divide my heating system

tinysandra

Hello looking for info so fed up with the price of heating oil I am thinking of dividing my central heating system I would like to have my 5 rads upstairs and hot water on my existing oil combi and put my 8 rads downstairs on a solid fuel stove with back boiler. I have no tanks in my house everything is on mains. I already have a stove in my lounge but it is just a fire so would have to change this which I am happy to do but does anybody if a lot of work would be involved with the pipes etc would I need to have a tank and pump fitted. any info would be great. :beer:

bludger

Well, tinysandra, nobody has answered. So I'll try to stimulate something even though I know little about the mechanics of central heating.

I would think that carrying out your 'divide for cheapness' plan would be very costly to start with. You would certainly have to pay for a lot of work on re-routing the pipes and installing a new stove with backboiler.

And, having two sources of heating for one property seems to go against the idea of central heating. Taken to its extreme you could have every room with its own heat source, which is what unfortunate people have to do with electric fires or open grates.

Perhaps you could call in a heating engineer to see if your existing system could be made more economical. Have you the full complement of thermostatic valves on your radiators? Could your existing system be zoned so, for instance, your bedrooms came on for lesser periods than your living rooms?

I believe that if you had to buy coal for your new stove with back boiler, it wouldn't work out a great deal cheaper than oil. My next door neighbour goes through no end of fuel on a single stove heating one room.

Quite what you mean by being on 'mains' I don't know.

Pincher

Preparing for the Mad Max world of marauding bandits starving for oil, are we? If you know you can get solid fuel cheap, it makes every sense in the long term, but not the split level approach.

Your radiators is your distribution network, with flow and return piping that you can access from anywhere in the house, don't split it. It's like a motorway for heat. If you don't want to heat a room, turn the TRV down.

Thermal store

The radiators pick up heat from the thermal store (a hot water cylinder) by flowing through a coil inside the thermal store. The heat source dumps heat into the store by flowing through another coil, exactly the same as a boiler/cylinder set up. You can have an extra coil for solar thermal panel, solid fuel back boiler, etc. You need sensor pockets for thermostats which regulate the devices you attach.

If you really know what you are doing, you can connect multiple heat sources to one coil, but only one heat source should be on at a time. Practically speaking, this can mean a toggle switch that sends mains voltage to only one appliance on an A or B basis. Open vented circulation (not pressurised) is safer if you want multiple appliances on one coil.

How are you getting your hot water? Electric instant water heater? Oil combi?? You get hot water from a thermal store as standard.

Owain_Moneysaver

You can zone your radiators allowing you to have different sections on at different times.

You can combine the boiler and a solid fuel appliance using a Dunsley Neutralizer. This allows you to use either or both heat sources for radiators and/or hot water.

You might want to consider solar hot water too.

Cardew

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

You can zone your radiators allowing you to have different sections on at different times.

You can combine the boiler and a solid fuel appliance using a Dunsley Neutralizer. This allows you to use either or both heat sources for radiators and/or hot water.

You might want to consider solar hot water too.

The OP has a combi boiler.

To fit a Hot water tank with all plumbing, a solid fuel stove and a Dunsley Neutralizer would entail a huge amount of work.

Owain_Moneysaver

Cardew wrote: »

The OP has a combi boiler.

To fit a Hot water tank with all plumbing, a solid fuel stove and a Dunsley Neutralizer would entail a huge amount of work.

I didn't notice the combi bit, although it's quite possible to have a HW cylinder run off a combi.

I'm not sure if a Dunsley will work direct to rads without a HWC but it might still be worth investigating.

Cardew

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

I didn't notice the combi bit, although it's quite possible to have a HW cylinder run off a combi.

I'm not sure if a Dunsley will work direct to rads without a HWC but it might still be worth investigating.

I doubt the Dunsley will work without a HW tank and all their literature shows a tank.

What would you do with the hot water from the solid fuel stove when the house is up to temperature, it would boil.

I have a similar system(not Dunsley) Gas CH with tank and solid fuel open fire with baxi. At times the water in the hot tank literally boils and I have to run some off.

Agreed it is perfectly possible to have a combi with a HW tank, but to install that together with a Dunsley is a lot of expense.