wood burning stove and new boiler

elantan

hi all,

hubby and i have been talking about getting one of these in the near future, we are looking for a reliable workhorse that will give out quite a bit of heat, we looked at the woodwarm fireview 16kw fire and it seemed to be ok,

can anyone give any advice on whether this one is ok or not,or suggest questions that i should ask when talking to a sales person etc

we also have an old boiler ( i would reckon 30 years old now) that is a floor standing boiler ( ideal standard) now this is a work horse, and has never given us a days bother in all the time we have had it, however alot of the heat goes out of the flue and not through the system, so we were thinking maybe we need to get a new boiler ( although to be honest that is much more hubby than me i think its working and reliable so dont change it) we spoke to a gas engineer and he said not to replace it as very little can go wrong with it and it will run and run for a long time yet, but hubby seems to think that need a new one, it would be to run 12 radiators

can anyone suggest things that we should look out for when getting a new boiler? or speaking to someone about it? or even what type of boiler etc we should go for?

do you think it advisable to get a new boiler or to stick with the one we have?

Mister_G

I can only tell you of my experience. I have 30 year old Baxi Bermuda gas boiler, running on LPG. It may only be 65% efficient, but it has only gone wrong twice in those 30 years. A new thermocouple was £10 and a new gas valve was £50.

It's a simple design and my annual service by a Gas Safe engineer is £45.

It does worry me when I read on this forum that people are being told that a 7 year old boiler needs to be replaced.

I shall keep going with the Baxi until it finally dies, and I know that one or two others here have a similar philosophy.

elantan

thanks mister g that is my philosophy as well... need to talk mr el into believeing that now ...

diywhynot

Start putting aside a bit of dosh every month as at some point parts for your old dear will be unavailable and she'll have to go to the great metal merchants in the sky. When that day comes advice is available here.;)

elantan

thanks diy have saved it to my faves

Greenfires

Woodwarm are good stoves - but just be careful you don't oversize it, as a stove that's too big could be a misery to live with, as well as going through logs like an elephant goes through buns. Much better to have a smaller stove and run it hard that have a monster just ticking over. Have a look at one of the stove calculators online and feed your room dimensions into it before making a choice.

elantan

Thanks green fires I didn't think of that, we were hoping it would heat three small rooms ( open plan no doors) in the down stairs of our house ... Will measure the rooms and check though

alleycat`

Just to give you an idea, and follow up on what greenfires has said.

We have two rooms that are the same size and run side by side, they are "open" to each other at one end.

The opening between each room is about that of a standard patio door (say 7 feet square)

Both rooms are approx. 12 feet across by 20 feet long (in effect the rooms are just mirrors of each other).
So about 30% of one wall is an opening between each room)

However one room has a stove in it and the other has a gas fire in it (which is never turned on).

When the stove is "on" and running in the correct burn range (say 300F) it will lift and maintain the temperature in the "stove" room to 22C and at the same time keep the other room at about 18C.

The stove i have is "just" 5KW.
The only thing to note is my house is quite well insulated.


Rough sketch below of layout (note we also have an open staircase in the none stove room).

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w'dow

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Door to Outside

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Stove
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7 x 7 opening

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Dining room
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|stairs (up)

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int door

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| Another room

elantan

Thanks alleycat, will measure the rooms that we are looking to heat and check what's suitable, we were hoping to put boilers etc at the back of it but I think we will leave that now

hethmar

Woodwarm are good stoves but as already mentioned, the model you have looked at is a huge output and will be too much unless you have enormous rooms or/and very high ceilings.

We have just a 5Kw clearview (very similar to woodwarm) and we leave the door open all the time. As Greenfires says, much better to have a smaller Kg working hard than a large one just ticking over.

asharon

I have a Hunter 14, I had little choice due to various factors from previous owner.

It's a linked system with LPG just put in this year. The btu on the rads is more than the Hunter can run, but I find if I run it all day, not on full wack, but then it keeps the place warm, not as easy to come in late and warm the place up, but that can be done if I turn some rads off.