodburning equipment from 75 kW upwards contact Ranheat on 01604 750005 [email protected], or www.ranheat.com
