rayburn multifuel cooker

cluttercottage

thinking of fitting a Rayburn cooker, mulifuel, to run central heating 8 rads, hotwater and cooking. In a small 3 bed semi. Not in a smokless zone. Has no form on heating at moment and mains gas is not an option. Anyone using one? any info. wanted.

Arfa__

My Dad swears by them. Has had one for about 25 years now. Does moan price of coal has gone up lately mind - but then what hasn't.

Think he go for a mixture of 'pet-coke' and normal coal. He often supplements this with some logs and all the household rubbish.

Maintenance wise, he periodically has to replace griddle bars and the odd fire brick. Plus you'll need chimney sweeping once a year ish.

The only issue's he's had is when stupid lodgers have put empty aerosol cans in the rubbish and then put them in the Rayburn... - blew the doors and hob off! (only chipped enamel and blown rob seal though).

Downsides:
Going away for any length of time, it'll inevitable go out, need relighting and takes ages for the house to warm up.
Dust/mess, from filling up, empty ashes (done daily) etc.
Cooking on it can be a bit hit'n'miss, oven needs couple of hours prep to get hot for decent baking session...
If you run low on hot water, it'll takes ages to fill up tank again.

As such, my Dad has supplemented it with electric kettle, electric oven/hobs and immersion heater in water tanks. But then he's in a big 10 bed house, with family and many lodgers living there and it drives hot water for outbuilding where its needed for cleaning his catering business...

Clearlier

My parents have a gas fired one. It looks great and there's a great sense of comfort from it on a cold winters day but it's very impracticable. You can't really use the hob to boil anything, you have to plan cooking hours in advance and in the summer the comforting heat that it gives out in the winter becomes sweltering. They did buy a separate cooker with a hob and oven though so they switch the rayburn off in the summer when it isn't needed for heating purposes.

Aside from a botched initial installation when the rayburn quite literally blew up knocking cupboards off walls etc. (incredibly lucky that nobody got hurt) it has been a model of reliability with no repairs required in the twenty years that they have had it.