Wood stoves with back boilers

Cardew

highrisklowreturn wrote: »

It's complex if you have gas. If you have oil with a non-condensing boiler its a breeze, and shouldn't cost more than £350 to link to central heating, including with a separate pump. Took 2 hours on mine to set up.


The kw reading sounds too high for your house - around 12-15 should be sufficient.

Why would you consider gas to be complex but not oil?


It has nothing to do with the fuel used for the central heating system; the potential problem is if the water in the jacket of the log burner boils. This can happen if there is a power cut, or the pump fails.


Also if the water in the Hot water tank is sufficiently hot the 3 way valve diverts hot water to radiators - which could be closed manually or by the TRVs,


There any many websites that cover this subject. This is a nice simple example:


http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/articles/connecting-a-wood-burning-stove-to-central-heating/


Note the warning in this link.


Bear in mind that I didn't say it was not possible, but more complex than many people appreciate.


I suggest that the OP 'Googles' 'linking log burner to central heating system'

muckybutt

It's a fairly easy job to link two systems together actually with either a Neutraliser or a H2 panel, however it is NOT a diy job and should only be attempted by a professional heating installer.

Highrisk....please do shut up !

asharon

I have a Hunter Herald 14 with too many radiators on it and its linked to LPG. I love it. WHen its cold the hunter doesnt heat the house buts it takes the cold out of it. I used heat logs and they work well.

Dont get me wrong it could heat it but it eats a lot and dont run it at full all day because I work from home and it would cost a fortune so I tick it over during the day and crank it up or use lpg at night.

highrisklowreturn

Greenfires wrote: »

If the system isn't set up correctly with regard to the return temperatures into the stove, the tar can become a real issue as the boiler never gets hot enough (due to a constant return flow of cool water)





The water is in the boiler which is inside the stove, and no-one with any sense at all would think the stove man was suggesting that water produces tar. It's the temperature of the water in the boiler that causes smoke from the wood to condense into tar - which in spite of your post, I'm sure you're well aware of. But as usual you need to try and stir things up a bit and get a reaction.

Same goes for petcoke of course - you know full well that most stove manufacturers will say that using it will invalidate your warranty - but you have to keep suggesting it anyway.

Explain what you mean by not set up right.


And how does the temp of the water in the stove cause tar?


Why assume wood is the only fuel burnt in these devices? Isn't the solution to this not to burn wood?

Greenfires

Stoves burn efficiently and cleanly at a certain temperature. This is why you'll get more smoke from the chimney when first lighting the stove. When everything is up to temperature, then you'll get little more than a heat haze from the chimney.

Stick a big tank of cold water inside the stove, and it takes a lot of heat out of the firebox, and smoke will condense on the inside of the stove and the flue. If the pipework and stats on it aren't set correctly, then you'll have a constant circulation of tepid water through the stove, so it will never reach the proper temperature.

What you burn is down to what you think about the future of the planet. Wood is carbon neutral and renewable - coal and your beloved petcoke are neither. The "solution" is to have a system set up properly - not just avoid the issue.

muckybutt

highrisklowreturn wrote: »

Explain what you mean by not set up right.


And how does the temp of the water in the stove cause tar?


Why assume wood is the only fuel burnt in these devices? Isn't the solution to this not to burn wood?

If a multi fuel boiler system isn't set up right you get tarring problems inside the fire box from the start, you want the system return temp to be fairly warm - the warmer the better, this will lessen the tarring as the water jacket temp will be warmer all round.

Wood likes to be burnt off fairly hot, because the boiler will always be taking the heat out of the stove the water jacket will always be on the cooler side, smoke from the wood regardless of how hot the boiler get will condense to some degree on the boiler resulting in tarring up of the whole of the inside of the stove.
So by installing a correctly sized stove in effect over sizing, the heat lost in the heating circuit should be sufficient to keep the return water temp high enough so that cold water isn't returning to the stove.

martinthebandit

I have considered similar but decided against it.

We have a 5kw fire and gas central heating, when the fire is on, every day in winter we just leave the internal doors open and very rarely use the central heating.

highrisklowreturn

Greenfires wrote: »

Stoves burn efficiently and cleanly at a certain temperature. This is why you'll get more smoke from the chimney when first lighting the stove. When everything is up to temperature, then you'll get little more than a heat haze from the chimney.

Stick a big tank of cold water inside the stove, and it takes a lot of heat out of the firebox, and smoke will condense on the inside of the stove and the flue. If the pipework and stats on it aren't set correctly, then you'll have a constant circulation of tepid water through the stove, so it will never reach the proper temperature.

What you burn is down to what you think about the future of the planet. Wood is carbon neutral and renewable - coal and your beloved petcoke are neither. The "solution" is to have a system set up properly - not just avoid the issue.

Is this a joke response? The stats not set right??? omg, who needs a plumber to set their damn stats - open, close, 1,2,3,4,5,6, so hard, really worth paying one of yous £3000 quid for. Oh,l the other complicated bit, open the upstairs ones as heat sinks. Wow, how complex.


Wood is not carbon neutral, and people who burn it are on par with people who burn coal.

Greenfires

Well obviously I knew you'd be a lot more clued up than anyone else as usual. I've seen plenty of systems fitted where they were having problems, but obviously I was imagining them.

Wood is classified as carbon neutral. But I probably have that wrong too.

I don't even know why I'm bothering to rise to your bait to be honest - I always have the feeling that you know you're talking crap - but you carry on anyway.

And you keep talking about "one of yous" - I don't know how many times I've told you I don't fit or supply stoves or liners or anything else you want to get arsey about.

alleycat`

highrisklowreturn wrote: »

Is this a joke response?


Wood is not carbon neutral, and people who burn it are on par with people who burn coal.

I assume this bit is your little joke?

Wood is considered carbon neutral because the tree took in and trapped the co2 it releases when burned.

In effect it took in, and when burned, released the same amount of co2 over its life.

Coal and Oil are from dead animals and, i suppose, some level of green matter compressed over time at great pressure.
(Most) Animals do not process co2 to grow or live, it's a poisonous by product.
Ergo it's not carbon neutral when burning coal or oil.

I suspect you know this and just like an argument.

I would agree with you that importing wood, the processing of wood by machinery and other aspects of the chain are not "carbon neutral" but i don't think this was really ever your point.