back boiler AND open fire

hallogallo

hi,

i'm finding this whole thing very confusing , so please forgive me...

so, i've just bought a 3 bed semi, ex council house in dorset. it has two living rooms which share the same chimney. in the back room there is a vile 80's gas fire with a back boiler which is serving as the heating and water for the whole of the house. i want it gone! i don't mind the idea of a back boiler, but it's the fireplace that's disgusting.

we have around £2,500 to spend. i'm not sure that this would cover the cost of ripping out the boiler and replacing with a new heating system.

so, i think i have two options, either to replace the back boiler with a new condensing back boiler or to cap it all off, take out just the fire and close it all up and fit a normal boiler elsewhere....but would these two options mean that i can't have an open fire or wood burner in the front room? also would the second option save that much money?

thanks for any advice

claire

phil24_7

Think you can get decent log burners with back boilers. Not sure on the costs though and I suspect a new flue (if the old one is not sufficient) would eat into that budget quite substantially!

wrightk

Your looking at that sort of figure just to sort out your fireplace,chimney, inspected, swept, lined (if needed),register plate fitted etc etc and a half decent woodburning stove to go in there anyway.

If it were me id get it all ripped out and get a GCH system located elsewhere. Dont look at a woodburner as a money saving option, once you've taken into account the costs of install and fuel it will work out far more expensive than your GCH (Unless you have an unlimited supply of seasoned wood)

Yes it is possible to get decent multi-fuel stoves with back boilers. (i have a charnwood 13kw doing the whole heating and hot water system). But it will still be far cheaper to install and run a GCH system. If you want a woodburner- see it as a showpiece not a money saving option

hallogallo

thanks...

yeah, i've been looking at the price of woodfires with back boilers, i know that's not an option for quite some time!

but, would the fact that we have a back boiler in one fireplace prevent us from eventually having an open fire in the other room's fireplace? i've read that if left the back boiler can explode, but that seems to be in reference to having the open fire in the same place as the old back boiler...that's not what we're wanting to do.

wrightk

hallogallo wrote: »

thanks...

yeah, i've been looking at the price of woodfires with back boilers, i know that's not an option for quite some time!

but, would the fact that we have a back boiler in one fireplace prevent us from eventually having an open fire in the other room's fireplace? i've read that if left the back boiler can explode, but that seems to be in reference to having the open fire in the same place as the old back boiler...that's not what we're wanting to do.

I think there are certain ways around it (filling your back boiler with kiln dried silica sand).You can't/sweeps may refuse to sweep/inspect (as i understand it) have two appliances sharing the same flue/chimney anyway so it seems pointless to leave it in situ.

There are a couple of sweeps on here who will be able to advise more

stator

If you remove the backboiler you can have whatever fireplaces you like as it becomes a normal chimney.

If you leave the backboiler in you are severely limited.

I am in the same situation as you, just bought a house with a BB. Personally I think you should leave it alone until it breaks. Start saving up for a new GCH boiler located elsewhere.

It might be cheaper to redecorate your entire house with that retro 70s look

hallogallo

"It might be cheaper to redecorate your entire house with that retro 70s look"


hah, i did say that myself!

unfortunately mine is more hideous than that fire, it has a golden hood and fake coal and everything that could be horrid about a fireplace!

but yeah, i think you could be right about leaving it and waiting for it to break

hallogallo

"You can't/sweeps may refuse to sweep/inspect (as i understand it) have two appliances sharing the same flue/chimney anyway so it seems pointless to leave it in situ."

that's as i thought, so it is a matter of getting rid of it all then, just to give us options later on then...urgh!

prosaver

Ive got exactly the same ...

we had a quote just for a gas boiler to put somewhere else and connect the pipes to the old system (not the old boiler)
£1500.. quite good..
just waiting for the boiler to breakdown ....its being going 25 years strong...Now Im thinking of dismantling just the gas fire and put something else there instead.
happy with the old boiler though,
2 repairs in the 20 years, not bad (60 +120)

hallogallo

ok, thanks prosaver, that quote does sound good and gives me some hope, that's what i was thinking of having done, if possible, just connecting up to the system that's there, the radiators etc seem fine and the people renting the place before had said they'd not had a problem with any of the heating system, so i trust the pipe work and rads are all sound....we do have british gas coming out to have a look, but that's not for another 3 weeks, i signed up for a quote in time for a half price boiler. i phoned bg to get a rough idea of what our options were and thought after that i could chase around and see if i can find a better quote

casper_g

You said the two rooms/fireplaces share a single "chimney", but do they share a single flue?

Posters are generally assuming that you mean they share a single flue, but if there are actually two separate flues leading to two chimney pots that just happen to be on a single chimney stack then this is normal and you'll have more options!