Solid fuel central heating - summer showers, amount of wood for winter etc

Meatballs

Hello,

We in the process of buying a house that currently has a multi-fuel burner with a boiler providing central heating and hot water.

Hot water tank also has an immersion heater.

We (myself and fianc!) have a shower each everyday.

Have a number of questions:

a) With a well insulated tank, would there be enough hot water in the morning (7am) for two showers if we ran the burner till 10pm or so?

b) If not, how hard is it to load burner to run slowly overnight 10pm-7am? What is best fuel for a slow burn?

c) During the summer we are unlikely to have the burner on just to provide hot water. Realistically we only need showers and some hot water for washing up. If we install an electric shower this would take care of one problem, and could use kettle for other. However using an electric shower defeats the benefits of having hot water from the burner during the winter. Would we be better off having an immersion heater on a timer or is this really expensive to heat up an entire tank?

d) Alternatives are to install a gas boiler as well as this would be cheaper than electricity and could run the central heating when we aren't running the solid fuel heating. Cost of installing and maintaining this could well outweigh electric heating for a number of years? Ditto for solar panels?

e) How much wood do people order for a winter? I would rather buy unseasoned wood in spring cheaply and leave it in garage to dry out than spend more money on seasoned wood. Is there a large price difference? How much space would I need to use up to last?

hethmar

Could you not ask the vendors?

Lotus-eater

a. you'd probably be better off getting an electric shower as you said.

b. Ask the vendors what they use.

c. We don't have hot water in the winter, but only use it for baths, as you say you can use the kettle for washing up and an electric shower, so you shouldn't use it much, but if you need to, you can stick on the immersion.

d. Have you got gas into your road? A debate on the best type of heating is complicated and you need to look into the whole lot properly.

e. wood is best off dried in wind, the present owners should have some sort of structure(s) up to dry wood, or to store it.
It depends on what type of local suppliers you have, some sell cheaper wood unseasoned and some don't (or do but sell it full price anyway)
You use as much wood as you use, but alot, is the answer, much much more than you think. As the owners and where they buy it from, but don't expect an totally honest answer.

Meatballs

Vendor didn't actually say what fuel type they used, but I'm sure they'll be happy to tell us when we speak to them next. There's no structure for seasoning the wood in the garden as far as I can see but I'm sure I can knock someting up.

Property just needs reconnecting to gas if we wanted to go down that route. I'd be very interested in having them both linked up to same system but have no idea what the costs would be like to install. Assuming I would need to find someone who knew what they were doing, get a cylinder with two coils etc and a decent management system to monitor it all.

hethmar

If I were you Id have the gas reconnected. Its so much more convenient if you are both working. Who would be there to stoke up the wood burner all day?