How to make my stove heat up the whole house?

IvanDrago

Ive had my stove on since 8 this morning and its 14 C in my living room and 11 C in my bedroom directly above it.

Im burning coal and ash logs.

The only other heating i have is a 1kw oil filled portable heater. Cant be doing witht his next year but ive no money to get gch! what do?

shegar

You will be very lucky if one stove will heat the whole of 3 bed house even with good insulation to a temp of 21 degrees....I dont think thats possible, in all the houses ive lived in been lucky to heat say the room the burner is in and perhaps the adjoining room being the kitchen, but thats about it.........Perhaps another member will come along and say im wrong............

YORKSHIRELASS

I have to say I agree with Shegar, I can never quite believe the people who say their stove will heat a whole house - sorry. We have a big multi-fuel stove in our kitchen diner and if its not really cold you can feel the warmth in the adjacent rooms and half way up the stairs but its not enough to heat the whole house, especially when temperatures are as low as they are at the moment.

Can you shut the doors in the room where the stove is and use that as your main living room? Its not perfect but if you have one room thats nice and warm it makes it a bit more bearable.

gamston

i've an old woodburner with backboiler in it connected to oil boiler central heating system, if i run just to woodburner with pump on (running on wood and bed of coal) i can just get radiators luke warm (15 rads) with pump off i can heat 3 rads to hot
used to have old stove with metal doors (no glass) when i run that you could feel heat moving around downstairs of house, (think new one needs another water pipe on outlet side to releave pressure of heated water

Swipe

Don't worry too much, it's getting milder, back to avg temps next week. We really only have to endure at most, 4 weeks of proper cold in this country (unless you live up north). 11C is fine for a bedroom IMO.

chris1973

You get this on the Electricity and Gas forum sections too, reading about people with one 500w heater who want to heat an entire house with it!, then wonder why they are still freezing.

First enter in all the various individual room sizes that you wish to heat, using a room heat calculator, such as this one

http://www.flickeringflame.co.uk/tech_detail/tech.htm

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that some large living rooms, alone would need 4kw - 5kw just to heat the one room, by the time you've totalled all of the other rooms up, 15kw - 25kw output would probably be the heat requirement for an average sized 3 bedroom property excluding halls and landings.

To produce that heat from one central fitment (without using central heating), You won't need a stove....you'd need a crematorium!.

Stoves are great for keeping one or two (with larger models) rooms cosy, but your pushing expectations (and physics) to heat an entire property from one stove, or we'd all be doing it, and central heating would be resigned to the history books......

IvanDrago

I know its hard but i always hear people saying their stove heats their whole house and sometimes they have to open the windows in winter. However, i have had no such problems. My bedroom is now 12.3c and my living room is 18c. if i open the doors so the heat goes upstairs it doesnt get warmer upstairs just colder down!

Im going to have to save up for gch but i dont know if it is worth £3k installation just for extreme weather for 6 weeks a year.

suki1964

Whilst Im not suggestion that you will be able to heat your whole house on the one stove, have to a stove thermometer so you know you are getting max output?

18 does seem to be pretty cool - even if you are having a seriously cold snap. When we had no electric here for over a week and relied on the stove for heating ( and cooking and hot water) the living room was always kept to the mid 20's and the bedrooms were around 14

Have you also tried keeping the fire in?

muckybutt

Rather than gch why not save for a stove with a back boiler ?

I had a new stove put in this year to do the ch and its excellent. It does heat the whole house but via the rads, all rooms are a nice cosy 18c+ the living room 20c+

Ben84

If you have mains gas available in the house then it's usually the best fuel to use for space heating. It's cheaper per kWh than wood and coal in most situations, the appliances are often cheaper to buy and install and they tend to be more efficient too.

A central gas boiler and radiators is a good system to have, but it's costly and disruptive to install, so if your heating needs are not so high there are other options. A gas wall heater may be a good option for delivering more heat upstairs, you just need some space against an outside wall so that it can be vented.

highrisklowreturn

How's about just bear the cold? It isn't too bad.